Kisha Lashley

Kisha Lashley is a Visiting Associate Professor in the Strategy Unit at the Harvard Business School. She is also an Associate Professor of Commerce at the University of Virginia. Professor Lashley is a field researcher who studies contentious practices within organizations and industries. She uses organizational social evaluations, including stigma, reputation, and status, to understand how organizations and their stakeholders negotiate shared meanings over time. She is also interested in how organizations construct and revise their histories. Professor Lashley has examined various industries, including healthcare, the cannabis industry, and payday lending. She teaches strategy.

Journal Articles

• Pollock, Timothy G., Peggy M. Lee, Kyuho Jin, and Kisha Lashley. "(UN)Tangled: Exploring the Coevolution of VC Firm Reputation and Status." Administrative Science Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2015): 482–517. View Details
• Pollock, Timothy G., Kisha Lashley, Violina P. Rindova, and Jung-Hoon Han. "Which of These Things Are Not Like the Others? Comparing the Rational, Emotional, and Moral Aspects of Reputation, Status, Celebrity, and Stigma." Academy of Management Annals 13, no. 2 (July 2019). View Details
• Lashley, Kisha, and Timothy G. Pollock. "Waiting to Inhale: Reducing Stigma in the Medical Cannabis Industry." Administrative Science Quarterly 65, no. 2 (June 2020): 434–482. View Details
• Lashley, Kisha, and Timothy G. Pollock. "Dancing with Giants: How Small Women-and Minority- Owned Firms Use Soft Power to Manage Asymmetric Relationships with Larger Partners." Organization Science 31, no. 6 (November–December 2020): 1313–1335. View Details
• Gorbatai, Andreea, Cyrus Dioun, and Kisha Lashley. "Making Space for Emotions: Empathy, Contagion, and Legitimacy’s Double-Edged Sword." Organization Science 32, no. 1 (January–February 2021): 42–63. View Details

Book Chapters

• Pollock, Timothy G., and Kisha Lashley. "Who Needs a Shrink When You Have Businessweek? Using Content Analysis to Get Inside the Heads of Entrepreneurs, VCs and Other Market Participants." In The Routledge Companion to Entrepreneurship, by Ted Baker and Friederike Welter, 432–438. Routledge, 2014. View Details

Awards & Honors

Selected for the All-Academy Theme Showcase Symposium at the 2014 Academy of Management Annual Meeting for “Entrepreneurship in Stigma: Legitimization Strategies of Medical ‘Cannabusinesses’.”

Finalist for 2014 Best Paper Award from the Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division of the Academy of Management for “Chicken or Egg: Exploring the CoEvolution of VC Firm Reputation and Status” with Tim G. Pollock, Peggy M. Lee, and Kyuho Jin.

Recipient of a 2014 Strategy Research Funding (SRF) Grant from the Dissertation Research Program for "Waiting to Inhale: How Medical Cannabis Entrepreneurs are Legitimating a Stigmatized Industry."

Recipient of a Grace G. Albrecht Scholarship for Women in Management in 2013 and 2014.

Recipient of a Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Scholarship, 2011-2013.

Recipient of a John and Kara Arnold Scholarship, 2011-2013.

Recipient of a Smeal College of Business Doctoral Research Grant in 2011 and 2013.

Recipient of a Bunton-Waller Scholarship in 2010.

Recipient of a 2010 Frank P. and Mary Jean Smeal Endowment Fund Scholarship.

Named an IBM Graduate Fellow, 2002-2004.

Selected for a Vanderbilt University Teaching Assistantship, 2002-2004.

Recipient of the Father Parker Award for Leadership in 2002.

Additional Information

• CV