The Ghoshal Conference

Save the Date: Sumantra Ghoshal Conference 2027

28-29 May 2027

Conference: London Business School
Conference dinner: Reform Club, London

AI is challenging assumptions about the contribution of business schools, how we prepare students and executives for the realities they face, and how we conduct and evaluate research. These changes raise questions that management academics need to engage with directly: what knowledge matters, how we develop sound judgement, and what constitutes a meaningful scholarly contribution.

Building on the Ghoshal Conference’s longstanding commitment to rigorous, managerially relevant research, the 2027 conference will bring together scholars who want to examine these questions seriously. We hope it will be a focal point for presenting research, debating emerging evidence and reflecting on the future of our field.

We will seek research papers alongside other contributions: evidence of AI’s effects on organisations and management practice, experiences and experiments in teaching and research, and proposals for substantive debate. We are particularly interested in contributions that connect what is happening in practice with questions worth pursuing academically in this evolving context.

Expect changes to the conference format, submission options and the roles participants can play, with greater scope for exchange and active involvement.

The call for papers and contributions will be published early October 2026.

Conference Programme 2026

Highlights Ghoshal Conference 2025

Biography
Sumantra Ghoshal

Sumantra Ghoshal was a Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He died in 2004, aged 55.

In his research and teaching, Sumantra epitomized a scholar who combines rigor and relevance. By the time of his death, he had published 15 papers in top academic journals (e.g., Academy of Management Journal; Strategic Management Journal) and various other papers in high-profile outlets (e.g., Journal of International Business Studies; Journal of Management Studies), amassing approximately 50,000 citations. Concurrently, he published 11 magazine articles in the Harvard Business Review, authored numerous case studies, and published 11 business books, several of which became global bestsellers (e.g., Managing Across Borders; The Individualized Corporation).

Sumantra conducted academic research on the same topic as his managerial publications. Earlier in his career, he focused on global organisations. In his later work, he critiqued management theory (see, for instance, this posthumously published article), with the ultimate aim of transforming and humanising large organisations (see, for instance, this talk).

The Guardian wrote about Sumantra, in his obituary: “It was this combination of empathy and extreme intelligence - laced with a strong dose of humour - that made him such a formidable and attractive performer. A wonderful teacher as well as researcher (provided collaborators could put up with a lot of walking about and smoke-filled rooms), he could make complex ideas available with equal fluency to management scholars or a roomful of chief executives, handling theory with flair and practice with rigour.” The Economist wrote: “He married the theoretical and the pragmatic in a way that is rare in the world of management literature… Management literature has lost a prolific and creative writer”.

Sumantra obtained doctorate degrees from Harvard and from MIT, he chaired the Supervisory Board of Duncan-Goenka, a major diversified company in India, and served on the Boards of Mahindra-British Telecom, Swiss Re at Rüschlikon, and the Lufthansa School of Business. He was a fellow of the Academy of Management and the Academy of International Business, served on the Committee of Overseers of the Harvard Business School, and was the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business.