Skip to main content

Dorothee Nuss­bruch

Research Assistant

Subjects
Management Qualitative methods Disaster Partnership Crisis

Primary research areas

Busi­ness–hu­man­it­ari­an col­lab­or­a­tion
Col­lab­or­a­tion between busi­nesses, gov­ern­ments, and hu­man­it­ari­an act­ors in dis­aster and crisis re­sponse, which can in­volve both co­oper­a­tion and con­flict.
Loc­al Private Sec­tor and Re­si­li­ence
Re­search on how loc­ally em­bed­ded busi­nesses con­trib­ute to dis­aster pre­pared­ness, re­sponse, and long-term re­si­li­ence, and how sys­tem­ic bar­ri­ers shape their in­clu­sion.
So­cio-Spa­tial Ana­lys­is
An ap­proach that ex­am­ines how place, space, and power re­la­tions shape or­gan­iz­a­tion­al prac­tices, gov­ernance struc­tures, and cross-sec­tor dy­nam­ics.
Qual­it­at­ive Re­search in Crisis Gov­ernance
The use of in­ter­views, archiv­al ana­lys­is, and case study re­search to un­der­stand cross-sec­tor dy­nam­ics and de­cision-mak­ing in crisis con­texts.

Build­ing in­clus­ive part­ner­ships for re­si­li­ent fu­tures

I am a PhD Fellow specializing in cross-sector partnerships in crisis and humanitarian contexts. My work investigates how (local) businesses, governments, and humanitarian actors collaborate, and sometimes clash, in disaster response and resilience efforts. Grounded in critical management and geography, I adopt a qualitative, interdisciplinary approach to examine how power, place, and legitimacy shape collaboration across local, national, and global levels.

My research highlights the often-overlooked role of local businesses as resilience actors and explores how systemic barriers affect their inclusion in humanitarian governance. This work contributes to broader debates on localization, private sector engagement, and inclusive crisis governance.

Before my PhD at Copenhagen Business School, I worked with the World Food Programme, the Connecting Business Initiative, and the Harvard Kennedy School as a Mercator Fellow, which deepened my interest in bridging research and practice to support more equitable crisis response. 

October 2025

No Seat at the Table

How Territoriality Constrains Cross-sector Collaboration in Disaster Response

Go to publication

June 2025

Rethinking Resourcefulness

The Role of Systemic Inequalities in Organizational Resilience

Go to publication

May 2025

Struggles Over Value, Access and Positionality

Differentiated Dis/association Agency in Humanitarian Aid

Go to publication

Recent research projects

CBS HU­MAC: Private-Sec­tor En­gage­ment in Hu­man­it­ari­an Ac­tion

HU­MAC — fun­ded by Velux Fonden — re­searches busi­ness–hu­man­it­ari­an col­lab­or­a­tion, ex­plor­ing how part­ner­ships can be or­gan­ized ef­fect­ively, eth­ic­ally, and sus­tain­ably.
Learn more

Links