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Ma­jken Schultz

Professor

Subjects
Organisation Strategy Change management Green transition Climate Companies

Primary research areas

How do or­gan­iz­a­tions make dis­tant fu­tures ac­tion­able?
How do or­gan­iz­a­tions pur­sue dis­tant fu­ture goals un­der con­di­tions of un­cer­tainty and com­plex­ity?
How or­gan­iz­a­tions de­vel­op and nav­ig­ate dif­fer­ent modes of fu­ture mak­ing and how they may con­nect in the stew­ard­ship of the fu­ture com­mons.
How can a tem­por­al view be ap­plied to cent­ral phe­nom­ena in or­gan­iz­a­tion and man­age­ment? Such as cli­mate change, the in­ter­play between strategy and iden­tity, and tem­por­ary or­gan­iz­a­tions.
Lead­er­ship & or­gan­iz­ing: The in­ter­de­pend­en­cies between change and con­tinu­ity in lead­ing trans­formation pro­cesses.
How do or­gan­iz­a­tions evoke their past for the fu­ture? How do or­gan­iz­a­tions make use of their his­tory, what is the im­port­ance of the his­tor­ic­al em­bed­ding of pur­pose and how is it lever­aged for the fu­ture.

My re­search top­ics have al­ways been de­veloped in close col­lab­or­a­tion with prac­tice.

My research has been developed in close collaboration with practice, where my theoretical interests were relevant and could bring novel and useful knowledge to the organizations I have studied. I have benefited from collaborating with, among others, Bang & Olufsen, LEGO Group, Carlsberg Group, Novo Nordisk, Arla Foods, and Ørsted. Opposed to much organizational research, the companies have not been anonymous, but have been engaged in challenging, elaborating, and disseminating the insights from the research. 

While my early research was driven by questions of how organizations construct and renew meaningful cultures and identities in situations of transformation, additional insights were derived from how organizations struggled to translate between their internal and external stakeholders, most notably in my work on corporate branding, and the interplay between strategy and identity. 

For the past 10 years, I have been curious about how organizations connect and leverage connections between their past and future, particularly as they pursue distant future goals. I explore these topics in the context of climate change, which is the most pressing issue of our time. There is a need for social science to inspire how companies can overcome pressures for short-termism and show how the green transition is realized. This is my current research agenda that is pursued through multiple types of contributions and channels. 

Publications

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28 June 2025

Fri grundforskning er en investering i fremtiden

Ma­j­ken Schultz, Professor

Lasse Horne Kjældgaard
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14 May 2025

Bestyrelsestoppen 2. E6.

Carlsbergs stærke professor så en direktør blive gennemheglet

Ma­j­ken Schultz, Professor

Søren Linding
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Recent research projects

Mak­ing Dis­tant Fu­tures Ac­tion­able: In­nov­at­ing for a Net Zero Fu­ture

PRO­JECT PERI­OD & TEAM Mem­bers at CBS

2021-2025.

PI Pro­fess­or Ma­jken Schultz,
co-PI Pro­fess­or Tor Hernes,
As­sist­ant Pro­fess­or Miri­am Feuls,
Postdoc Sunny M. Xu,
postdoc Jonath­an Fed­der­sen.

PART­NER COM­PAN­IES:

- Arla Foods
- Novo Nor­d­isk
- Ørsted

IN­TER­NA­TION­AL RE­SEARCH PART­NERS:

- Pro­fess­or Tima Bansal, Ivey Busi­ness School, West­ern Uni­ver­sity, Canada
- Pro­fess­or Raghu Garud, Smeal Col­lege of Busi­ness, Penn State Uni­ver­sity, US
- Pro­fess­or Daniel Nyberg, Uni­ver­sity of New­castle, Aus­tralia
- Pro­fess­or Ju­li­ane Rei­necke , Saïd Busi­ness School Uni­ver­sity of Ox­ford
- Pro­fess­or Jen­nifer Howard-Gren­ville, Uni­ver­sity of Cam­bridge, UK

The in­dustry has a crit­ic­al role to play in cre­at­ing a zero-car­bon fu­ture both as pro­viders of sus­tain­able solu­tions and as prob­lem solv­ers in their own in­dus­tries. Com­pan­ies are in­creas­ingly mak­ing com­mit­ments to dis­tant fu­ture cli­mate goals, which are be­com­ing more com­pre­hens­ive to in­clude emis­sions, biod­iversity, and waste. Yet, the solu­tions for how to reach the cli­mate goals are still un­cer­tain and even un­known. Com­pan­ies are thus faced with the di­lemma of mov­ing to­wards am­bi­tious goals without know­ing the path lead­ing to­ward those goals. Not act­ing is not an op­tion. There is an ur­gent need to un­der­stand how com­pan­ies make dis­tant fu­tures ac­tion­able, cre­at­ing a path for­ward. This chal­lenge is at the core of the Ac­tion­able Fu­tures Pro­ject. The pro­ject stud­ies Dan­ish com­pan­ies in dif­fer­ent in­dus­tries, which are among the early movers in the ef­forts to cre­ate a zero-car­bon fu­ture. The com­pan­ies com­prise Ørsted in en­ergy; Arla in foods, and Novo Nor­d­isk in life-sci­ence. In each com­pany, we study on­go­ing pro­jects with the po­ten­tial for reach­ing dis­tant fu­ture cli­mate goals such as how off-shore wind­farms may cre­ate nature-based solu­tions in mar­ine biod­iversity; how an­im­al-based farm­ing may be­come re­gen­er­at­ive across dif­fer­ent loc­al eco­sys­tems; and how de­vel­op­ing cir­cu­lar solu­tions for the re­cyc­ling of med­ic­al plastic waste can be­come re­source­ful on a glob­al scale.

Outside activities

Chair Carls­berg Found­a­tion since 2022 and cur­rent. Mem­ber of Carls­berg Found­a­tion since 2019. , 2019 -

Elec­ted mem­ber of the Carls­berg Found­a­tion by the Roy­al Academy of Sci­ence and Let­ters ac­cord­ing to the charter. Carls­berg Found­a­tion is the ma­jor­ity own­er of Carls­berg Group and donates ap­prox­im­ately 1 bil­lion DKK to ba­sic re­search an­nu­ally with­in so­cial sci­ence, hu­man­it­ies, and the nat­ur­al sci­ences. The Tuborg Found­a­tion and The Fre­deriks­borg Mu­seum are sec­tions of the Carls­berg Found­a­tion. Ma­jken also serves as Deputy Chair of Fre­deriks­borg Mu­seum.
Link to Carlsberg Fondet

Deputy Chair Carls­berg Group since 2022, mem­ber of ad­vis­ory board , 2019 -

As Chair of Carls­berg Found­a­tion and rep­res­ent­ing the ma­jor­ity own­er, Ma­jken serves as Deputy Chair of Carls­berg Group. We made a change in gov­ernance as I star­ted as Chair and moved the Chair of the Carls­berg Found­a­tion from Chair to Deputy Chair of the Carls­berg Group, and re­duced from five to two board mem­bers rep­res­ent­ing the Carls­berg Found­a­tion.
Link to Carlsberg Group