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Jasper Hotho

Associate Professor

Emner
Organisation Socialt ansvar Kriser Partnerskab Menneskerettigheder

Primary research areas

Business and humanitarianism

My main research focus is on how the private sector contributes to humanitarian action. I investigate the ethical and operational challenges of these engagements, the conditions under which firms participate in humanitarian initiatives, and how collaboration between businesses and humanitarian organizations can be enhanced.

Business and human rights

Within the theme of Business and Human Rights, my research focuses on the non-judicial pathways through which victims of corporate human rights abuses challenge corporate conduct. Drawing on empirical research in Myanmar and elsewhere, I analyze the conditions under which corporations engage with such claims, as well as how affected communities and victims can exert pressure on unresponsive firms to improve their practices.

Corporate responsibilization

Building on my other research themes, I examine how societal actors pressure corporations to act more responsibly and how corporations come to assume greater societal responsibility. I focus in particular on social activism and framing-based tactics, as well as on how corporate engagement with acute crisis contexts can reshape the division of labor between public and private actors.

Rethinking business for social impact

I am an Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School whose research focuses on how businesses engage meaningfully in humanitarian action and can be pressured to uphold human rights.

From 2020 to 2025, I led the HUMAC research initiative, generously funded by Velux Fonden, which examined how private firms and humanitarian organizations collaborate to deliver ethical and effective relief. More broadly, my research draws on in-depth qualitative methods and set-theoretic approaches to understand corporate conduct in extreme and contested contexts.

I am deeply committed to translating research insights into educational practice. Through the development of teaching cases and course modules, I aim to bring complex questions about the role of corporations in crisis contexts into the business school curriculum. Examples include teaching cases on the Mediterranean migrant crisis and on business–humanitarian partnerships for non-communicable disease care in conflict-affected settings.

My research has been published in leading journals in organization and management studies and business ethics. Earlier in my career, my research focused on comparative institutionalism and organizational learning, particularly in the context of multinational enterprises. From 2016 to 2022, I served as Senior Editor at Organization Studies, handling manuscripts on international and comparative management, organizational learning, extreme contexts, and manuscripts using unconventional or multidisciplinary methodologies.

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. I co-lead with Verena Girschik.
https://www.cbshumac.org