Santi Furnari

Santi Furnari will spend his fellowship year at CASBS working on a book tentatively titled Configurational thinking in organization and management theory, aimed at developing a new way of thinking about the relationship between theory and data in organization studies. Drawing on several disciplines, (e.g., comparative historical sociology, set theory in mathematics), configurational thinking is a half-analytical, half-synthetic way of thinking that focuses on causal complexity, -i.e. the fact that social phenomena result from multiple explanatory attributes combining in complex and at times contradictory ways. Causal complexity is a key issue for contemporary social problems such as climate change, social inequality, and other problems resulting from systems of factors interacting with each other in non-linear ways. Yet, policy-makers and practitioners often rely on silver-bullet, one-size-fits-all interventions to address these complex problems, guided by correlational and experimental approaches privileging net effects thinking. 

Furnari is a professor of strategy at Bayes Business School, City, University of London. His primary research interests are the emergence of novelty and how organizational configurations shape outcomes such as innovation and the adoption of climate change practices.  He is a senior editor at the journal Organization Studies. For more information: https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/experts/santi-furnari