Rumina Dhalla

Biography

Dr. Rumina Dhalla is Director, Institute for Sustainable Commerce and Associate Professor, Organizational Studies and Sustainable Commerce area in the Department of Management, Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph. She was also the Project Lead for the Guelph East Africa Initiative. Her main research interests are in organizational identity and reputation and their influence and implications for organizational strategies for sustainable development and sustainability. She teaches sustainable value creation, topics in sustainability, and organizational theory and design and in the graduate program. She is the recipient of major grants from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for Canada.

Her research and scholarly contributions have been published in high ranked journals such as Organization Studies, Journal of Service Research and Corporate Reputation Review and she has presented at a variety of conferences. She has received awards in recognition of her teaching in both the graduate and undergraduate program. She also holds a number of leadership posiitons in global organizations including Board Chair, UN Global Compact Network Canada and Senior Adivsor, United Nations Research and Teaching Institute, Guardian, Globally Repsonsible Leadership Initiative and VIce-Chair, North American Chapter, Principels for Responsible Management Education. She has accumulated over 20 years of industry experience, much of which has been in the Canadian banking.

Rumina has also taught Organizational Behaviour in the MBA program at Schulich School of Business, York University for the past four years and has co-taught in the Schulich Non-Profit Leadership and Management Program.

Rumina has an MBA and a PhD from Schulich School of Business, York University

Rumina have been awarded two major SSHRC grants for Sustainability related projects. She is also a recipient of the Schulich School of Business National Research Program in Financial Services and Public Policy Award for Doctoral Dissertation in 2007. She also received the Schulich Doctoral Research Award: Women in Management for 2004 and 2005.

Much of Rumina’s research focuses on organizational identity, image and reputation and the implications for organizations and organizational members. Within this field, her interests lie in exploring the influence of identity, image and reputation on organizational responses, particularly as they relate to firm strategies for corporate social responsibility and sustainability. She is also examining reputational risk and its influence on firm strategies. Currently her main research focus is on exploring the implications of social enterprise in issues related to food insecurity and poverty. Her research interests also include issues of diversity and organizational and individual implications.

Villers, S., Dhalla, R., & Oberholzer, J. (2024). Dying to Understand How Electronic Word of Mouth Legitimates Sustainable Innovations in Stigmatized Markets. Journal of Service Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705241248238

Patara S. and Dhalla, R. (2022). Sustainability reporting tools: Examining the merits of sustainability rankings, Journal of Cleaner Production,Volume 366, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132960.

Dhalla, R. and Oliver, C. (2013I) Industry Identity as a Cognitive Oligopoly: An Institutional Perspective, Organization Studies, 34(12), 1803-1834 DOI:10.1177/0170840613483809

Dhalla, R. and Carayannapoulous, S. (2013). Reputational discounting: Factors reducing the influence of organizational reputation., Corporate Reputation Review,16, 150-167

Dhalla, R. and van Duren E. (2012). Organizational Responses in Fragile States: Role of Corporate Social Responsibility, World Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2), 115-131

van Duren. E. and Dhalla R. (2012) Business Strategy and CSR in Fragile States: The Case of WesternZagros’ Kurdistan Venture, World Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2), 279-290

Dhalla, R. (2011). Incongruence Between Organisational Identity, Image and Reputation: Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility, International Journal of Business, 4(4), pp. 330-352

Dhalla, R. (2007). The construction of organizational identity: Key contributing external and intra-organizational factors, Corporate Reputation Review, 10(4), pp. 245-260

Holzinger, I. and Dhalla, R. (2007). Multiple identities in organizations: The effects of diversity on organizational identity. The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 7(5), pp. 43-50

2011 SSHRC Grant for Impact! Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership - $105,000

2009 SSHRC GRANT - Public outreach grant for the Canadian Youth Sustainability Conference 2009 - $100,000

BUS 6070 Topics in Sustainability

BUS 6600 Sustainable Value Creation (MBA)

6300 Business Practices for Sustainability (MBA)

HTM 6590 Organizational Theory and Design (MBA)

LEAD 6500 Ethics in Leadership (MA Leadership) BUS 3020 Corporate Social Responsibility (Undergraduate)