Lori Kendall
Senior Lecturer and Academic Director, Full-Time MBA Programs
Case Western Reserve University
lorikendall@gmail.com
Website
Related Research Interests
Dr. Kendall has over 30 years as a serial entrepreneur and technology executive for venture-backed and publicly traded firms in B2B software, hardware, and networking. She has held VP and senior leadership responsibilities for new product development, portfolio management, and cloud services. She concurrently serves as faculty at The Ohio State University and is an operating partner at Orchid Black. At Ohio State, Dr. Kendall teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in entrepreneurship, leadership & professional development, experiential learning immersion, and strategy & innovation. At Orchid Black, she advises early-stage and mid-stage firms on strategy, growth, and innovation. Previously Dr. Kendall held executive leadership positions for voice and video communications and contact center industry leaders and co-founded several firms, including a multiple award-winning call center technology company acquired by Cisco Systems in 2015. Dr. Kendall’s consulting and research centers on entrepreneurial ventures and intrapreneurship within established firms. She is a mixed-methods researcher focused on micro and meso-level relational dynamics that affect organizational sensemaking under uncertainty, which subsequently impacts innovation and firm growth. Her dominant theoretical approaches are from 1) organizational ambidexterity, 2) sensemaking and managerial cognition, and 3) relational practice. Her publications include works on entrepreneurial cognition, relational dynamics influencing contextual ambidexterity, and mental model shifts driving paradigm change with social benefit firms. She was the 2021 Recipient of the Fisher College of Business Pace Setters Daniel Westerbeck Graduate Teaching Excellence Award. Formerly a Distinguished Fellow at the Weatherhead Fowler Center, she led researchers on behalf of the Goi Peace Foundation to show performative shifts in the evolution from shareholder models toward becoming positive impact firms.
Related Publications
- Pavez, I., Kendall, L.D., and Laszlo, C. (2021). Positive-impact Companies: Toward a New Paradigm of Value Creation. Organizational Dynamics (ISSN# 0090-2616) volume 50, issue 4, October-November 2021, 100806 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2020.100806.
- Ladd, T., Kendall, L.D. (2017). Resolving the Risk Paradox: Entrepreneurial Cognition in the Lean Startup Method. The Journal of Applied Business and Economics (ISSN# 1499-691X), volume 19(11/12), Dec 2017: 28-42.
- Kendall, L.D., Pavez, I., and Bao, L. (2014). The Business Sector Path Towards a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity: A Research Study on Behalf of the Goi Peace Foundation (United Nations NGO). Republished (2015) in World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research (E. Laszlo, Ed)
