David Oliver is an Associate Professor of Management at HEC Montreal, Canada. He holds a PhD in management from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He teaches strategy and management skills to MBA and Executive audiences, and his research focuses in particular on organizational identity and its link to the practice of strategy in management teams.
An experienced executive teacher, David has designed and delivered executive development programs on strategy both in Canada and internationally, including China, the Netherlands, Finland, Romania, and Tunisia.
A Canadian citizen, David has also lived in Sweden, France, New Zealand and Switzerland. Prior to joining HEC Montreal, David was co-founder of the Swiss-based Imagination Lab Foundation, where he spent five years working with management teams to help them with their strategic thinking processes and with specific organizational challenges they were facing. At the same time, he also refined strategic thinking techniques involving 3D materials for use in exploring issues related to strategy, identity, and organizational preparedness. Some of these organizations included Microsoft, Orange UK, Tetra Pak, Banque Cantonale de Genève, Philip Morris, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Before joining the Imagination Lab, David conducted research in the areas of organizational change and complexity theory at the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.
David’s research has appeared in leading journals including Organization Studies, British Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Human Relations and the Financial Times, and he is co-author (with Johan Roos) of the book Striking a Balance: Complexity and Knowledge Landscapes (McGraw-Hill, 2000). David was awarded 1st prize in the 2009 Oikos Foundation Global Case Writing Competition.
AREA EXPERTISE
Creative Strategizing
Practices of Strategy
INDUSTRY EXPERTISE - COUNTRIES - CURRENT BASE
Canada
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Oliver, David, Matt Statler & Johan Roos (2010) A meta-ethical perspective on organizational identity, Journal of Business Ethics, 94: 427-440.
Sloan, Pamela & David Oliver (2009) Michelin's Strategic Partnership with Indigenous Peoples (A) The Basis for Partnership, International Journal of Case Studies in Management, 7(2), 1-12.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos (2007) Beyond text : Constructing organizational identity multimodally, British Journal of Management, 18, 342-358.
Oliver, David & Claus Jacobs (2007) Developing guiding principles: An organizational learning perspective, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20(6) 813-828.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos (2006) Creativité et identité organisationelle, Revue Française de Gestion, 32(161) 139-153.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos. (2005) Decision making in high velocity environments: The importance of guiding principles, Organization Studies, 26(6) 889-913.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos (2003) Dealing with the unexpected: Critical incidents in the LEGO Mindstorms team, Human Relations, 56(9) 1055-1080
Roos, Johan & David Oliver (1999) From fitness landscapes to knowledge landscapes, Systemic Practice and Action Research, 12(3) 279-293
Oliver, David, Johan Roos & Bart Victor (1999) Strategies for converging industries, Financial Times Mastering Information Management, Part 5: New Organizational Forms, March 1, 6-7.
Books and Book chapters
Statler, Matt & David Oliver (2008) Facilitating serious play. In Hodgkinson, G. and Starbuck, W. (eds) The Oxford Handbook on Organizational Decision-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 475-494.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos (2002) Dealing with surprises: Collaborating in an alliance team. In Contractor F. and Lorange, P. (eds) Cooperative strategies and alliances: What we know 15 years later. Amsterdam: Pergamon, 849-873.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos (2000) Striking a balance: Complexity and knowledge landscapes, London: McGraw-Hill.
Conference Presentations
Sloan, Pamela and David Oliver, Stakeholders are people, too: Building effective stakeholder engagement practices, presented at European Group on Organizational Studies, Barcelona, Spain, 2009
Jacobs, Claus; David Oliver and Loizos Heracleous. Constructing organizational identity through embodied metaphors, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, 2008.
Oliver, David and Matt Statler, A meta-ethical perspective on organizational identity, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, 2008.
Oliver, David. Make or break: Strong team identity in a self-managed team, presented at European Academy of Management (EURAM), Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2008.
Statler, Matt and David Oliver, Facilitating serious play, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, 2007
Oliver, David and Matt Statler, The moral of the story: Ethical decision-making in organizations, presented at European Group on Organizational Studies, Bergen, Norway, 2006
Organizational identity and organizational culture: Some key distinctions, Symposium Chair, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, USA, 2005.
Oliver, David and Peter Burgi, Organizational identity as a strategic practice, presented at Critical Management Studies Conference, Cambridge, UK, 2005
Oliver, David and Matt Statler, Responsible identity practices, presented at European Academy of Management (EURAM), Munich, Germany, 2005
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Constructing Organizational Identity, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2004
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Developing guiding principles through dialogue, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2004
Oliver, David and Matt Statler, LEGO Serious Play, presented at Organization Science Winter Conference, Steamboat Springs, CO, 2004
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Decision making in high velocity environments: The importance of guiding principles, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 2003
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Guiding principles for unexpected occurrences: The impact of narrative headlines on management groups, presented at Critical Management Studies Conference, Lancaster, UK., 2003
Oliver, David, Creating a context for emergence, presented at Stratejist Conference, Management Centre Turkey, Istanbul Turkey, 2003
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Strategic decision making in high velocity environment: The importance of guiding principles, presented at Strategic Management Society Mini conference “ Innovating strategy processes”, Storrs, CT, USA, 2003
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Dealing with surprises: Collaborating in an alliance team, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, 2002.
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Organizational heuristics: More than simple rules, presented at 5th International Conference on Organizational Discourse, Kings College, London, UK, 2002
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Organizational heuristics: More than simple rules, presented at Strategy World Congress, Oxford, UK, 2002
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, From heuristics to simple guiding principles, presented at Practices of Meaning Conference, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 2001
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Coherence in Collaboration: The case of self-managed teams, presented at European Group on Organizational Studies, Lyon, France, 2001
Oliver, David, The impact of power differences on emergence in an a high-velocity organizational team, presented at 4th International Conference on Organizational Discourse, London, UK, 2000.
Striking a balance at LEGO Mindstorms, Panel presentation with Johan Roos and Torben Sorensen, 19th Annual Conference, Strategic Management Society, Berlin, Germany, 1999
Oliver, David, Uncovering external orientation: Intellectual capital profiles in US banking, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, USA 1999.
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Poised for action: Four guidelines to sustaining ‘complex’ organizations in knowledge landscapes, presented at Strategic Management Society Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, USA, 1998
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, Interconnected capability landscapes: A mental model for managers and scholars, presented at Strategic Management Society Annual Conference, Barcelona, Spain, 1997
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, From fitness landscapes to knowledge landscapes, presented at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 1997
Oliver, David and Johan Roos, The poised organization: Navigating effectively in knowledge landscapes, presented at Strategic Management Society Annual Conference, Phoenix, AR., USA, 1996
Case Studies and Case Series
Sloan, Pamela and David Oliver, Michelin’s Strategic Partnership with Indigenous Peoples, A: The Basis for Partnership; B: The Partnership at Work, C: The Results of the Partnership, 2009. HEC Montreal case study. Published in International Journal of Case Studies in Management, 7(2); awarded 1st prize, oikos Foundation Global Case Writing Competition, Corporate Sustainabilit
Pinard, Marilou, David Oliver & Martine Vézina, Southern university, HEC Montréal Case Study, 2006
Oliver, David & Johan Roos, Building a worldwide brain: Artificial Intelligence Inc, IMD-Imagination Lab Case Study, GM866, 2001
Oliver, David, Johan Roos & Bart Victor , A new business in the LEGO group: LEGO MINDSTORMS, IMD Case Study, GM864, 2000. Reprinted in De Wit, Bob and Ron Meyer (2003) Strategy: Process, Context, Context, 3rd ed (forthcoming), London: Thomson Learning.
Oliver, David & Johan Roos, Building LEGO MINDSTORMS communities, IMD Case Study, GM865, 2000
Oliver, David & Johan Roos, AOL: Combining internet and media, IMD Case Study, GM877, 2000; and Lissack, Michael., Oliver, David & Roos, Johan, Bringing internet to the masses: America Online Inc. (AOL), IMD Case Study, GM782, 1998
Oliver, David & Johan Roos, Skandia Future Centers: Charting a course for the future, IMD Case Study, GM625, 1998; and Oliver, David, Donald A. Marchand, & Johan Roos, Skandia Assurance and Financial Services: Measuring and visualizing intellectual capital, IMD Case Study, GM624, 1998.
Oliver, David & Donald A. Marchand, Hewlett-Packard: Competing with a global IT infrastructure, IMD Case Study, GM653, 1997; and Oliver, David & Donald A. Marchand, Hewlett-Packard Europe: RAPID development of a retail planning system with Cambridge Technology Partners, IMD Case Study and Teaching Note, GM652, 1996.
Oliver, David & Paul Strebel, Ljubljanska Banka: From crisis to opportunity, IMD Case Series, GM 636, 637, 638, 1996. This case series, teaching note, and video were awarded the European Case of the Year prize by the European Federation of Management Development in the category Transition Management in East and Central Europe (1996), as well as first prize by the Central and Eastern European Management Development Association (1995).