I am an assistant professor in management at the Institute of Innovation Research at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan. A recurring theme in my research is how organizations challenge unwritten rules and codes of behavior, often across national borders.

While I do not use social media, I am more than open to discuss opportunities for joint research, visiting positions, student supervision, corporate presentations, societal outreach, etc. through E-mail at padron@iir.hit-u.ac.jp.

Research themes and projects

Institutional management of multinational corporations: How global firms actively challenge and respond to societal pressures in international markets.

• How Should Multinational Firms Navigate Local Rules? With Patrick Regnér. Published online 2024 at Harvard Business Review.

• Differentiated co-evolution in plastic bottle recycling. Final write-up underway.

• Non-market defense and mimicry in incumbent strategy. With Masahiro Kotosaka. Data collection underway.

Intra-firm influence of foreign subsidiaries: How subsidiaries within multinational corporations exert influence within the firm to alter organizational outcomes.

• How MNE subsidiaries leverage local institutions to gain influence in international strategy. With Edward Gillmore. Under peer review at Q1 Strategy and Management journal.

• MNE subsidiaries and international strategy. With Patrick Regnér. Under peer review at Q1 Strategy and Management journal.

Category innovation: How organizations maintain and challenge labels and classifications.

• Menu tweaking in sustainable fast food. With Yoshikatsu Shinozawa. Data analysis underway.

• Exploratory moves in asymmetric global competition. With Mariko Nakagawa. Data collection underway.

• Varieties of entomophagy in Japan. With Thomas Calvard and Dawn Chow. Data collection underway.

News discourse of trade agreements: Natural text analysis of Japanese news reporting on the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. One-off project funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

• The EU-Japan economic partnership agreement in Japanese print media: a “cars-for-cheese deal” or “the black ships of European cheese”? With Tine Walravens. Published 2025 in Asia Europe Journal [Download here].

• Subnational GDP and media sentiment in trade agreements. With Kentaro Nakajima. Data analysis underway.

Miscellaneous research

Projects not tied to any broader research agenda.

• Home country influence in cross-border mergers and acquisitions by emerging market firms: A systematic review. With Geer He. Published 2024 in Multinational Business Review [Download here].

• Attachment and adjustment in expatriate reactions to the 2011 Tohoku disasters. Published 2024 in Journal of Asia Business Studies [Download here].

• Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data. With Andrew Delios, Elena Giulia Clemente, Tao Wu, Hongbin Tan, Yong Wang, Michael Gordon, Domenico Viganola, Zhaowei Chen, Anna Dreber, Magnus Johannesson, Thomas Pfeiffer, and Eric Luis Uhlmann (Part of Generalizability Tests Forecasting Collaboration, listed as author). Published 2022 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [Open access].

Resume

Main updates from the past six months

• Aug 2025: Manuscript on sustainable fast food presented at Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida

• Jul 2025: Manuscript on differentiated co-evolution between MNEs and local institutions presented at the Academy of Management annual meeting and nominated for Best Paper award

• Jul 2025: Manuscript on rare disease innovation accepted for presentation at the Academic Association for Organizational Science annual meeting

• Jun 2025: Manuscript on rare disease innovation presented at Academy of Management Journal paper development workshop

• May 2025: Manuscript on asymmetric global competition accepted for presentation at the EuroMed Academy of Business annual conference

• May 2025: Manuscript on sustainable menu choices in fast food presented at the Global Hospitality and Tourism Research Summit

• Apr 2025: Began hosting Cole Short (Pepperdine University) as Visiting Associate Professor