Rebecca Bednarek

Professor Rebecca Bednarek is a leading scholar at the School of Management, Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, specializing in strategy as practice, organizational paradoxes, and financial markets with particular expertise in (re)insurance. She serves on editorial boards for top journals including Academy of Management Journal and Organization Studies, and is incoming Editor at Strategic Organization. Her research bridges theoretical insights with practical implications for addressing global challenges, particularly in disaster insurance.

Her research focuses on the social practices of organizations and financial markets, examining strategizing in complex settings including the New Zealand Science Sector, reinsurance industry, and public-private collaborations addressing global insurance protection gaps. Bednarek is an expert in qualitative methods, with emphasis on global ethnography, studying paradoxes, and presenting persuasive ethnographic findings. Her work explores how organizations navigate paradoxical tensions, particularly in contexts of disaster risk and insurance protection.

Bednarek's publication trajectory shows consistent contribution to top management journals, with recent work focusing on translating research into impact for grand challenges, organizational paradoxes during the pandemic, and interdisciplinary approaches to paradox theory. Her most significant contributions include the book Making a Market for Acts of God (Oxford University Press) examining the global reinsurance industry and the recent Disaster Insurance Reimagined (2023) exploring public-private mechanisms addressing insurance protection gaps.

• Best Paper Award (2017)
• Best Paper Award (2015)
• Best Paper Award (2014)
• Fellow, Higher Education Academy (2018)

Bednarek currently supervises doctoral research on Governance in Maori Organisations and leads the grant-funded project 'Strategizing for Resilience: Developing new forms of disaster insurance to enable sustainable indigenous community development' (2024-2026). She teaches Strategic Management and Research Methods across undergraduate, MBA, and executive programs, demonstrating commitment to both theoretical advancement and practical application of management knowledge. Her research team approach emphasizes the ebb-and-flow dynamics necessary for sustained impact on complex societal issues.