03/13/2026
By Joshua Goodrich

The Manning School of Business, Department of Management, invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Ph.D. candidate Joshua Goodrich on “How Do You Lead People Who Don’t Work for You: A Stakeholder Approach to Ecosystem Leadership.”

Candidate Name: Joshua Goodrich
Degree Concentration: Leadership/Organizational Studies
Defense Date: March 26, 2026
Time: 9:30 – 11 a.m.
Location: Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC) Room 445

Dissertation Title: How Do You Lead People Who Don’t Work for You: A Stakeholder Approach to Ecosystem Leadership

Committee:

  • Elizabeth J. Altman (Chair), Associate Professor of Management, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell
  • Kimberly Merriman, Professor, Department of Management, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell
  • Col. Archie Bates III, Ph.D., Associate Professor, and Department Head Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, United States Military Academy at West Point

Abstract:
How do you lead people who don't work for you? As ecosystems become the dominant form of organizing across public, private, and national security sectors, leaders are increasingly asked to coordinate action among independent organizations they cannot direct or compel. This dissertation examines how strategic leaders produce voluntary alignment and sustained collaboration among autonomous stakeholders when formal authority is fragmented or absent. Drawing on stakeholder theory, strategic leadership research, and ecosystem scholarship, the dissertation develops a mechanism-based theory of ecosystem leadership across three linked essays. The empirical foundation is a qualitative study of the U.S. national security enterprise, a setting in which coordination among independent agencies, military services, and partner organizations must be achieved without unified command. The resulting framework specifies the leadership behaviors, activation mechanisms, and organizational conditions through which leaders generate unity of effort when compliance cannot be mandated and identifies the scope conditions under which that framework applies most broadly.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend.