Thomas Maak

Thomas Maak is Professor of Leadership and the inaugural Professorial Chair in Ethics at the University of Queensland Business School. A business ethicist by training, he previously served as Director Centre for Workplace Leadership and Professor of Leadership at the University of Melbourne. Thomas is global authority in the field of responsible leadership, business ethics, and the micro-foundations of CSR. His research links the individual, group, and organizational levels, combining ethical theory, political philosophy, relational thinking and stakeholder theory. He conducted the first team neurodynamics study with MBA students in 2012. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Academy of Managment Learning & Education, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Organizational Research Methods, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He is listed in the Stanford list of the world's most highly cited university professors. Thomas has extensive experience in leadership development and has worked for several years with PricewaterhouseCoopers on their award-winning senior executive program 'Ulysses'. He has also worked with other leading companies, including BMW, Volkswagen, Shell, UBS, Dong Energy, and Novo Nordisk. Through his work with leading social entrepreneurs in South Asia and South America, including Gram Vikas, Hagar, and Fundacion Paraguaya, he is also interested in social innovation and the advancement of human dignity in a fractured world. Before coming to Australia, Thomas started his academic career at the University of St. Gallen, home to the world's best MSc in Management, and is a graduate from the INSEAD International Director's Program. From 2004-2008 he held an appointment as Senior Research Fellow at INSEAD, France, and co-directed a research stream within the PwC-INSEAD initiative on high-performing organizations, before being appointed Full Professor at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, one of the top-ranked MBA schools in the world, and a leader in corporate executive education. In 2014 he was a visiting professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Thomas is the immediate past president of ISBEE, the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics and chaired and co-organized the 2022 World Congress in Bilbao, Spain. Business ethics: Ethical foundations of business, Responsible agency, Responsible management, Corporate social responsibility, ESG, Stakeholder management and dialogue, Political CSR; Responsible leadership: Responsible leadership in a stakeholder context, What makes a responsible leader?, Developing responsible leaders, Micro-foundations of CSR, Relational ontology of leadership, Responsible strategic leadership; Organizational cognitive neuroscience: Teamneurodynamics, Neuroscience of leadership, Extended brain theory

[2026] Social trust and corporate greenwashing: insights from China's pilot social credit systems. Xiong, Jiacai, Chen, Linghong, Zhu, Yushu and Maak, Thomas (2026). Social trust and corporate greenwashing: insights from China's pilot social credit systems. Journal of Business Ethics, 204 (4), 855-883. doi: 10.1007/s10551-025-06076-9 [2026] Responsible global leadership. Stahl, Günter K., Pless, Nicola M., Maak, Thomas and Miska, Christof (2026). Responsible global leadership. Global leadership: research, practice, and development. (pp. 379-406) edited by Mark E. Mendenhall, Joyce S. Osland, Allan Bird, Gary R. Oddou, Michael J. Stevens, Martha L. Maznevski and Günter K. Stahl. New York, NY, United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003541752-16 [2024] What, when, and how of responsible l