Kam Phung
Assistant Professor, Business and Society
Segal
Room: SGL 4910
Phone: 778.782.9661
Email: kam_phung@sfu.ca
Credentials
PhD (York University); MSc (Norwegian School of Economics); MSc (HEC Paris); BCom (University of Victoria)Biography
Kam Phung (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Business & Society at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University. He is also affiliated with Beedie's social innovation hub RADIUS, the Re:Structure Lab at SFU committed to tackling human exploitation in supply chains, and the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University. Kam teaches undergraduate courses on business and the development of a sustainable society.
Kam is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards from international and national institutions, including the “Best Social Issues in Management Paper” and “Best Business Ethics Paper” awards at the Academy of Management. He has also earned several awards from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship – the most-prized doctoral scholarship offered by the Government of Canada – and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, and was also named a Top 25 Finalist in the SSHRC Storytellers research communications challenge. His research has also been recognized as “Business School Research with Social Impact - Top 100” by the Financial Times and has been funded my national research organizations such as Mitacs and SSHRC.
Prior to joining Simon Fraser University, Kam was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Visiting Researcher at University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, and Instructor at York University’s Schulich School of Business. Beyond academia, his professional experiences have spanned multiple social and environmental tech start-ups and a range of socio-economic development and sustainability focused consultancies and not-profits. Kam's understanding of the world and business has also been greatly shaped by his exposure to a diversity of ideas, practices, and ways of being whilst living in a range of rural and urban places in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Striving to derive insights that drive meaningful action and social change, Kam regularly collaborates with practitioners and policy makers engaging in social change efforts and writes non-technical pieces that translate his research into the public domain.
Kam grew up on the unceded traditional territories of the Syilx Okanagan and Secwépemc First Nations within the province that we know today as British Columbia, Canada. He is forever grateful to the original caretakers of the Lands on which he and his family have had the privilege to live, work, learn, and play as uninvited guests.
Research Interests
Kam's research centers around the organizational and entrepreneurial underpinnings of innovation and change in the face of social and ecological injustices, and to date, he has studied such dynamics in the context of issues such as modern slavery, social stigmas, and climate change. He is currently in the midst of expanding his research program to include efforts to address a broader range of injustices.
Some of Kam's published empirical research has included an examination of the business models of modern slavery and their linkages to global supply chains and the exploitation of migrant workers in advanced economies as well as an examination of the impact of disruptive technologies on stigmatized and marginalized communities. For his doctoral dissertation, he conducted a multi-year organizational ethnography to explore life on the ground behind efforts to design and implement solutions based on the emerging technologies – specifically blockchain – to address climate change and stimulate climate action.
Kam deploys a diverse range of methods in his research, but tends to embrace those that involve deep immersion in the field and engagement with communities.
Selected Publications
articles and reports
Phung, K., Ruebottom, T., Toubiana, M., Turchick-Hakak, L., & Buchanan, S. (2022, August). The manipulation of Uber's public image profoundly impacted the lives of taxi drivers. Conversation.
Crane, A., LeBaron, G., Phung, K., Behbahani, L., & Allain, J. (2022). Confronting the Business Models of Modern Slavery. Journal of Management Inquiry, 31(3), 264-285. http://doi.org/10.1177/1056492621994904
Lam, L., & Phung, K. (2021). How should Canada design policies to protect gig workers? Policy Options.
Phung, K., Buchanan, S., Toubiana, M., Ruebottom, T., & Turchick-Hakak, L. (2021). When stigma doesn't transfer: Stigma deflection and occupational stratification in the sharing economy. Journal of Management Studies, 58(4), 1107-1139. http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12574
Phung, K., Buchanan, S., Toubiana, M., Ruebottom, T., & Turchick-Hakak, L. (2021, May). How Uber drivers avoided - and contributed to - the fate of taxi drivers. Conversation.
LeBaron, G., Phung, K., Behbahani, L., Crane, A., & Allain, J. (2021). Business models have evolved to keep profiting from slave labour. Thomson Reuters Foundation News.
Phung, K., Greig, D., & Lewchuk, S. (2019). The straight goods: Canadian business insights on modern slavery in supply chains. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: York University.
books chapters and monographs
Phung, K., & Crane, A. (2019). The business of modern slavery: Management and organizational perspectives. In Clark, J. B., & Poucki, S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of human trafficking and modern day slavery (pp. 177-197). London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications Ltd (UK).
Phung, K. (2018). Slavery and its links to organizations. In Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.), Violence and Abuse in and around Organisations (pp. 273-291). Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom: Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781315194868