Neil Thompson is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the department of Management and Organization (M&O) of VU Amsterdam. He is also a program director of the MSc Entrepreneurship at the School of Business and Economics. He holds a PhD from Utrecht University (2013). His expertise lies in bridging cultural anthropology, social theory and philosophy of imagination, and entrepreneurship studies to understand the role of entrepreneurship in addressing complex societal challenges.

Neil’s research focuses on the practices of new organizational emergence and their consequences for society, also known as entrepreneurship-as-practice (www.entrepreneurshipaspractice.com). He investigates how new organizations come into being through multiparty practices, and the ways in which these practices matter for imagining and creating the future (future-making) to further or distract from addressing complex social and environmental issues.

Research Interests:

• New organizational emergence
• Social and sustainable entrepreneurship
• Imagination and creativity within routines
• Entrepreneurial support ecosystems
• Qualitative process research methods
• Video ethnography and field studies

Neil is currently the Programme Director of the MSc Entrepreneurship, a joint UvA / VU programme, at the School of Business and Economics. He also teaches courses on social entrepreneurship at the master’s level. From 216 to 2024, he served as Programme Coordinator of the Premaster programme at the School of Business and Economics. He actively spans the boundary between academic and practice through executive teaching, workshops, and through commissioned research projects.

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