Xule

Xule

PhD student

CV

Xule Lin 林徐乐

Imperial College London South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK

xule.lin@imperial.ac.uk | linxule.com

Education

  • Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, 2019 – 2025 (Expected)
    • Doctor of Philosophy, Management and Entrepreneurship
    • Thesis Title: “Rethinking Organizational Design: Token-Enabled Coordination and Governance Adaptation in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)”
    • Thesis Committee: Erkko Autio, Ying-Ying Hsieh, Kevin Corley, Viviana Fang He (UCL)
  • University of Chicago, 2018 – 2019
    • Graduate Student At-Large
  • University of Notre Dame, 2011 – 2016
    • MSc in Accountancy
    • BBA in Accounting

Research Interests

I develop organizational theory for the algorithmic age, examining how organizations coordinate when humans and algorithmic systems jointly determine outcomes. My research asks: What governance mechanisms enable effective functioning? What forms of organizing emerge? Empirically, I investigate: (1) token-based governance in DAOs, identifying mechanisms of token duality, selective centralization, and structured transparency; (2) human-AI collaboration in organizational settings, revealing coordination patterns and emergent organizational capabilities; and (3) traditional craft organizations as historical counterpoints. Methodologically, I pioneer the SIGNA framework: an AI-augmented qualitative approach that preserves interpretive depth while enabling analysis at a computational scale—applicable across organizational and social science research.

Awards and Grants

Current Research Projects

  • Weiss, T., Rindova, V., McClellan, B., & Lin, X., with Corley, K. G. Curating Entrepreneurial Possibilities. Academy of Management Journal. [2nd round of R&R]
    • Note: Title paraphrased for blind review purposes
    • Examines how entrepreneurs identify and develop strategic opportunities. Demonstrates SIGNA’s applicability: AI-augmented grounded theory analysis enabled pattern identification across large-scale entrepreneurial data.

  • Baldwin, C. Y. (Harvard Business School), & Lin, X. (2025). Technological Paradigms, Trajectories, and Revolutions: On Pin Factories and Tailored Suits. [Book chapter in Review]
    • Examines organizational paradigms in the apparel industry—from pin factories to bespoke tailoring to digital platforms—building on Giovanni Dosi’s framework of technological trajectories. Identifies principles of craft coordination relevant to understanding algorithmic organizations.

  • Lin, X., & Corley, K. G. (2025). Interpretive Orchestration: When Human Intuition meets Machine Intelligence. Strategic Organization. [Manuscript under review]
    • Invited theoretical contribution examining how researchers maintain interpretive control when using AI for organizational analysis. Develops principles for AI-augmented organizational research that preserve theoretical judgment while enabling computational scale.

  • Lin, X., Hsieh, Y.-Y., & Autio, E. (2025). Tokens’ Dual Role in DAOs: Enabling Collective Governance and Shaping Outcomes. [Manuscript in preparation]
    • Identifies three governance mechanisms enabling coordination in hybrid human-algorithmic organizations: token duality (recursive market-authority dynamics), selective centralization (functional authority within decentralized systems), and structured transparency (managing information architectures). Based on 24.9M words of governance discourse across MakerDAO, Synthetix, and Compound.
    • Recipient, 2024 Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Conference Ph.D. Paper Prize

  • Lin, X., Hsieh, Y.-Y., & Autio, E. How Do Algorithmic and Social Governance Drive Governance Adaptations in Decentralized Organizations? [Manuscript in preparation]
    • Examines how organizations adapt governance structures when integrating algorithmic decision-making systems. Reveals how social and algorithmic governance interact to shape organizational adaptation patterns.
    • Nominee, 2023 Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Conference Research Methods Paper Prize
    • Nominee, 2023 Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Conference Ph.D. Paper Prize

  • Lin, X., & Corley, K. G. (2025). Preserving Researcher Agency When Adding AI Tools to a Grounded Theory Study: Introducing Scalable Inductive Grounded NLP Approach (SIGNA). [Manuscript in preparation]
    • Research infrastructure enabling qualitative researchers across social sciences to analyze large-scale data (24.9M words, 177K proposals) while maintaining interpretive rigor. Addresses bottleneck in studying organizational phenomena at computational scale without losing theoretical depth. Demonstrates transferability: applied to organizational strategy (AMJ R&R), DAO governance (dissertation), and entrepreneurial processes.
    • Grant Recipient, OpenAI Researcher Access Program, 2024
    • Grant Recipient, Cohere for AI Research Grant Program, 2024
    • Grant Recipient, Google Cloud Research Credits Program, 2023

  • Puranam, P. (INSEAD), Hsieh, Y.-Y. (Imperial), Shrestha, Y. (University of Lausanne), & Lin, X. (2025). Consensus Formation in DAOs. [Manuscript in preparation]
    • Examines how decentralized organizations reach collective decisions at scale. Develops multi-agent analytical framework for understanding governance proposals and coordination patterns in distributed decision-making.

  • daogov: A Public Dataset on DAO Governance Coordination [Data preparation stage]
    • 78 decentralized organizations, 260K governance discussions, ~40.3 million words of deliberation and decision-making records
    • Enables empirical investigation of collective coordination mechanisms, governance adaptation patterns, and organizational responses to algorithmic integration
    • Ongoing data cleaning and transformer-based labeling using grounded theory approach

  • Lin, X. (2025). Cognitio Emergens: Agency, Dimensions, and Dynamics in Human–AI Knowledge Co-Creation. [Preprint on arXiv]
    • Framework explaining how organizations transform when they institutionalize human-AI partnerships. Shows how governance mechanisms (rituals, guards, logs) enable structural compression (fewer hierarchical layers, wider spans of control) and shift control logic from ex-ante prescription to ex-post coherence validation. Provides organizational design principles for managing algorithmic integration.

Public Scholarship

Organized Symposia

  • “Human & Artificial Intelligence in Organizations (HAIO): Interdisciplinary Impact”
    • Symposium, September 2024, Imperial College London
    • Co-organizers: Kevin Corley (Department of Management and Entrepreneurship), Chris Tucci (Imperial-X), David Shrier (Centre for Digital Transformation), Mark Kennedy (Data Science Institute)
    • Panelists: Jennifer Ding (Alan Turing Institute), Lujian Ibrahim (Oxford), Winnie Street (Google Research),
      Kevin R. McKee (Google Deepmind), Aidan Peppin (Cohere for AI), Martin Anthony (LSE),
      Susan Scott (Imperial)

  • “Humans and Algorithms in Organizations: Navigating the Intersection of Blockchain and AI”
    • Panel Symposium, 2024 Academy of Management Annual Meeting (Chicago, Illinois)
    • Co-chairs: Magnus van Haaren (RSM) & Carlos Santana (NTNU)
    • Panelists: Oliver Baumann (SDU), Robert Wayne Gregory (U-M), Hanna Halaburda (NYU Stern),
      Vivianna Fang He (St. Gallen), and Alex Murray (Oregon)

  • “Web3 Decentralization: Blockchain Technologies’ Impact on Modern Organizational Governance”
    • Panel Symposium, 2023 Academy of Management Annual Meeting (Boston, Massachusetts)
    • Co-chairs: Magnus van Haaren (RSM) & Wenqian Wang (HKBU)
    • Panelists: Ethan Bernstein (HBS), Hanna Halaburda (NYU), Ying-Ying Hsieh (Imperial),
      Alex Murray (Oregon), Joana Pereira (LUBS), and Jean-Philippe Vergne (UCL)

Presentations

  • “Tokens’ Dual Role in DAOs: Enabling Collective Governance and Shaping Outcomes”
    • Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Meeting, Istanbul, 2024

  • “Rethinking Organizational Design: Governance of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)”
    • CCC Doctoral Conference, Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, 2024

  • “How Do Algorithmic and Social Governance Drive Governance Adaptations in Decentralized Organizations?”
    • SEI Research Day, Imperial Business School, London, 2023
    • Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Meeting, Toronto, 2023
    • University of Edinburgh Business School (UEBS) Paper Development Workshop, Edinburgh, 2023
    • SEI Research Day, Bayes Business School, London, 2022

  • “MakerDAO Demystified: Exploring the Decentralized Nature of a Stablecoin Ecosystem”
    • UK FinTech Academic Network (UKFAN) Annual Conference, London, 2023

  • “Commons and Tokens—Governance Modes in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)”
    • Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Online, 2021

Guest Lectures

  • “AI for Social Science: The Evolution of AI in Literature Reviews and Beyond”
    • Systematic Reviews module at the PhD program, Imperial Business School, 2023 & 2024 (Slides)
    • Discussed challenges, opportunities, and best practices for leveraging AI in social science research

  • “How will AI Transform Research Process”
    • Research Seminar, King’s Business School, King’s College London, 2024
    • Contributed to discussion on AI-augmented organizational research methods
    • Invited by Prof. Phanish Puranam (INSEAD), main seminar speaker

  • “Teaching AI to Lend a Hand: Customizing Large Language Models (LLMs) for Data, Writing & Coding”
    • Methods Reading Group, Imperial Business School, 2023 & 2024 (Slides)

Teaching

  • Systematic Reviews, Imperial Business School, 2025
    • Co-instructor with Erkko Autio (MRes Module)
    • Co-designed and co-teach pioneering curriculum on AI-augmented systematic reviews for organizational research
    • Train doctoral students to design, execute, and validate complex literature reviews using portfolios of AI agents
    • Develop student expertise in strategic AI delegation, quality control of AI outputs, and maintaining intellectual ownership
    • Lead hands-on tutorials creating ethically-aware AI-augmented researchers
    • Course materials documented as Research Memex
  • Management, Strategy, and Innovation in FinTech, Imperial Business School, 2022-2024
    • Teaching Assistant to Ying-Ying Hsieh
    • Developed a teaching case to help students understand the unique aspects of collectively managing and growing a DAO (Case materials)
  • Technology and Innovation Management, Imperial Business School, 2023-2024
    • Teaching Assistant to Anne ter Wal
  • Strategic Management, Imperial Business School, 2022-2024
    • Teaching Assistant to Yuri Mishina

Academic Experience

  • INSEAD, 2024
    • Research Assistant to Phanish Puranam, 2024
  • Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, 2018 – 2019
    • Research Assistant to Johan Chu (MIT)

Skills

  • Qualitative Research
    • Grounded Theory, Interviews, Ethnography
    • BERTopic, ATLAS.ti

  • Programming Languages & Software Tools
    • Python, R, TypeScript

Applied AI Projects

  • AI Systems for Human-AI Collaboration
    • Multi-Agent AI Systems for Collaborative Research (Video demo & Blog post)
      • Streamlit application to orchestrate role-based AI discussions using various LLMs (via OpenRouter)
      • Multi-agent AI interactions and human-AI teaming for complex problem-solving
    • Interactive Knowledge Building Chatbots (GitHub & Railway)
      • Discord bot using OpenAI’s assistant API with source attribution and verification
      • RAG-based applications using Langchain and Streamlit for verifiable knowledge exploration

  • AI Research Tools & Frameworks
    • AI Prompt Engineering Framework
      • AI Research Prompts: Systematically curated prompts for enhancing LLM capabilities through cognitive techniques and specialized task solutions and for studying language model behaviors and human-agent interactions
    • Custom GPTs for Research
      • BERTopic Navigator: Integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT with BERTopic for enhanced topic modeling implementation
      • Red Pen Scholar: Writing assistant with transparent feedback based on the principles of the University of Chicago’s Little Red Schoolhouse writing program
      • Academic Notes Assistant: Research tool for systematic source attribution and verification

  • Research Resources & Knowledge Base

Reviewing

  • Ad Hoc Reviewer
    • Strategic Management Society Annual Conference, 2024-Present
    • Data for Policy, “Decoding the Future: Trustworthy Governance with Al?”, London, 2024
    • Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2021 – Present
    • Academy of Management Discoveries, Special Research Forum (SRF) on “The Human Side of the Future of Work: Understanding the Role People Play in Shaping a Changing World”, 2022

Service

  • Student Representative

  • Volunteer
    • SMS 42nd Annual Conference, London, 2022
    • International Symposium on Corporate, Digital and Wicked Acceleration, 2022
    • Doctoral Student Staff Committee, Imperial Business School, 2019 – 2020

  • Contributor
    • Administrative Science Quarterly Student Blog, 2020
      • Lin, X., & Scholz, N. (2021). Ter Wal, Criscuolo, McEvily and Salter (2020). Dual Networking: How Collaborators Network in Their Quest for Innovation. The ASQ Blog. Link.

Professional Affiliations

Academy of Management (AOM)
Strategic Management Society (SMS)
Consortium for the Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis (CARMA)
Organizational Design Community (ODC)
London Qualitative Community (LQC)
Decentralization in Organizations (DiO)

Languages

Mandarin Chinese (native)
English (fluent)
English Braille (Grade 1)

References