This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember your browser. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media, and for marketing purposes. By using this website, you accept and agree to be bound by UVic’s Terms of Use for web and social media privacy.  If you do not agree to the above, you can configure your browser’s setting to “do not track.”

Skip to main content
People Departments Maps Buildings Rooms A-Z
Sign in Online tools Sign out
Gustavson School of Business logo

Simon Pek

Gustavson researcher Simon Pek

Associate Professor; Associate Director, Centre for Regenerative Futures (CRF)

Contact:
Office: BEC 476 250-472-5349
Area(s) of expertise:
Organizational democracy, employee ownership, organizational culture, corporate sustainability, deliberative democracy, sustainable business
Related links:

Biography

Simon Pek is an associate professor of business and society at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, and director of the School’s Centre for Regenerative Futures. His research interests include alternative forms of organizing, employee ownership, sustainability-oriented culture change, and workplace democracy. He is particularly interested in exploring how organizations can achieve their social and environmental objectives using democratic innovations. 

Simon has also helped implement several public deliberations. For example, he served as the steering committee lead of the Ontario Assembly on Workplace Democracy, as a special advisor on the Students' Assembly on Reducing Harms from Toxic Drugs, and as the project lead of the Students’ Dialogue on Democratic Engagement. He has engaged with various media outlets to offer commentary and discuss his work, including CBC’s Marketplace, CBC’s Canada Tonight, Global News and Radio-Canada International.  

Simon is very open to connecting with prospective collaborators, graduate students, and organizations working in his areas of interest and expertise.

Teaching

Select courses taught

  • Innovation and Design (MBA)
  • Research Foundations (PhD)
  • People and the Future of Work (TELUS MBA)
  • Designing Innovative Organizations (MBA)
  • Business and Sustainability (BCom)
  • Alternative Forms of Organizing (BCom)

Selected recent publications

Journal publications

Gadola, S., Pek, S., Trabucchi, D., & Buganza, T. (2026). More than just digital platforms: A framework to uncover the characteristics of platform cooperatives through platform business models. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 229, 124725. 

Busaan, L., & Pek, S. (2026). The evolution of broad-based employee ownership in Canada. International Review of Applied Economics, 40(3-4), 520-541. 

Manelli, L., Pek, S., Waldkirch, M., Hachigian, H., Jamal, A., Thomsen, S., ... & Hatchuel, A. (2026). Beyond ownership as usual: The implications of steward-ownership for management research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 35(3), 227-252. 

Pek, S., & Busaan, L. (2026). Advancing Employee Voice Through Insights From Democratic Innovations. Human Resource Management Journal. 

Kennedy, J., & Pek, S. (2026). Deliberative constitutionalism in non-state contexts: Deliberation to, from and through constitutional reform. Global Constitutionalism, 1-28. 

Mannan, M., & Pek, S. (2026). Corporate Platforms to Cooperative DAOs: Understanding the potential and problems of a plurality of digital labor platform archetypes. Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management, 14(1), 100284. 

Panwar, R., Dahlmann, F., Louche, C., & Pek, S. (2026). Thinking With, Not Just About, Nature: Reimagining the Business–Nature Relationship. Business & Society, 00076503261425556. 

Monette, G., Ziegler, R., & Pek, S. (2026). Cooperating Freely: Advancing a Republican Conception of Cooperative Governance. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-17. 

Pek, S., & Kennedy, J. (2025). Deliberative impact and governance: toward a wider evaluation of student mini-publics and their consequences. Higher Education, 1-22. 

Pek, S., Segarra, P., Rodriguez, E., & Prasad, A. (2025). Misclassification, tipping and the responsibilisation of work in the Global South. Work, Employment and Society, 39(5), 1280-1289. 

Mannan, M., & Pek, S. (2024). Platform cooperatives and the dilemmas of platform worker‐member participation. New technology, work and employment, 39(2), 219-237.

Practitioner and policy-oriented publications

Kennedy, J., & Pek, S. (2026). Understanding and Developing Deliberative Approaches to University Governance. 

Pek, S., Hemingway, A., & McAdams, B. (2026). Is it time to ban tipping in Canada and enact a living wage?. 

Kennedy, J., & Pek, S. (2024). More deliberation, not debate. Stanford Social Innovation Review. 

Pek, S., & Kennedy, J. (2024). Democratic organizations struggle with democracy, too. Here’s what they can do about it. 

Ellis, P., Stevens, M., Kennedy, J., & Pek, S. (2023). Student mini-publics: How to run democratic innovations in universities.

Special projects

The Promise and Potential of Democratic Innovations in Organizations

Organizations of all types, whether cooperatives, labour unions, student unions, or privately-held firms, face challenges involving their members and stakeholders in decision-making. Democratic innovations like citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting have the potential to address these challenges and help organizations achieve their social and environmental objectives. Simon is currently working with various organizations on collaborative research projects to study the implementation and impacts of these innovations. If you are interested in exploring potential collaborations, please do not hesitate to contact him.