I am a Lecturer in International Human Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Prior to joining Edinburgh in 2019, I worked at the University of St Andrews as an Associate Lecturer in Management. I obtained my PhD from Cardiff Business School in 2017.

Focusing on the politics of social evaluation, my research explores how organisations are increasingly evaluated through political, ideological, and geopolitical lenses, and how these evaluations shape organisational legitimacy, identity, stakeholder relationships, and strategic action.

I am particularly interested in the nexus between geopolitics and business. Across this work, I study how national security concerns emerge around foreign firms, cross-border investments, and strategic technologies, and how such concerns shape their social evaluation. In Lai and Potočnik (2026), I show how national security threat accusations against an MNE function as negative signals in recruitment, reducing job seekers’ organisational attraction and job-pursuit intentions. It also demonstrates the limits of CSR in offsetting the effects of such crises. In Lai and Fortwengel (2025), I provide insights into why politically embedded identities can become a source of constraint when multinational corporations later face national security scrutiny amid geopolitical tensions. 

Overall, my current research focuses on multinational technology firms. I examine how technology becomes a site of state power and geopolitical contestation, and how firms and innovations become entangled with national security concerns and legitimacy challenges. As an extension of my broader research on social evaluation, I also study third-sector organisations operating within complex systems of commissioning, funding, partnership, and public accountability.​

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