Christian Busch

Join us for the SMS conference symposium on the strategic role of chance, luck, and serendipity! A panel of inspiring thinkers and doers will explore how organizations can cultivate environments where chance encounters and unexpected connections turn into opportunities.

The book invites us to reframe how we see ourselves and the world, so we can stay composed in pivotal moments, sustain courage over time, and inspire what Ranjay calls “collective courage”. As he once put it at our Academy of Management serendipity symposium, “we should give luck a chance!"

Congratulations to Ranjay Gulati on today’s launch of *How to Be Bold*!

As Adam Grant puts it, it's "an engrossing, evidence-based, and actionable guide to acting in the face of fear": lnkd.in/gECPs7hj

Is serendipity really serendipitous? Henry Mintzberg just published a wonderfully playful reflection that grew out of our last Academy of Management session on serendipity.

A light, insightful read on how small, unplanned moments can shape organizations and careers: bit.ly/henrymintzbe...

What's the role of emotion and energy when it comes to serendipity? Great new paper by Nele Terveen in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, well worth a read!

Well worth a read! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How do chance, luck, and serendipity really shape strategy?

We’ll explore this question at the upcoming SMS conference in San Francisco.

We’d love for you to join, and to share with anyone else who might be curious about the topic!

The hidden architecture of failure – understanding “zemblanity” - LSE Business Review Human agency embeds fragility into systems, creating misfortune by design. Resilience depends on dismantling the patterns that make bad luck inevitable.

Human agency embeds fragility into systems, creating misfortune by design.

Resilience depends on dismantling the patterns that make bad luck inevitable.

@chrisserendip.bsky.social

Many thanks for your kind words, @buildit.bsky.social, much appreciated!

If you are working on new research (or stories) on serendipity, please share below so we can keep the conversation going!
P.S. For those working on research related to chance and serendipity, here’s the SMJ special issue call for papers: bit.ly/smjserendipity

Towards a Theory of Serendipity: A Systematic Review and Conceptualization Serendipity – the notion of making surprising and valuable discoveries – plays a major role in the success of individuals and organizations alike. Previous research has established the importance of ...

This paper is very close to my heart, shaped by many of these conversations. It develops a theory grounded in three elements (agency, surprise, & value) that clarifies how serendipity differs from luck & shows how individuals and organizations can create the conditions for it: bit.ly/JMSSerendipity

How do we turn the unexpected into something valuable? Over the past few years, I’ve been part of a growing community exploring this question. I’m thrilled that one outcome—a paper developing a theory of serendipity—has just received the 2024 Best Paper Award from the Journal of Management Studies!

One of the reasons I love academia: working with curious, hardworking students to prepare them for a meaningful (& lucky!) life by “cultivating serendipity.” This year’s MBA students in our USC Career Launchpad (Consulting Track) brought incredible energy, sharp thinking, and great questions.

A graphic showing how you find serendipity by Christian Busch, How to be lucky. https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-open-up-to-serendipity-and-create-your-own-luck

"You might think of serendipity as passive luck that just happens to you, when actually it’s an active process of spotting and connecting the dots."

psyche.co/guides/how-t...

Do you have a paper idea on chance, luck, or serendipity? We’re excited to invite submissions for our session at the Academy of Management 2025 Annual Meeting; deadline is tomorrow (July 15)!

Saturday, July 26, 14:00–16:00, Bella Center: Auditorium 10

Submit here: shorturl.at/P78Vj

What if the most transformative learning moments aren't planned?

A great new editorial by professor Sigrid Harendza in the GMS Journal for Medical Education explores the role of serendipity in medical education, and offers a powerful reminder for any field: journals.publisso.de/index.php/en...

“If this was the last day of my life, would I rather have dinner with the important customer or with her"? Steve Jobs' beautiful serendipity story (and our related research) featured in INC.: bit.ly/JobsSerendip....

More on our related research: bit.ly/nextbigideaclub

Delighted that Dan Wadhwani will be the next Director of USC's Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies! Dan is such a great person to carry the center forward.

If you’re interested in entrepreneurship research and practice in LA and beyond, this is your place! www.marshall.usc.edu/departments/...

Wonderful to see how much momentum the serendipity conversation is gaining at this year’s Academy of Management meeting:𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 won 𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 & there are 20ish serendipity-related items on the agenda! If anyone still needs an excuse to explore this space, here it is:)

Some of my favorite moments:

- Neurodiversity as a driver of serendipity ("active luck"), and especially how people with ADHD can excel at connecting dots others might overlook.

- The reminder that small shifts matter; sometimes all it takes is asking a different question.

Life’s twists aren’t always in our control; but how we respond is.

It was a real pleasure to speak at the recent Learn-A-Thon hosted by PayPal, where we explored how "career luck" can be cultivated.

The idea isn’t to chase some forced notion of “always stay positive.” It’s about rational optimism.

A big thank you to the organizers of the Babson Entrepreneurship Conference for an inspiring few days! Beyond learning from so many great conversations, I was grateful for the chance to talk about the 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 special issue on chance, luck & serendipity: bit.ly/smjserendipity

YouTube video by USC Institute of Armenian Studies The Language of Luck: Cultivating Serendipity with Christian Busch

How we talk about luck—and serendipity—shapes how we experience it.

In this conversation with Shushan Karapetian, we explore how language, culture, and mindset influence our ability to spot and act on the unexpected.

👉 Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzPU...

#SerendipityMindset #Leadership

How can we create "active luck" for impact and innovation? Looking forward to this upcoming NGO Academy talk on The Serendipity Mindset (virtual/open to all). Join us?

🗓️ 21 May 2025 | 🕕 6:00–7:30pm CEST | 💻 Online
🔗 bit.ly/ngoserendipity

There’s also a free, downloadable 𝙎𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 — with key exercises and practices to help build your “serendipity muscle”: 📘 theserendipitymindset.com/resources/

The updated Serendipity Mindset homepage now includes links to all international editions and translations of 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙈𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙚𝙩: theserendipitymindset.com/books/

But without ongoing support, such as mentorship networks and access pathways, serendipity risks stalling when new systemic barriers emerge.

This has important implications for policymakers: sustainable impact depends on designing opportunity systems, not just one-off solutions.

In our upcoming podcast conversation, we explore how cultivating (compound) serendipity requires embedding structures that allow momentum to build and accelerate over time. A one-time intervention—like offering a scholarship to a student from a less privileged background—can spark opportunity.

“Compound serendipity works like compound interest.” As Gita Wirjawan-Indonesia’s former Minister of Trade and a remarkable lateral thinker- reflected, serendipity often isn’t just about isolated chance moments. It’s about creating systems where opportunity keeps building on itself.

𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀: 𝗔𝗼𝗠 𝗣𝗗𝗪 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗸 & 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗽𝗶𝘁𝘆

Does your research explore themes of luck, serendipity, or chance? We invite you to join our Academy of Management PDW at the 2025 Annual Meeting–and receive constructive feedback on your work! 📩 Submit here: bit.ly/aom2025pdw

The paper explores a key tension many organizations face—how to enable serendipity without over-engineering it. The study unpacks mechanisms that reveal how employee agency, autonomy, and power dynamics shape when serendipity emerges—or fails to—as a process of individual and collective value-making