Latha Poonamallee, PhD
Professor of Management & Social Innovation
School of Design Strategies
Parsons School of Design
The New School

This paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) can act as a co-creation partner to foster social equity leading to social sustainability by addressing persistent barriers faced by women and minority entrepreneurs. We develop a theoretical framework integrating social capital theory and the resource-based view to analyze how AI can systematically address resource gaps across structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions while serving as a strategic capability that enables competitive advantage. Modern AI systems including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity represent practical technologies already operational for everyday entrepreneurs through accessible platforms, low-cost subscriptions, and no-code tools enabling workflow automation with minimal technical skill. While prior work has explored how social capital creates competitive advantages, little research explains how AI technologies specifically enhance both social capital development and resource-based competitive advantage simultaneously for ventures of underrepresented entrepreneurs. This study explicitly identifies the entrepreneurial venture as the unit of analysis and articulates five testable propositions on AI’s influence across structural, relational, and cognitive capital, clarifying mechanisms by which AI functions as a technological mediator that democratizes access to both network resources and strategic capabilities for underrepresented founders. Using AI-generated hypotheticals from Los Angeles demonstrating replicable processes with current technologies like retrieval-augmented generation and cloud AI workspaces, we show that AI-enhanced social capital can reduce venture development disparities while generating distinctive advantages for strategically adopting entrepreneurs. The framework requires empirical validation through longitudinal studies and acknowledges dependencies on infrastructure, ecosystem support, and cultural context, ultimately reconceptualizing AI as an active partner, illustrating that equity and competitive excellence are complementary and achievable through deliberate AI-enabled social capital development.

Dr. Latha Poonamallee is a Professor of Management & Social Innovation in the School of Design Strategies in the New School Parsons School of Design.

She works on two major research areas both focused on how management, organizations, and leadership can be vehicles to create a more sustainable, prosperous, just, and equitable world. She is the Founder and Director of Management and Social Justice Collective that has convened thousands of people from over 66 countries since its inception in 2020. The collective welcomes submissions and proposals to the 2026 Management and Social Justice Conference to be hosted in New York between April 29-May 1, 2026. The theme is Entrepreneurship and Social Justice.

She is also the co-founder and CEO of In-Med Prognostics, a med-tech firm that uses AI and Deep Tech to develop brain health predictive analytics.

Dr. Poonamallee received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, M.B.A. from Pondicherry University, and B.A. and M.A. from University of Madras.

Latha Poonamallee, PhD
Professor of Management & Social Innovation
Chair of the Faculty of Management
Milano School of Policy, Management, & Environment
The New School

The accelerating climate crisis demands innovative approaches that address both systemic drivers of environmental degradation and the psychological barriers to sustained pro-environmental action. Traditional climate communication often relies on fear-based messaging, which risks triggering eco-anxiety, disengagement, or paralysis, ultimately underlying long-term behavioral change. This paper proposes mindfulness as an evidence-based alternative to foster sustained proenvironmental behavior (PEB) by integrating insights from neurocognitive science, Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and social diffusion theory. We present a novel framework outlining five pathways through which mindfulness cultivates PEB:(1) enhanced emotional regulation (2) intrinsic motivation and values-behavior alignment (3) nature connectedness (4) collective action, and (5) cognitive flexibility. Critically, we examine structural barriers to scaling mindfulness interventions-including inequities, commercialization risks, and the individualism paradox—and propose mitigation strategies ground in empirical research. By bridging contemplative science with sustainability praxis, this work advances SDG-aligned strategies (SDG 12, 13) that prioritize both inner resilience and systemic change. It offers a roadmap for research and practice beyond fear-based approaches.

Dr. Latha Poonamallee is a tenured Professor of Management & Social Innovation and Chair of the Faculty of Management at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment & School of Undergraduate Studies, and University Fellow at The New School.

She works on two major research areas both focused on how management, organizations, and leadership can be vehicles to create a more sustainable, prosperous, just, and equitable world.

She serves as Editor in Chief of the Society of Advancement of Management Journal, a preeminent journal that has been published for over 75 years. She also received a Fulbright Scholarship to assist Botswana government, USAID, and Botswana Civil Society in developing a nation-wide social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

She is also the co-founder and Chairperson of In-Med Prognostics, a neuroscience firm that uses AI and Deep Tech to develop brain health predictive analytics. This firm has received accolades such as the Falling Walls Conference (Germany), BIRAC grant (Government of India grant), and GE Health Care’s Edison Startup Collaboration Venture.

Dr. Poonamallee received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, M.B.A. from Pondicherry University, and B.A. and M.A. from University of Madras.

Latha Poonamallee
Associate Professor of Management and Social Innovation
Chair of Management Programs
Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment
The New School

Choice of legal structures is a key decision that social enterprises make early in their lives. The range of options now includes not only the traditional for-profit and non-profit structures, but also the new hybrid structures. Viewing legal structures primarily as ‘governance mechanisms to support the mission’, the current social enterprise literature regards ‘mission’ as the normative basis for legal structure choices. Empirical work in the non-profit and social enterprise literatures, however, surfaces another salient, yet under-theorised concern driving legal structure choices, namely resources. In this paper, we aim to develop resource dependence perspectives as an alternate theoretical lens to understand legal structure choices. In this study of 14 New York based socio-tech enterprises, we uncover how, in an interplay of resource needs, autonomy and legitimacy concerns, legal structures emerge as strategic tools to attract the external resource providers that the social enterprises want to form resource relations with and avoid the ones they are wary of. Our findings contribute to advancing the notion of legal structures as a ‘vehicle for resource mobilisation’, and to lay the foundations for a resource dependent framework to examine social enterprise legal structure choices.

Dr. Latha Poonamallee is a tenured Associate Professor of Management & Social Innovation and Chair of the Faculty of Management at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment & School of Undergraduate Studies, and University Fellow at The New School.

She works on two major research areas both focused on how management, organizations, and leadership can be vehicles to create a more sustainable, prosperous, just, and equitable world.

She serves as Editor in Chief of the Society of Advancement of Management Journal, a preeminent journal that has been published for over 75 years. She also received a Fulbright Scholarship to assist Botswana government, USAID, and Botswana Civil Society in developing a nation-wide social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

She is also the co-founder and Chairperson of In-Med Prognostics, a neuroscience firm that uses AI and Deep Tech to develop brain health predictive analytics. This firm has received accolades such as the Falling Walls Conference (Germany), BIRAC grant (Government of India grant), and GE Health Care’s Edison Startup Collaboration Venture.

Dr. Poonamallee received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, M.B.A. from Pondicherry University, and B.A. and M.A. from University of Madras.