One of Our Best Kept Secrets...

Writing this from Nagoya, Japan where I am running the junior faculty consortium of the Academy of International Business (AIB), and preparing to introduce Professor James Mirrlees, the 1996 Nobel Laureate in Economics, who is addressing the consortium.

As I glance through the program, it strikes me how influential Carlson faculty and alumni have been in the field of International Business (IB). I run into Carlson emeriti faculty Stefanie Lenway (a former president of AIB) and Tom Murtha, known for their work on global innovation networks. I meet Carlson alumna Susan Feinberg, a professor at Rutgers and incoming program chair of AIB, at breakfast. Current Carlson faculty who are making waves in IB include Paul Vaaler, doing cutting edge work on multinational firms' influence on politics through their developing country investments, Lisa Leslie, whose 33-nation study on tight and loose cultures has just been published in Science, Gurneeta Singh, who examines how the national institutional context influences the types of R&D alliances forged, Carlos Torelli and Mike Houston, who have contributed rich insights on marketing across cultures, and Ian Maitland whose work on international sweatshops continues to garner attention. My own work on the liability of foreignness has spawned reams of follow-on work, beyond anything I had expected when l wrote that piece, as has Myles Shaver's work on foreign direct investment and Aks Zaheer and my work on trust across borders. That we are a powerhouse in IB is beginning to be recognized - it was a significant factor in our being awarded a grant to start a Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) this year.

What I am perhaps most proud of at AIB this year is that the very first doctoral student I worked with at Carlson, Tatiana Kostova (PhD, 1996, pictured below), now the Buck Mickel Chair and Professor of International Business at South Carolina, is being inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, the highest honor in the field. Apart from being a deep and interesting scholar, Tatiana is also an amazing teacher, whose passion for international business is infectious. Please join me in congratulating one of our distinguished PhD alumni on receiving this singular honor!