Faculty

At a time when European unemployment rates are soaring, particularly in countries such as France and Germany, Gayle Allard´s research on the effects of welfare-state policies on employment and unemployment is of particular relevance.

Recently,Professor Allard has focused on how the welfare state affects productivity as well as jobs, and what effect immigration flows have on the labor market. She has developed an indicator for employment-protection legislation that covers all of the OECD countries since 1950, along with a new indicator for the generosity of unemployment benefits for the same countries and period. “It’s fascinating to see how implementing and even just administering these policies differently gives rise to very different results,” she says. And as with her research, Allard’s teaching of economic environment and international economics is always done in reference to what is happening in the real world. “I try to touch on everything that’s relevant to business,” she says. “I give real life examples and I’m always bringing up comparative data, different models and different approaches. Operating at the level of the ivory tower just doesn’t seem intuitive and it is natural to me to deal with the real world.”

The point where business and politics meet is the main focus of David Bach’s teaching and research activities. “Politics has always been important for business,” he says, “but owing to globalisation and new demands on companies, executives must more than ever engage in skilful political management.”

With considerable professional experience consulting for companies such as McKinsey, Prof Bach watches with interest the way that globalisation and new technologies transform the business environment. The opening up of domestic industries and foreign markets has given companies tremendous new opportunities. However, new public scrutiny facilitated by the Internet and 24h news media combined with the need to simultaneously manage different social and political environments is posing fresh challenges. “As a result, the so-called ‘non-market environment’ of business is becoming increasingly important for the formulation and implementation of strategy,” he adds.

His ability to join the dots between these interacting forces is also what comes through in his teaching, in courses such as Business, Government and Society, as well as in his work in leading academic journals, which have published his studies on industry self-regulation, the politics of Internet telephony, the transformation of the music industry, and China’s growing influence in the field of information technology. “There’s only a handful of people with a background in political science that make the transition to management education,” he says. “I’m fortunate to work at the intersection of two incredibly interesting fields.”

With interests lying in international political economy, Professor Blyth´s research spans several fields, aiming to be as interdisciplinary as possible. He draws from political science, economics, sociology, complexity theory and evolutionary theory. His work focuses on the politics of ideas, political parties, politics of finance and how institutions (and therefore disciplines) change. “Parts of the traditional MBA curriculum have been at the eye of the storm of the financial crisis” he says. “Abstract and formal theory was seen as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. What the IE Brown program does is to draw on the strengths of Brown, its depth in the historical sciences and the humanities, to put that theory in context, grounding and contextualizing the knowledge needed to perform in a networked economy.”

Prof. Cammett is the Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at Brown University. Specializing in the political economy of development and the Middle East, she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on comparative politics, development, and Middle East politics. The author or co-author of several books, Cammett argues that it is impossible to understand the impact of globalization on the Global South without understanding the history behind business-government-labor relations. “One of the many exciting things about the IE Brown collaboration is its attention to the roots of social and economic change – a focus that is so critical to future leaders and yet is often lost in traditional business programs.”

An expert in strategic marketing, some years ago Professor Ramón Díaz Bernardo decided to extend his field of research to tourism and hotel marketing strategy. In order to consolidate his position as an authority on this field, in 2005 he moved to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where he spent a year at the School of Hotel Administration as Visiting Professor, doing research and teaching doing research and teaching in aspects related with tourism marketing, hotel marketing strategy and franchising in the hospitality and restaurant industry. In 2007 he was designated coordinator of the Spanish Tourism Strategic Plan 2020 by the Spanish Ministry of Tourism.

Professor Díaz Bernardo holds a degree in Mining Engineering from Universidad de Oviedo (Spain), an MSc in Engineering by the University of Nottingham, an MBA from ESDEN Business School (Madrid) and he is a Doctor in Business Administration (Ph.D.) from IESE Business School. He is an active member of the Academy of Marketing and the American Marketing Association, where he is a regular contributor at their annual meetings. Furthermore he has been visiting professor at Cornell University (USA), Reykjavik University (Iceland), IAE Business School (Argentina) and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile), among other international business schools.

It was his time spent working in industry and the private sector - including experience as a maintenance manager for a water supply system, consulting contracts in the oil, steel and aluminium industries as well as a stint with the Venezuelan metro system - that gave Prof Díaz many of his insights into the implementation of not only of Operations Management and Logistics but also of Information Technology.

“What’s really interesting is to realise that every implementation has two sides,” he says. “On is technical and involves processes, and the other is organisational. And you shouldn’t take these apart - you need an integrated view of the organisation.” And his views on operations management, logistics and information technology systems, have been aired in more than 40 publications - among them the International Journal of Logistics and the European Journal of Operations Research - as well as in his three books. But if Prof Díaz is a prolific writer, he also has extensive teaching experience, having taught in at least 13 countries.

When José Esteves talks about information systems it is with intensity and a passion that is founded not only in the technology itself but also in the human side of these systems. Focusing on areas such as knowledge management, the implementation of enterprise systems and, more recently, enterprise risk management, Prof Esteves believes it is the way people interact with information technology that will determine the success or failure of its implementation.

A wealth of experience in the corporate world underpins this belief. As an information systems analyst and consultant for companies such as Ciba-Geigy and Sonae Group and before joining the academic world, Prof Esteves focused on understanding how information systems interacted with business processes and human resources management.

In addition to his research and teaching, Prof Esteves continues to act as a consultant to a number of companies - something he believes makes an important contribution to his academic activities. And his theories continue to be aired in prominent journals and books, such as his chapter on Understanding ERP Systems Implementation in a Higher Education Institution: A Grounded Theory Approach, in Idea group’s 2004 book Qualitative Case Studies on Enterprise Wide Systems. "Consulting provides fieldwork, data and results because, without examples, it’s all just theory. So it’s a cycle - consulting, research and then applying it in the classes."

Richard Fishman is an award-winning sculptor and Professor of Art University. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in London and Montreal. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from Tulane. He has been awarded both the Howard Foundation and Guggenheim Fellowships. Richard is primarily interested in sculpture. In the past few years he has focused on a combination between old world techniques using stone and glass as well as new technologies involving computer aided imaging and 3-dimensional rapid prototyping. His more recent interests have expanded to include new innovations in virtual sculpting techniques and digital technologies.

Ian Gonsher was raised in Kansas. After completing his degrees in Industrial Design and Art History at the University of Kansas, he worked for the Vitra Design Museum in France, and then in Brazil designing furniture. Ian has taught at Brown since graduating from RISD in 2006, earning his MFA in Furniture Design. His work and teaching cross disciplines, integrating art and design into a broad range of contexts. He is interested in the way in which the creative process can be translated across disciplines and foster community and collaboration. Some of Ian’s work can viewed at his website: www.gonsherdesign.com.

Dr. Angus Kingon is a physical chemist, engineer, materials scientist, inventor, management professor and entrepreneur. In July 2008, he began a three-year appointment as COE director and is also the co-director of the Engineering Master’s in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, PRIME. He has been instrumental in launching the Brown-IE Executive MBA program. His background in both materials technology and business management is evident in his 300 refereed papers, seven books and six book chapters. Dr Kingon believes “that the imperative facing today´s business leaders is to be able to achieve and sustain growth, something which calls for those who can tap innovation from global sources to continuously create value for customers and society in a rapidly changing environment.”

Ulrike Klaussner works as Managing Director of the Corporate Learning Group at IE Business School, focusing on learning design and methodologies to create high impact learning interventions with practical relevance for executives and their organizations. In this context she also developed her expertise in working with groups as facilitator to strengthen the take-aways for the individual learner. She joined IE in 2004 as a Program Manager, helping corporate clients design and deliver customized educational initiatives which address specific business challenges they are facing. Prior to joining IE, Ulrike worked as Account Manager in the area of Public Affairs and Financial Communication in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt. She holds an MBA from IE Business School, an MA (with distinction) in Public Relations from Leeds Metropolitan University and a BA in Communication and Economics from Freie Universität Berlin.

Whether it is how to encourage managers to act on climate change in their industry or the extent to which the financial markets drive companies to implement strategic change, Carl Joachim Kock is fascinated by cause and effect.

In the case of the financial markets, Professor Kock believes the impact of stock prices on companies and industries is a field of management that few have studied. He finds that stock prices play an important role in affecting companies’ behavior, particularly when it comes to their investment strategies. “And this influence may not necessarily be beneficial,” he says. “Financial markets give a value to companies’ strategies, but it’s just a belief they hold, and they may be wrong, whereas a customer buying something is real feedback.”

Francisco J. López Lubián is a professor and former director of the area of finance at Instituto de Empresa. With thirty years of experience in teaching, he has been assistant professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and associate professor in the department of control at IESE. He combined this teaching career with an intense career in business as a financial analyst at Hewlett-Packard, controller for the Sarrió Group, financial director for Sarrió Tisú and general financial director for the Isolux Group.

In his own words, “My main focus of interest is to discover how to create economic value and orient decisions in order to achieve it”. Professor López Lubián regularly contributes to leading newspapers, including Financial Times, and for the last five years has collaborated with Actualidad Económica journal and Expansión newspaper to publish the ranking of value creation for the shareholder. He is currently researching best corporate practices that create value for the shareholder. “I consider this to be an extremely interesting subject, because there have been reforms everywhere to bring about good governance, but no-one has analysed if these practices really create value”.

Hana is an entrepreneurship professor at IE Business School, where she teaches in the International MBA, Masters in International Management, and IE – Brown Executive MBA Programs. Her research bridges literatures in entrepreneurship and strategy through a special interest in social networks. Specifically, she explores how new ventures can efficiently enter industry networks, the uncertainties surrounding the formation of new alliances, as well as the mechanisms through which new ventures can position themselves in the network in order to benefit most from privileged access to various resources.

Hana’s work was published in Journal of Business Venturing, Academy of Management Perspectives, and Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, and presented in some of the most prestigious conferences in the fields of Entrepreneurship and Strategy, including Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Strategic Management Society conference and Academy of Management Annual Meetings . Hana is also passionate about teaching, and believes that experiences from research and teaching complement each other. Relying on a diverse set of teaching approaches, she encourages a discussion-based learning experience with the final goal of developing students’ critical and creative thinking skills and new perspectives on the course material. Hana completed her Masters and PhD studies in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at Kelley School of Business, Indiana University.

Professor Lee Newman’s approach to research, teaching and mentoring is greatly influenced by his multidisciplinary background in psychology, computer science, management, and entrepreneurship. Prior to pursuing an academic career, Dr. Newman was a founder and senior manager in two technology startups in New York City, and he served as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company in Chicago.



Dr. Newman’s research focuses on behavioral judgment and decision making. In particular, he is interested in identifying and characterizing the heuristics, biases and errors in the way individuals reason and decide under risk and uncertainty. He is also interested in how training can be used to reduce biases and errors and improve judgment and decision making performance. His approach to the study of decision making integrates behavioral experimentation, statistical modeling, and computational modeling. Dr. Newman has taught in a number of academic disciplines including Management, Cognitive Psychology, Psychopathology, Neuropsychology, and Artificial Intelligence. In his teaching he emphasizes interaction and experiential learning through the use of experimental demonstrations and simulations. He also draws on his academic and industry experience to help students understand important and often-ignored connections between theory and application, between the classroom and the workplace, and between studies of the behavioral sciences and every-day life.

Joseph is a Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at IE, as well as a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, where he lectures and researches issues related to new enterprise formation as part of the LSE’s Department of Management.

Previous to his academic endeavors Professor Pistrui worked for 15 years in sales and marketing management, in the consumer products industry, mostly with Bristol-Myers Squibb in the US and has worked as an educator-advisor to companies including Amadeus, AstraZeneca, BBVA, Bosch, BT, DT, Microsoft, ONA Group, PGS, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch Shell, Siemens, Unilever, Vestas, and others.

Most recently, Professor Pistrui served as Managing Director for Duke Corporate Education, based in London. In this capacity he worked with Fortune 100 companies to first diagnose strategic business challenges, and then to design and deliver customized educational interventions to help client organizations develop leaders and build capabilities that advance strategy execution.

People normally think that accounting is all about numbers and economic rationality. Prof. Quattrone’s research and teaching seeks to change this conventional view. He studies accounting and management techniques for their visual power and ability to engage the user, rather than simply for their aid to rational decision making. Successful techniques such as the Balanced Scorecard, Strategic Maps, 6-Sigma and information technologies such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems all rely on various forms of visualization and rhetorical techniques which help managers to imagine new business, how to align strategy and performance and the like. These techniques and technologies rather than simply representing financial transactions and performances help organizational actors to innovate and invent new business, processes, and solutions. ‘Numbers are figures’ an Early Modern accounting scholar said. Prof. Quattrone takes this statement seriously as indeed management is made by, and produces, all sorts of graphs, images, and strategic visions which inform managers’ behaviors. From this perspective accounting and management has to do more with semiotics, visual studies and the sociology of knowledge, science and technology than with economics.

Paolo is currently working on the analysis of the visual and rhetorical techniques which allow the spread and success of management, governance and accountability practices. He is mainly interested in large multinational corporations, universities, and religious organisations and seeks to bring this wide range of interests and case material into his teaching in the areas of management accounting and control systems. He has been recently granted a Fulbright New Century Scholar Award to study the future of business education in collaboration with colleagues at Stanford University.

With a research focus on ethics, moral psychology and philosophy of mind, Prof. Reginster has been teaching 19th and 20th Century philosophy at Brown since 1994. The author of numerous articles and a book The Affirmation of Life (Harvard University Press, 2006) he is currently working on the issues of identity and social recognition, with an emphasis on recent psychological and psychoanalytical theory.

An “academic entrepreneur” from early on, Erik was the first hired member of the founding faculty at ESMT in Berlin, an international business school start-up sponsored by corporate blue-chips. A Professor of Marketing and General Management, Erik also forms part of two central pillars at IE Business School, being responsible for the entire MBA portfolio, as well as contributing to IE Executive Education. In addition, Erik holds a visiting professorship at ESMT and has recently been appointed Executive Education Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Erik has played a significant role in developing executives from companies such as Allianz, Banco Espirito Santo, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, E.ON, Elster, HVB Group, KPMG, MAN, McDonald’s, Postbank, Sampo Bank, and URSA. Moreover, he is a visiting professor in executive programs at IMD, London Business School, IEDC Bled School of Management, TKK Helsinki University of Technology, and CKGSB (Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business).

Erik’s research and teaching interests include the interfaces between marketing, strategy and innovation. He has published articles in the European Management Journal and Journal of General Management. Erik has participated in programs for faculty development at Harvard Business School, IMD in Switzerland, and Richard Ivey in Canada.

While she has the perspective of a psychologist, Cristina Simón believes that when teaching organisational behaviour and human resources management, the subject must be closely related so the harder-edged side of business. “I try not to talk as a psychologist but to talk their own language and bring the subject closer to the reality of business and corporate performance,” she says. “Our students are demanding HR with a more practical approach. The academic background is important of course - but the hands-on experience is critical.”

Professor Cristina Simon draws on considerable professional experience with consultants such as Coopers & Lybrand and Ernst & Young. And she maintains her links with the corporate world through an HR benchmarking club, which meets regularly to share data and examples of best practice in linking HR with corporate performance.

A particularly exciting new line of research for the professor, who in 2003 created the Centre for Human Resources at Instituto de Empresa (where she is currently Academic Director), is the analysis of the employment relationship. Prof Simón is fascinated by the wide range of elements in the relationship between an employee and his/her employment context, including market value, the job market, macro-economic trends and the philosophy and values of companies and the society. Within this area, Prof Simón has focused on the contingent worker, which is emerging as a new and increasingly important phenomenon. “When it comes to anything requiring specific expertise, we will start to see this kind of employment relationship emerge,” she says.

Professor Richard Snyder’s research and teaching focus on comparative politics, with an emphasis on the political economy of development, political regimes, and Latin American politics.

Author of Politics after Neoliberalism: Reregulation in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Passion, Craft and Method in Comparative Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, with Gerardo L. Munck), Prof. Snyder also frequently publishes articles on political regimes and the political economy of development, which appear in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, and World Politics. Other works to note include Diamonds, Blood, and Taxes: A Revenue-Centered Framework for Explaining Political Order (Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2005, with Ravi Bhavnani) and Dependency and Development in a Globalized World: Looking Back and Forward (Studies in Comparative International Development, 2009, with Patrick Heller and Dietrich Rueschemeyer). His current research includes a comparative study of how dependence on foreign funding affects the social sciences in Latin America.

Dr. Soderstrom’s primary teaching interests are in the areas of managerial accounting and control systems. She views these topics as critical for managers. In her classes, she emphasizes the importance of understanding both the strengths and limitations of accounting information and its proper use relative to other information for decision-making. Dr. Soderstrom has taught courses at all levels (Undergraduate, Master’s, MBA, and Ph.D.) She has given Ph.D. seminars in Europe, Asia, and Australia, including the first Ph.D. seminar ever offered at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. In addition to the International Executive Program at IE, she has taught executive education courses in Germany, China, and Taiwan.

Dr. Soderstrom’s research investigates how institutional and environmental factors influence managers’ decisions. The primary emphasis of her work has been on decisions related to cost structure within organizations, with particular focus in the health care industry. According to Dr. Soderstrom, “Health care is an important part of the economy for countries worldwide and I believe that a better understanding of what drives costs within the industry can help us to manage the cost of health care.” While much of her work is set in the health care industry, the basic questions that she investigates have implications far beyond health care. “My work examines the fundamentals of how managers set up the cost structure for their organization. The understanding that I glean through use of health care data can be readily translated to other settings.” Dr. Soderstrom has also investigated how debt rating information is used by market participants, including analysts, managers, and the debt rating agencies themselves. In recent years, her efforts increasingly involve international accounting issues and application of U.S.-based work abroad. These issues are becoming much more important for accounting researchers as U.S. financial accounting standards become more closely harmonized with international standards and new markets such as emissions trading expand into Europe.

Luis Solis is welcomed as a visiting professor at universities across Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US. A popular and internationally acclaimed professor, his courses include Strategic Operations Management, Lean & Response Service Operations, Supply Chain Management, Project Management and Quality Management, Professor Solis draws upon a vast pool of knowledge and experience gained by working with a wide range of companies around the world. He leads and participates in research initiatives among them An Empirical Study of Techno-Stress and its Impact on Business Performance and Knowledge Management and New Product Development in the Supply Chain. He regularly publishes inin various journals, including Total Quality Management, the International Journal of Technology Management and the Service Management Journal. Solis´ impressive research for the basis of his teaching. “I always use my research findings in class,” he says, explaining that he uses selected cases, exercises, simulations and videos to create an environment where students have to think about the implications of the concepts they study. Luis regularly invites industry executives to speak about real-life situations in which tools covered in the course can be applied.

Director of the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown, Prof. Steinberg was educated at Princeton University and the University of Chicago.

His main research interests include the cultural history of modern Germany and Austria with particular attention paid to German Jewish intellectual history and the cultural history of music. He has written and lectured widely on these topics for venues such as The New York Times, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Bard Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Salzburg Festival, and he serves as an advisor to the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, as well as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin.

Barbara Tannenbaum focuses on persuasive communication, gender issues in communications, corporate executive communication, and political communication in the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance at Brown University. Her skills as a teacher, lecturer and seminar leader have earned her an international clientele consisting of doctors, lawyers, state supreme and appellate court judges, politicians (including U.S. senators) and community and organization leaders. She has advised and conducted public speaking workshops with the Third World Transition Program and with the Women in Science and Engineering group at Brown. She has worked with nationally prominent non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Despite the common belief that accounting practice is simply a mechanical application of a set of rules, Marco Trombetta believes that the only way to truly account for a transaction is first to understand its economics, and only then apply the accounting mechanics. It was this intuition that positioned the theoretical economist view of accounting as a way for companies to transform raw data into useful information.

This idea is at the core of the recent developments in accounting practice. The way in which companies are created, organized and managed is in constant flux. Only a set of accounting standards and procedures that gives preference to the substance of transactions over their form will be able to keep up with the business dynamic and receive international acceptance. This spirit is embedded into the set of International Financial Reporting Standards and underlines the on-going process of harmonizing accounting standards around the world. This is what forms the fundamental backbone of Professor Trombetta’s expertise.

Jill Waymire Paine is an assistant professor of Organizational Behavior at IE Business School. Her research is in the area of organizational change and leadership. In today’s business climate marked by constant change, Professor Paine studies how leaders motivate and galvanize followers during such times. “My consulting experience across the high-tech, advertising, and pharmaceutical industries is quite diverse,” she says, “but the constant in all of the organizations with whom I’ve worked is that massive upheaval—revolutionary change—has been forced upon them. Success or failure is contingent on leaders who understand how to pivot and convince the organization to move with them.” 

Professor Paine’s research examines the follower experience of organizational change and how it can be influenced by leadership. More specifically, she studies how leaders can strengthen follower engagement and commitment during change initiatives using targeted, deliberate, persuasive communication. Her dissertation on this topic received the Susan G. Cohen Doctoral Research Award from the USC Marshall School of Business. An active researcher, Professor Paine is also a frequent presenter at top conferences including the Academy of Management and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. In addition to her journal publications, she recently published a book titled: Organization Change: A Comprehensive Reader.