Eddielogic

– Thoughts on Strategy and Management

Tuck professors named to top 50 management thinkers list

Tuck professors Vijay Govindarajan and Richard D’Aveni have once again been named to the Thinkers 50, the 4th biennial ranking of the world’s most influential living management thinkers. Tuck professor Sydney Finkelstein is also named as a management thinker to watch.

Created and compiled by Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of CrainerDearlove*, Thinkers 50 has established itself as the definitive biennial guide of both thinkers and ideas which have shaped strategic management thinking today. Among this year’s top thinkers are Indian-born management expert CK Prahalad (1), Malcolm Gladwell (2), and Paul Krugman (3). The entire top 50 lists for all awards since 2001 are available on the results page of th eThinkers50 website.

“I am proud that two Tuck professors are recognized on this list of most influential living management thinkers. This dual honor is indication of the quality of our faculty,” Dean Paul Danos says. “Not only are Professors Govindarajan and D’Aveni at the forefront of strategic management thinking, they are also master teachers who inspire students. At Tuck we take great pride not only in developing new research but also in bringing that research into the classroom.”

Govindarajan, the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at Tuck and director of Tuck’s Center for Global Leadership, hits this year’s list at 24. Now working as a special adviser on innovation to GE, Govindarajan’s latest work was published in Harvard Business Review’s October edition. Co-authored with Jeff Immelt and Tuck colleague Chris Trimble, the article promotes a new concept pioneered by Govindarajan at GE called ‘reverse innovation.’

D’Aveni is professor of strategic management at Tuck and jumped significantly in the 2009 ranking, moving from 46 to 26 this year. According to the authors, D’Aveni’s star has been on the rise thanks to the prescience of his 1990s bestseller, Hypercompetition, which anticipated the business-scape of the last decade. His new book, Beating the Commodity Trap, is due out in January and tackles one of the biggest business issues of our time.

The ranking is compiled using a unique methodology. Thousands of people vote for the guru of their choice on the Thinkers 50 website. The top 100 names are then assessed against 10 criteria ranging from the originality and practicality of their ideas to their so-called “guru factor.” More than 3,500 votes were cast in the 2009 Thinkers 50 poll.

In addition to the main ranking, CrainerDearlove* provides an introduction to the thinkers they believe will shape the future. Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management at Tuck, was named as one of the few “On The Radar: Thinkers Shaping The Future.” Finkelstein is a prolific author with 11 books, including the best-selling Why Smart Executives Fail and co-author of his most recent book, Think Again.

For more information on Thinkers 50, visit its website.

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