Smeal's Farrell Center Welcomes New Research Director
Raghu Garud has joined Penn State's Smeal College of Business as professor of management and research director of the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (October 28, 2005)—Raghu Garud has joined Penn State's Smeal College of Business as professor of management and research director of the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Garud was previously at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, where he studied how innovation unfolds within and across firms. His research interests include modularity, industry emergence, intellectual capital, and path creation.
Smeal's Farrell Center was established in 1992 with an endowment from Michael J. Farrell, Smeal alumnus and president and CEO of Farrell & Company, to further the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation through education, research, and outreach to business. Under the direction of Anthony Warren, Farrell Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Farrell Center researchers and Smeal students provide counsel to companies in Pennsylvania and around the country. The center also collaborates with economic development organizations to identify new ways to stimulate economic growth.
"We couldn't be happier to have Raghu on board," says Dean Judy Olian. "His research eminence in the areas of technological innovation and firm interaction is a perfect fit with the direction of the Farrell Center. Corporate innovation is a critical pre-occupation for business and is key to America's competitiveness. Raghu's thought leadership will keep the Farrell Center far ahead of the curve."
Earlier this month, the Farrell Center received the NASDAQ 2005 Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence Award. NASDAQ and the National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC) established the award in 2000 to recognize organizations that have made the greatest contributions to the advancement of entrepreneurship through academic and research excellence.
"The Farrell Center is an ideal place to explore 'innovation at work,'" says Garud. "For too long, organizations have functioned by separating innovation from work. At the Farrell Center, we are trying to understand processes that allow for innovation to unfold simultaneously with day-to-day activities. Organizations can be designed to harness the creative outputs of individuals such that byproducts of everyday activities can become solutions for yet-to-be-identified problems."
Garud holds a Ph.D. in strategic management and organization from the University of Minnesota and an M.B.A. from Xavier Labor Relations Institute in India. Garud is currently an associate editor of Management Science and co-editor of Organization Studies. He has co-authored and co-edited several books including Technological Innovation: Oversights and Foresights, Path Dependence and Path Creation, The Innovation Journey, and Managing in the Modular Age: Architectures, Networks and Organizations.
