Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 22, 2005|Volume 33, Number 27|Two-Week Issue

Joel M. Podolny

Renowned Harvard scholar
named dean of Yale SOM

President Richard C. Levin has announced the appointment of Harvard scholar Joel M. Podolny as dean of the Yale School of Management (SOM) beginning July 1.

Podolny is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management and director of research at the Harvard Business School, and professor of sociology in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He succeeds Jeffrey Garten, who has served as dean since 1995.

Podolny is best known for applying the sociological concept of status to the study of market competition. He has examined status dynamics in a wide variety of industries, including investment banking, semiconductors and venture capital. Podolny's research on market status has appeared in the leading sociology and organization journals.

"Professor Podolny brings scholarly distinction, administrative experience and an infectious enthusiasm that will serve us well," said Levin.

Podolny said he was impressed with the "special community" of SOM, as well as by its "ambitions for what it would like to be -- for itself and the world.

"I was attracted to the Yale School of Management because it is a very special school with a truly noble mission," he adds. "It aims to be a business school whose success is to be judged on the same grounds that the success of any professional school should be judged -- on the degree to which that professional school, through its research and teaching, contributes to the greater welfare of society. That noble mission attracted and continues to attract highly talented individuals with truly meaningful aspirations.

"Because of the school's mission and because of the people that this mission attracts, I became convinced that there was no better place to be," Podolny continues. "The ethical scandals that have emerged over the past four or five years have fostered a tremendous skepticism as to what business schools are about. Because of its mission, SOM is uniquely positioned to address this general anxiety about business schools."

An Ohio native, Podolny earned his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2002, he spent 11 years on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was promoted to a tenured position at age 30 and a chaired professorship in 2000. He also served as senior associate dean for academic affairs and was head of the school's organizational behavior group. He has been the director of the doctoral programs in organizational behavior at both Stanford and Harvard, as well as faculty director or chair of numerous executive education programs.

Podolny's book, "Status Signals: A Sociological Study of Market Competition," will be published by Princeton University Press this fall. He is also known for work in which he brings a social network perspective to the study of technological evolution and to the study of individual mobility within organizations. Along with economists Garth Saloner and Andrea Shepard, he co-authored the textbook "Strategic Management." He has also authored or co-authored more than a dozen business cases.

In 2004, Podolny was invited to deliver the Clarendon Lectures in Management at Oxford University's Said School of Business. He is currently transforming those lectures into a book on meaning and leadership in organizations, to be published by Oxford University Press.

He has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly and Industrial and Corporate Change.

Outside of academics, Podolny recently concluded a term as a board member of National Arts Strategies, a non-profit organization focused on nationwide leadership development in the arts. He is currently on the technical advisory board of Spoke Software.

In announcing Podolny as the new SOM dean, Levin expressed his gratitude to Garten. "He leaves as his legacy a vigorous SOM community, a strong and productive faculty, and an engaged and supportive alumni body," Levin said. "It is to Jeff's leadership that the school owes its expanded and strengthened faculty in finance, accounting marketing and strategy; a sharpened focus in the change of degree from M.P.P.M. to M.B.A., and the creation of many programs and centers that now help define the school's agenda in research and education."

Following a year's sabbatical, Garten will return to SOM as the Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade, Finance and Business.

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Veteran coach with over 400 wins to head women's basketball

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The drama school stages 'The Real Thing' . . .

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Juniors honored for their scholarship, contributions

IN MEMORIAM

Biologist Dr. Alvin Novick, noted advocate for people with AIDS

Lloyd Reynolds, shaped fields of labor relations and economics