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Featured Alumni

What they say about the Program

Karel CoolKarel Cool

The BP Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness

Professor of Strategic Management, INSEAD

Studying at Krannert was a life changing experience for me. I had the exceptional fortune to study under the guidance of Professors Dan Schendel, Arnie Cooper and Carolyn Woo, who not only were conducting leading edge strategy research but were also inspiring mentors. The entire PhD curriculum was outstanding and I very much benefited from the rigor of the program, a quality I have tried to achieve in my research and teaching. The Krannert strategy PhD program has an exceptional record and today has outstanding faculty who can inspire new PhD students to conduct interesting, rigorous strategy research.


Arkadiv Sakhartov

Arkadiy Sakhartov

Assistant Professor

Gies College of Business

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

The Krannert PhD program in Strategic Management has been a very important milestone in my development as a researcher. I was greatly benefited by the intellectual support and guidance of my instructors at the Krannert School of Management. The chair of my dissertation committee invested particularly much time and effort in working with me on my thesis and other projects. Other committee members also provided a lot of valuable support and suggestions for how to turn my research interests into an interesting research program. The help of fellow students at the program was a source of inspiration and persistence to me. The Krannert School provided all the technical resources I needed to conduct my research. Among other resources available to me at Krannert, the support from the Krannert Computing Center was fundamental to the computational models involved in my research.


Cheng Wei Wu

Cheng-Wei Wu

Associate Professor

International Business, National Taiwan University

Founded as the world’s first PhD program in strategy, every PhD student at Purdue has the chance to immerse themselves to the foundations of strategy research, and the close collaboration between students and faculty members not only equips students with the capability of tackling their research questions from scratch, but also helps guide students through the course of being an independent scholar. The collegial atmosphere from peers also makes learning and studying here at Purdue especially pleasant. I benefited a lot from the program, and I’m also proud of being part of the tradition.

Examples of placements

Krannert alumni are currently working in such prestigious institutions as Harvard University, INSEAD, Ohio State University, Arizona State University, Vanderbilt University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Colorado Boulder. In particular, over the last ten years, our PhD graduates have been placed in top schools in North America, Europe, and Asia including: University of Pennsylvania, University of Hawaiʻi, University at Buffalo, Louisiana State University, Tilburg University, University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, and McMaster University. Our graduates also received various awards such as AOM distinguished paper award, AOM distinguished student paper award, SMS best conference PhD paper prize, and SMS emerging scholar award.

Name Initial Placement Current Affiliation
Cynthia Montgomery Harvard University Harvard University
Karel Cool INSEAD INSEAD
Javier Gimeno Texas A&M University INSEAD
Timothy Folta  University of Kentucky University of Connecticut
Michael Leiblein University of South Carolina Ohio State University
Jeffrey Reuer INSEAD University of Colorado at Boulder
Catherine Maritan Purdue University Syracuse University
Luiz Mesquita Instituto de Altos Estudios Empresariales Mariano Arizona State University
Wei-Ru Chen INSEAD CEIBS
Jonathan O’Brien University of Notre Dame University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Paul Drnevich University of Alabama University of Alabama
Brian McCann Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University
Cheng-Wei Wu University of Hong Kong National Taiwan University
Arkadiy Sakhartov University of Pennsylvania University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Supradeep Dutta University at Buffalo University at Buffalo
Shivaram Devarakonda Tilburg University Tilburg University
Ramakrishna Devarakonda Chinese University of Hong Kong Tilburg University
Wonsang Ryu City University of Hong Kong KAIST
Goran Calic McMaster University McMaster University
Kubilay Cirik Louisiana State University Louisiana State University
Dalee Yoon University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Mingtao Xu Louisiana State University Louisiana State University

Recent examples of dissertation topics

Name Graduation year Dissertation title
Dalee Yoon 2020 Essays on Entrepreneurs and Their Behaviors in Their Entrepreneurial Activities
Mingtao Xu 2020 Essays on Patent Litigation, Patent Monetization, and Entrepreneurial Firms
Kubilay Cirik 2018 Three Essays on Entry Timing
Joonhyung Bae 2018 Essays on Interorganizational Relationships between Entrepreneurial Ventures and Industry Incumbents
Jongsoo Kim 2018 Three Essays on Strategic Human Capital, Managers and Competitive Advantage
Shiau-Ling Guo 2017 Contract Design in Inter-Organizational Relationships: Evidence from the U.S. Franchise Systems
Goran Calic 2016 Creativity in organizations: Antecedents and outcomes of individual creativity
Wonsang Ryu 2016 Three essays on market overlap and strategic alliances
Ramakrishna Devarakonda 2015 Founders' credentials and performance of startups
Mona Bahl 2013 Direct and complementary effects of knowledge and governance mechanisms on firm outcomes: A transition economy context
Shivaram Devarakonda 2013 Administrative mechanisms in alliance government
Supradeep Dutta 2013 Role of private equity investment in technology start-ups
Zhonghui Wang 2013 The impact of controlling shareholders on firms' choices of governance provisions
Ramesh Dangol 2012 Delineating the relationship between operational and dynamic capabilities
Arkadiy Sakhartov 2012 Investigations into redeployability of corporate resources
Cheng-Wei Wu 2012 Information costs and search in M&A markets