Filling Five Endowed Chairs at Wharton

Edward George | Paul Kleindorfer | Marshall Meyer |
Johannes Pennings | Jagmohan Raju

Dr. Patrick Harker, Wharton School dean, announced that five faculty members have been appointed to endowed chairs, effective July 1, 2002.

Dr. Edward I. George has been appointed to the Universal Furniture Professorship. He has been a professor of statistics here since 2001. His research areas include hierarchical modeling, model uncertainty, shrinkage estimation, treed modeling, variable selection and wevelet regression. Dr. George's current projects include Bayesian treed modeling, default priors for model spaces and modeling the customer base of a brand. He is the associate editor of the Asia-Pacific Financial Markets and president of the International Society for Bayesian analysis.

Dr. Paul R. Kleindorfer has been appointed to the Anheuser-Busch Professorship of Management Science. He is co-director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, which supports world-class research and outreach programs that bring together industry, government and academia. His professional interests focus on regulation and managerial economics and he is doing research on restructuring initiatives in network industries, such as energy, postal and delivery services, and on risk management strategies for the chemical and insurance industries.

Dr. Marshall W. Meyer has been appointed to the Richard A. Sapp Professorship. He also is a professor of management at the Wharton School and a professor of sociology in SAS. His research over the years has focused on organizational theory and design, organizational change, organizational performance and not-for-profit organizations. In 1999, Dr. Meyer participated in Wharton's Faculty Exchange Program with Tsinghua University in China, where he began researching China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This research sparked his current study of decentralized enterprise reform in China; he is examining why some SOEs have reformed successfully while others have not and the extent to which the companies have adopted Western management practices.

Dr. Johannes M. Pennings has been appointed to the Marie and Joseph Melone Professorship. He has been a professor of management at the Wharton School since 1983 and his research over the years has dealt with organizational innovation, organizational mortality and change, technological trajectories, executive compensation, and international management. Born in the Netherlands, he has lived in the U.S. since 1970. Since 1998, he has held a summer faculty appointment in Tilburg University's Department of Economics in the Netherlands.

Dr. Jagmohan S. Raju has been appointed the Joseph J. Aresty Professor of Strategic Management. He has been a professor in the Marketing Department since 1992, and currently serves as the department's Ph.D. program coordinator. During his tenure at the School, he has taught several courses in strategic management, including executive seminars on advanced management and competitive strategies. He has current projects in implementing category management practice, effective use of labels, understanding internet affiliate programs, and coordinating multiple distribution channels.