Home > Faculty > Ravi Madhavan
Ravi Madhavan
Professor of Business Administration &
Alcoa Foundation International Faculty Fellow
Office: 208 Mervis Hall
Phone: 412-648-1530
E-mail: rmadhavan@katz.pitt.edu
Blog (M&A): strategyscape.typepad.com/and/
Degrees
PhD, University of Pittsburgh (1996)
MBA, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India (1982)
BComm, Calicut University, India (1980)
Courses Recently Taught
Strategic Management of Acquisition and Divestment (MBA, IEMBA)
Management of Strategic Alliances (MBA)
Research in Corporate Strategy (PhD)
Global Strategy & Competitive Advantage (CBA)
Area
Global Management and Entrepreneurship
Profile
Ravi Madhavan is a Professor of Business Administration and the Alcoa Foundation International Faculty Fellow at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He earned his PhD in strategic management at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996, and joined the Katz faculty in 2001 after serving on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 1995 to 2001. Prior to his PhD, he spent eight years as a manager in the information technology industry, gaining experience in consulting, executive education, and marketing.
Ravi's research and teaching focus on the role of Strategic Alliances and Mergers & Acquisitions in an interconnected world. Viewing alliances and M&A through the lens of Network Science, Ravi studies how they reshape the global competitive context as well as how managers cope with the associated execution challenges. Empirical contexts of primary interest have been steel and venture capital, two very dissimilar industries that have both been relatively slow to globalize. A recently initiated project with the working title "New models of growth" seeks to document how enterprises around the world are experimenting with new business models to address the challenges of growth, such as resource congestion and sustainability issues.
Ravi has published papers in premier journals including Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Marketing. His dissertation, "Strategic Flexibility in the Global Steel Industry: The Role of Interfirm Linkages," was a finalist in the Dissertation Award Competition of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management. He has received Best Paper Awards from the American Marketing Association, as well as from the Eastern Academy of Management and presented papers at professional conferences and workshops both in the United States and internationally. He has also authored or coauthored several cases, reports, teaching notes, and book chapters.
Among the organizations that have supported his research are the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Posco Research Institute, the Center for Human Resource Management at the University of Illinois, the Illinois Center for International Business Education and Research, the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and the International Business Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
Recent Publications
"Spread, Scope and Scale in Venture Capital Globalization: A Clustered Globalization Model," Madhavan & Iriyama. Forthcoming in Douglas Cumming (Ed.), Handbook of Venture Capital & Private Equity, Oxford, 2011
"A Shift in the Wind? Strategic Alliances versus Wholly-Owned Units in Global Industries." pp. 53-66 in T. K. Das (Ed.), Strategic Alliances in a Globalizing World, IAP, 2011
"Divestiture and Firm Performance." Lee & Madhavan. Journal of Management, November 2010, Volume 36:1345-1371
"Spiky Globalization of Venture Capital Investments: The Influence of Prior Human Networks." Iriyama, Li & Madhavan. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, June 2010, Volume 4(2): 128-145
"Understanding Global Flows of Venture Capital: Human Networks as the ‘Carrier Wave’ of Globalization." Madhavan & Iriyama. Journal of International Business Studies, October/ November 2009, Volume 40 (8): 1241-1259
"Bringing the Firm Back In: Networking as Antecedent to Network Structure." Madhavan, Caner, Prescott & Koka, pp. 457-501 in Joel A. C. Baum & Tim J. Riley (Eds.), Advances in Strategic Management: Network Strategy (Volume 25), Elsevier, 2008
"Co-Opetition: Promises and Challenges," Devi R. Gnyawali, Jinyu He & Ravindranath Madhavan. pp. 386-398 in Charles Wankel (Ed.), Handbook of 21st Century Management, Sage, 2007
"Real Options: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead," Yong Li, Barclay James, Ravindranath Madhavan, and Joseph Mahoney. pp. 31-66 in Jeffrey J. Reuer & Tony W. Tong (Eds.), Advances in Strategic Management: Real Options Theory (Volume 24), Elsevier, 2007
"Impact of Co-opetition on Firm Competitive Behavior: An Empirical Examination", Devi R. Gnyawali, Jinyu He and Ravindranath Madhavan (authorship in alphabetical order). Journal of Management, August 2006, Volume 32(4): 507-530
"The Evolution Of Interfirm Networks: Environmental Effects On Patterns Of Network Change", Balaji R. Koka, Ravindranath Madhavan, and John E. Prescott (authorship in alphabetical order). Academy of Management Review, July 2006, Volume 31(3): 721-737
“Pushing the Frontier of LMX Research: The Contribution of Triads,” Evan Offstein, Ravindranath Madhavan, and Devi R. Gnyawali, pp. 95-117 in George B. Graen (Editor), Sharing Network Leadership, LMX Leadership: The Series, Information Age Publishing, Greenwich, CT, 2006
"DiffuNET: Modeling the Impact of Network Structure on the Diffusion of Innovation", Ben Liu, Ravindranath Madhavan, and D. Sudharshan (authorship in alphabetical order). European Journal of Innovation Management, June 2005, Volume 8(2): 240-262
"Two's Company, Three's a Crowd? Triads in Cooperative-Competitive Networks," Ravindranath Madhavan, Devi R. Gnyawali, and Jinyu He. Academy of Management Journal, December 2004, Volume 47(6): 918-927
Select Awards and Honors
Research grants totaling $136,500 since 2003 for field research in the global steel industry
NSF Research grant, $181,000, 2003
Dean's Excellence in Teaching Award, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008
"Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students," University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Fall 1998
Finalist, Dissertation Award Competition, BPS Division, Academy of Management Meetings, 1997
Best Paper Award, Eastern Academy of Management Meetings, 1994
Best Paper Award, American Marketing Association, Winter Educators' Conference, 1994
Select External Service and Assignments
Editor, Industry Studies Working Paper Series
Founding Member, Industry Studies Association
Representative-at-large, Competitive Strategy Interest Group, Strategic Management Society, 2008-09
Member of the Editorial Board, Strategic Organization
Member of the editorial board, International Journal of Strategic Change Management
