Devi R. Gnyawali has been appointed head of the Department of Management in the Pamplin College of Business.

Gnyawali, who was appointed the R.B. Pamplin Professor of Management in 2011, joined Virginia Tech as an assistant professor in 1997. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2003 and to professor in 2010. He specializes in teaching and research on strategic management, entrepreneurship, and technology management.

His research seeks to understand how firms learn, innovate, and create competitive advantages through competition, cooperation, and “co-opetition” (simultaneous pursuit of competition and cooperation).

His research has investigated how firms acquire external resources possessed by their alliance partners; how they develop internal resources, such as technology and shared knowledge; and how they leverage external and internal resources to innovate and to create competitive advantages.

His current research examines why and how firms simultaneously compete and collaborate with each other and what the implications are of such co-opetition.

Gnyawali has led student groups to Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and China for many years.

He has organized and delivered keynote speeches at international conferences and received Best Paper and Best Reviewer awards from several journals and conferences. He has chaired numerous doctoral dissertation committees at Virginia Tech and been an expert examiner of several doctoral dissertations in Europe.

He also serves on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Review and is an associate editor of the Journal of Management.

Gnyawali’s honors include the university’s Alumni Award for Excellence in International Education and many college awards, including Excellence in Teaching, Warren Holtzman Outstanding Educator, Outstanding Faculty in Doctoral Education, and Excellence in International Programs. He has also won several of his department’s Research Excellence Awards.

He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.S. and B.S. from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Before getting his Ph.D., he worked as a government officer in Nepal and as an international consultant in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Gnyawali succeeds Kevin Carlson, who has been appointed Pamplin associate dean for research and faculty affairs.

 

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