Associate Professor Saras D. Sarasvathy is a member of the
Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Ethics area and teaches courses in
entrepreneurship and ethics in Darden’s MBA program. In addition, she teaches
in doctoral programs not only at Darden, but also in Denmark, India,
Croatia and South Africa. In 2007, Sarasvathy was named one
of the top 18 entrepreneurship professors by
Fortune
Small Business magazine.
A leading scholar on the
cognitive basis for high-performance entrepreneurship, Sarasvathy serves on the
editorial boards of the
Journal of Business Venturing and
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and
is advisor to entrepreneurship education programs in Europe and Asia. Her
scholarly work has won several awards, including the 2001 William H. Newman
Award from the Academy of Management and the 2009 Gerald E. Hills Best Paper
Award from the American Marketing Association. Her book
Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise (
book overview) was nominated for the 2009 Terry Book Award by the Academy of
Management.
Effectuation is widely acclaimed as a rigorous framework
for understanding the creation and growth of new organizations and markets. The
research program based on effectuation involves over a dozen scholars from
around the world whose published and working papers can be found at
www.effectuation.org.
Sarasvathy has also developed several cases and other instructional materials
to teach effectuation. A new textbook, along with an open source instructor
website, is currently in the works.
In addition to a master’s degree in
industrial administration, Saras received her PhD in information systems from
Carnegie Mellon University. Her thesis on entrepreneurial expertise was
supervised by Herbert Simon, 1978 Nobel Laureate in Economics. Before joining
Darden, she was on the faculty of University of Washington and University of
Maryland. And before that, she was part of the founding team in five
entrepreneurial ventures.
Click here for her SSRN
Author Page and here for a video interview with
Big Think.
Interview With Saras Sarasvathy "Big Think" by NomanAkhter
