James Thompson

Biography

I am currently Professor of Applied and Social Theatre and Associate Vice President for Social Responsbility. I am also the founder and Co-Director of In Place of War - a project researching and supporting arts programmes in war and disaster zones. I''ve written widely on theatre in conflict and peacebuilding situations and my most recent books are Performance Affects (2009) and Humanitarian Performance (2014).

Further information

Additional Information

Previous teaching: Undergraduate: Stages in Conflict/ Performance and War Courses on Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed Prison Theatre Theatre with refugee and asylum seeking communities Postgraduate: Options on the MA in Applied Theatre. Supervision areas: Research Students: Asif Majid - Muslim Youth and Theatre; Ben Dunn - contemporary community based theatre;Garret Scally - Second Language learning and theatre; Sarah Hunter - performance/theatre of Quarantine

Jim teaches in Wharton Executive Education programs and works with management teams around the world. Prior to joining the academic world Jim was a divisional director of a public South African company where he was responsible for business unit turnarounds and new market development. He has worked in Africa for two decades, with firms ranging from small to large, across multiple business sectors. He currently serves on the executive board of a venture capital funded company in Philadelphia and is on the investment advisory committee of a Swiss social entrepreneurship investment fund.

Jim, along with Wharton Management Prof. Ian MacMillan, coauthored the Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook: Pressure Test Your Startup Idea. Their book, which is based on their 13 years of field research with social enterprises, provides information to help social entrepreneurs launch their own ventures. He also has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management, Long Range Planning, Management Science, Organization Science, and the ResearchTechnology Management Journal. He is a recipient of Best Paper awards in innovation by the European Business School and the Thought Leader category of the Entrepreneurship Division at the US Academy of Management.

Jim holds a BCom from the University of South Africa, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He concluded a research fellowship in the commercialization of technology at the Wharton School and recently completed his PhD dissertation at the Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne.