Karen Brown
at Owen Graduate School of Management
Professor Emerita of Operations and Project Leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management
Schools
- Owen Graduate School of Management
- Thunderbird School of Global Management
Expertise
Links
Biography
Owen Graduate School of Management
Professor of Operations Management Areas of Expertise: Operations management, project leadership, supply chain management, international benchmarking
Courses: Managing Projects, Operations Management
Professional Bio: Karen Brown is a professor of operations and project leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management, where she has been a member of the faculty since 2006. For the past decade, she has spent a significant amount of time in China working with executives from a wide range of enterprise types and delivering Executive MBA classes and executive seminars on operations management and project leadership. She also has spent considerable time studying managerial practices within and outside the U.S.
Prior to her arrival at Thunderbird, she taught at the University of Washington, Seattle University, IESE in Barcelona, Spain, and the China-Europe International Business School in Shanghai and Beijing.
Brown’s research, executive seminar, and consulting activities have been in large-scale manufacturing operations, health care, not-for-profit organizations, medical devices companies, electric utilities, military facilities, and government agencies. Clients have included Boeing, Medtronic, the U.S. Navy, St. Gobain, Emerson, Sony, Philips, Maersk, PACCAR, Degussa, Seattle Public Library, Shanghai Media Group, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Eli Lilly, and others.
Brown has received recognition for excellence in teaching on numerous occasions, and she was selected as the first-place winner of the Decision Sciences Institute’s international award for instructional innovation.
Brown’s research interests focus on socio-technical systems, examining the links between human and technical factors in operating environments. Her work has appeared in California Management Review, Interfaces, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Production Research, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Project Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Relations, Business Horizons, PIM Journal, and other outlets. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Operations Management, and has served as a member of the editorial review boards of Academy of Management Journal, Decision Sciences Journal, and Operations Management Review. Her teaching cases have been published by Harvard Business School, Thunderbird, and the European Case Clearing House, as well as appearing in several textbooks.
Brown’s new book, co-authored with Nancy Lea Hyer at Vanderbilt University, is titled Managing Projects: A Team-Based Approach, and was published by McGraw Hill in 2010.
Brown holds B.S., M.B.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington and has been certified as a PMP by the Project Management Institute.
Thunderbird School of Global Management
Karen Brown is Emerita Professor of Operations and Project Leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management, where she has taught since 2006. Her courses on operations management, project leadership, and health care delivery systems receive high ratings for their interactive, practical, engaging approach. She has served as an executive-education seminar leader at the China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS) since 1998 and teaches regularly in executive programs at Vanderbilt.
Professor Brown has worked with a wide range of organizations, including: Boeing, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, PACCAR, POSCO Steel, Medtronic-Physio Control, Washington Mutual Bank, Eli Lilly, Shanghai Stock Exchange, City of Seattle, Saudi Arabia Basic Industries (SABIC), LG (Korea), United Energy Systems (Russia), Maersk, Jiangnan Shipyard (Shanghai), Sony, University of Washington Medical School, Honeywell, US Army Corps of Engineers, and Metro Environmental Laboratories.
Professor Brown's research examines relationships between the technical and human aspects of organizational performance. Her numerous scholarly and practitioner-oriented articles have appeared in journals such as Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Project Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Personnel Psychology, Human Relations, and Business Horizons. Her book, with Nancy Lea Hyer, Managing Projects: A Team-Based Approach (McGraw-Hill) has been well received for its practical, comprehensive approach to the subject. Additionally, she has co-authored several cases highlighting issues for routine and project operations. Professor Brown has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Operations Management since 1994, and was named Best Associate Editor in 2011.
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