Marta Elvira

Marta Elvira is a professor in IESE’s Departments of Strategic Management and Managing People in Organizations, holder of the Chair of Family-Owned Business, and a member of the IESE Madrid Executive Committee. She formerly served as the Puig Chaired Professor of Global Leadership Development and the associate dean of IESE’s Research and PhD program.

Prof. Elvira has two dominant research interests. The first centers on the field of social inequality and human capital development, where she analyzes the political and economic processes involved in the design of organizational reward structures and the dual impact of incentive pay and promotion systems on employee earnings and performance. Her current research leverages linked countrywide data on employers and employees to gain a deeper understanding the role of organizations and occupations in labor market outcomes across countries.

Her second research stream focuses on how family-owned businesses act as economic drivers through their environmental, social and governance processes, with an emphasis on employment, diversity and digitalization. Prof. Elvira has received grants from the European Commission Marie Curie Program and the Spanish Ministry of Innovation for the financing of these projects.

Before joining IESE, Prof. Elvira served as the academic dean at Lexington College in Chicago and as a tenured professor of organizational behavior at the University of California-Irvine Graduate School of Management and INSEAD. Her international experience also includes posts as a visiting scholar at MIT and Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Prof. Elvira brings a distinctive multi-cultural perspective to all of her teaching and research, which has been published in prominent outlets such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of World Business and Industrial Relations. She is the author of numerous book chapters and co-editor of three books including Understanding Organizations in Complex Environments and Best Human Resource Management Practices in Latin America.

Among her many awards and distinctions, Prof. Elvira has served for years on the jury of the Princess of Asturias Social Science Award and the Board of Trustees of IESE’s New York campus. She was also an ascendant scholar at the Western Academy of Management Meetings and an executive board member of Women in Leadership in Latin America, Complutense University of Madrid’s Colegio Universitario Villanueva, and Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association Educational Foundation.

Prof. Elvira teaches in all of IESE’s flagship offerings, from the PhD, MBA and MiM programs to customized offerings in the world’s top organizations including Airbus, Allergan, BBVA, Citi, Dow, IBM, Intel, PepsiCo, Samsung, Santander Swire, and the United Nations Development Programme.

Areas of interest

• Strategic human capital and incentives
• Inequality and organizations
• Governance, employment and sustainability of family-owned firms

Education

• PhD in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business • MSc in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business • BSc in Business and Economics, Universidad de Oviedo