Ruth Aguilera

Ruth is a Visiting Professor of Corporate Governance at IE Business School and a Full-time Professor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. Ruth’s research interests lie at the intersection of strategic organization and global strategy, specializing in international corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and internationalization. Her research has been published at AMJ, AMR, GSJ, JIBS, Org Science, and SMJ among other journals. She finished her MA with Honors in Economics at the University of Barcelona, and PhD in Sociology at Harvard University. She has been listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” in Economics and Business in 2014 by Thomson Reuters and has won several teaching and research awards.

Selected Publications

• Aguilera, R. A., Judge, W. Q., and Terjesen, S. Forthcoming. “Corporate Governance Deviance,” Academy of Management Review.
• Aguilera, R.V., Desender, K, Lopez-Puertas Lamy, M., and Lee, J.H. Forthcoming. “The Governance Impact of a Changing Investor Landscape,” Journal of International Business Studies.
• Haxhi, I. and Aguilera, R.V. Forthcoming. “An Institutional Configurational Approach to Cross-National Diversity in Corporate Governance,” Journal of Management Studies.
• Misangyi, V., Greckhamer, T., Furnari, S., Fiss, P., Crilly, D., and Aguilera, R.V. Forthcoming. “Embracing Causal Complexity: The Emergence of a Neo-Configurational Perspective,” Journal of Management.
• Desender, K., Aguilera, R.V., Lopez-Puertas Lamy, M., and Crespí, R. (2016). “A Clash of Governance Logics: Foreign Ownership and Board Monitoring,” Strategic Management Journal, 37 (2): 349-369.

Selected Presentations

• “Ownership and Strategy around the World,” Family Business Conference, Centre for Governance, Institutions & Organisations (CGIO), National University of Singapore Business School, Singapore, April 2014
• “Top Management Teams in the Context of Comparative Corporate Governance,” Conference on Top Management Teams in an International Context: an Institutional Perspective, Copenhagen Business School, October 2013.
• “From the Dining Room to Board Room. The Professionalization and Internationalization of Family Business Firms,” Annual Meeting, International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA), St. Gallen, Switzerland, July, 2013.
• “How National Are Governance Bundles?” Conference on Corporate Governance Bundles, Cambridge Judge Business School, Cambridge University, U.K., September 2012.
• “Who owns CSR?” 10th Anniversary Conference, International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Nottingham University, United Kingdom, April 2012.

Education

• PhD, Harvard University, Department of Sociology
• University of Lancaster, The Management School, Lancaster, U. K.; Diploma in Business Analysis (Graduate level)
• University of Barcelona, School of Economics and Business Administration, Barcelona, Spain. M.A. (Licenciatura); Honors in Economics; Concentration in Political Economy, Business Economics, and Sociology

Research & Teaching Interests

Professor Aguilera’s research interests lie at the intersection of international business, economic sociology, and organization studies. Her core areas of research are comparative corporate governance, corporate sustainability, and firm internationalization processes. In most of her work, Professor Aguilera relies on comparative research methods to conduct systematic analyses of economic organizations across countries, and most recently, she pays particular attention to the role that ownership plays in influencing governance practices and stakeholder relationships. Her main scholarly contribution is the development of theories of comparative corporate governance and the empirical applications and extensions of these frameworks.

She has taught across a variety of programs as well as at multiple levels: undergraduate, MBA, Masters in Human Resource Management, Law School, PhD, Executive MBA, and in in-company executive programs in different teaching venues throughout the world. She has also been recognized for teaching excellence in multiple occasions.

Industry & Academic Experience

• Visiting Full Professor, Department of Strategy and Policy, and Research Affiliate, Centre for Governance, Institutions & Organisations (CGIO), Business School, National University of Singapore (Fall 2014-Spring 2015).
• Full Professor, International Business and Strategy Department, D’Amore-McKim School of Business (Fall 2014 onwards–currently on leave).
• Associate Professor (with tenure) to Full Professor, Department of Business
• Administration, College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (August 2006- June 2014).
• Faculty Fellow, Center for Professional Responsibility in Business and Society, College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2007-June 2014)
• Associate Professor (with tenure), College of Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (August 2006-June 2014).
• Associate Professor (courtesy appointment), School of Labor and Employment Relations and Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (August 2006-June 2014).
• Visiting Professor, ESADE Business School (August 2011-August 2012), on sabbatical leave from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, College of Business, and Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1999-2006).
• Short Visiting Professor Positions: Instituto de Empresa, Madrid (2003-2009); Sogang University, Seoul (Oct. 2009).
• Short Visiting Scholar positions: Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Tokyo, Japan (Spring 2003); IESE Business School, Spain (Summer 2000, 2001); Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB-Social Science Research Center Berlin), Berlin, Germany (Fall 1998, Summer 1999); Università Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy (Summer 1996); Juan March Institute, Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Madrid, Spain (Winter 1996).

Services to the Profession

• Senior Editor, Organization Science (August 2014- )
• Associate Editor, Corporate Governance: An International Review (October 2009-).
• Co-Editor, Special Issue, Corporate Governance in Family Business (2012-2015).
• Co-Editor, Special Issue, Review of Corporate Governance (2014-2015)
• Consulting Editor, Journal of International Business Studies (April 2012-).
• Guest Editor for Special Issue on Latin America, Journal of World Business (May 2015-). With Ciravegna, Cuervo-Cazurra, Gonzalez-Perez.
• Current Member of Editorial Review Board: Academy of Management Perspectives (2008-); Business Ethics: European Review (2014-); Global Strategy Journal (2009-); Journal of International Business Studies (2005-); Journal of Management and Governance (2011-); Management International Review (2010-); Organization Studies (2003-); Oxford Handbooks/Oxford Research Reviews (2013-); Strategic Management Journal (2008-).

Awards & Recognition

• Listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds,” in Economics and Business, 2014, Thomson Reuters.
• Arnold O. Beckman Research Award, Research Board Grant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014.
• Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014.
• CLADEA 2014 Best Paper in “Ethics, Social Responsibility and Sustainability,” (with Jain and Jamali).
• Best paper Award, Academy of International Business, Latin American Chapter “Corporate Ownership in Latin American Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Dual-Class Shares,” (with Kabbach de Castro and Crespí-Cladera), April 2013.