William Sandberg

Background

Bill Sandberg joined the University of South Carolina faculty in 1986 to teach strategic management and entrepreneurship. In recent years, he has taught only entrepreneurship, including the graduate and undergraduate consulting project courses as well as one on commercializing R&D innovations. He earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Georgia in 1984, majoring in management policy with a minor in organizational behavior and concentrated study in industrial organization economics. He also holds a B.S. and an MBA, both in finance, from Northwestern University. Prior to joining the University of South Carolina faculty, he was an assistant professor at the University of Houston.

Sandberg currently is a co-PI in the Polymer Nanocomposites Manufacturing Partnership (PNMP), a multi-year project funded by the National Science Foundation that links corporate partners’ R&D, the College of Engineering and Computing, and the Moore School’s International MBA program to provide multidisciplinary lab and field research on proprietary, nanotechnology-based industrial innovation.

His research has focused on strategic aspects of entrepreneurship, beginning with his dissertation study of new venture performance (New Venture Performance: The Role of Industry, Strategy, and the Entrepreneur, Lexington Books, 1986) and continuing in recent years with studies of firms’ and managers’ opportunity recognition and of the impact of “disruptive technology” on established industries. Sandberg’s research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing and elsewhere. He also is interested in countries’ transitions from communism to freer societies with market economies and, in this pursuit, has visited Russia and two Eastern European countries.

Sandberg served from 1998 through 2008 as case editor of the scholarly journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has served since 2004 on the editorial board of the Journal of Management. From time to time, he has consulted in strategic management to large and small organizations in both the profit and not-for-profit sectors.

In addition to his professional interests, Sandberg is devoted to his family and his church. His lifelong hobbies are baseball and railroads — so far baseball hasn’t fit into his research, but Sandberg has studied the U.S. railroad locomotive industry’s transition from steam to diesel power as an instance of a disruptive technology.

Education

Ph.D., University of Georgia, 1984 
MBA, Northwestern University, 1972 
B.S., Northwestern University, 1970