Farok Contractor

Dr. Farok J. Contractor holds the title of ‘Distinguished Professor’ in the Management and Global Business department at Rutgers Business School. He has also taught at the Wharton School, Copenhagen Business School, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Nanyang Technological University, Indian Institutes of Management (Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, XLRI (India), Lubin School of Business, Theseus, EDHEC and conducted executive seminars in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

He is currently President of the Academy of International Business (2021 – 2022), having elected to a three-year term on the Executive Board of the Academy of International Business to serve as President-Elect (2020 – 2021), President (2021 – 2022) and Immediate Past President ( 2022 – 2023). The AIB Board oversees the activities of an academic organization with approximately 3,500 members worldwide.

He is a graduate of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Ph.D. (Managerial Science and Applied Economics) and MBA, and the University of Michigan, where he received an M.S. in Industrial Engineering. Farok Contractor’s research has focused on corporate alliances, outsourcing and offshoring, valuation of intangible assets, the technology transfer process, licensing, and foreign direct investment. He is particularly focused on the negotiated, inter-firm aspects of International Business such as alliances between firms from different nations, including joint ventures, and licensing, as well as negotiations between investors and governments. His work treats the strategic implications of companies sharing their expertise and markets with other firms, and has involved gathering data from a large number of companies. Dr. Contractor has written well over a hundred scholarly papers on these topics, and eleven books: (1) International Technology Licensing: Compensation, Costs and Negotiations (Lexington Books), (2) Licensing in International Strategy; A Guide for Planning and Negotiations (Quorum Books), (3) A co-authored textbook, Introduction to International Business (Kendall Hunt), (4) Cooperative Strategies in International Business (co-edited) (Lexington Books), (5) Government Policies and Foreign Direct Investment (UNCTAD), (6) Economic Transformation In Emerging Countries: The Role of Investment, Trade and Finance (edited) (Elsevier), (7) The Valuation of Intangible Assets In Global Operations (edited) (Quorum Books), (8) Cooperative Strategies and Alliances (co-edited) (Oxford: Elsevier), (9) Global Outsourcing and Offshoring: An Integrated Approach to Theory and Corporate Strategy (co-edited) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), (10) Frontiers of Strategic Alliance Research: Negotiating, Structuring and Governing Partnerships (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and (11) International Business Management: The Essentials for MBAs and Executives. Prof. Contractor has among the highest citation counts amongst scholars in the field of International Management (Academy of International Business (AIB), or Academy of Management (AOM)) with Google Scholar citation totals exceeding 14,700 citations (as of August 2021) in others’ scholarly papers. Prof. Contractor has also been rated by several surveys as among the top-ranked contributors of scholarly papers to the field.

In 2019, he was awarded the 50th Anniversary Silver Medal for amongst the highest contributions of scholarly papers to Journal of International Business Studies which is one of the leading scholarly journals in Management (Financial Times) and is also the top journal of the field of International Business.

Dr. Contractor has chaired or been on the supervisory committees of 19 doctoral dissertations on International Strategic Management topics, and served on the faculty of several Doctoral and Junior Faculty Consortiums organized by the Academy of Management, Academy of International Business, and CIBERs. Dr. Contractor has also previously served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management’s International Management Division, was Chair of the division and Program Chair at the at the Academy of Management. Earlier, he was elected to a two-year term on the Executive Board of the Academy of International Business, and is an active member in other professional bodies in the field of International Management.

He was elected a permanent Fellow of the Academy of International Business, an honor reserved for approximately 2 percent of an academy membership exceeding 3,500 persons worldwide. Prof. Contractor has also held other term fellowships such as the Fulbright Fellowship and Unilever Fellowship. Recently he has been Nanyang Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University.

Conferences organized by Dr. Contractor have had a catalytic influence on company practices. The Rutgers/Wharton/IMD conferences on Cooperative Strategies in International Business served to spark interest in corporate alliances which subsequently proliferated to the point where alliances today comprise a central facet of corporate strategy. The conference books continue to be used in graduate and executive programs worldwide. A conference he initiated at Bocconi University on Global Outsourcing and Offshoring strategies resulted in a definitive compilation of papers on the subject and further research on the subject.

He has served Rutgers University in many capacities such as Department Chair for the International Business Department for six years, as Research Director of the CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research), Coordinator of the Ph.D. program in International Business, the Dean’s Leadership Council, and several other key school and university initiatives. He also writes a blog, with articles covering contemporary issues dealing with International Business for a worldwide readership from 173 nations, for executives, students and the thoughtful public at https://globalbusiness.blog/.

Before his academic career, Prof. Contractor was an executive with the international arm of the Tata Group of Companies, an India-based multinational group. Besides Rutgers, Prof. Contractor also taught at the Wharton School, full time, for four years, conducted courses at universities in Europe and Asia and lectured and given executive seminars throughout the world.