About the Author

Frank T. Rothaermel is Regents' Professor, holds the Russell and Nancy McDonough Chair in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), and is an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow. He received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award,  “the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education" (NSF CAREER Award description). Bloomberg Businessweek named Frank one of Georgia Tech’s Prominent Faculty, while Poets & Quants selected Frank (multiple times) as one of the “Favorite Business School Professors Teaching MBAs.” He received the Theory-to-Practice Award from the Vienna Strategy Forum at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The Kauffman Foundation views Frank as one of the world’s 75 thought leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Frank’s research interests lie in strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship; he has published some 40 articles in leading academic journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and elsewhere (complete listing of research papers and PDF downloads). Using published papers in the top 1% based on citations, Thomson Reuters identified Frank as one of the “world’s most influential scientific minds." They listed him among the top 100 scholars based on his research impact over more than a decade in economics and business. He is among the world’s top 2% most-cited researchers, according to research conducted by the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University. Frank’s body of work has been cited 23,000 times in Google Scholar with an h-index of 38.

Frank has received several recognitions for his research, including the Sloan Industry Studies Best Paper Award, the Academy of Management Newman Award, the Strategic Management Society Conference Best Paper Prize, the DRUID Conference Best Paper Award, the Israel Strategy Conference Best Paper Prize, and he is the inaugural recipient of the Byars Faculty Excellence Award. Frank regularly translates his research findings for wider audiences in articles in the MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and elsewhere.

Frank is the author of a leading textbook—Strategic Management (6th edition, 2023), with translations into Greek, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish. When launched, Frank’s text won the McGraw Hill 1st Edition Award of the Year in Business and Economics. The 4th edition won the McGraw Hill Product of the Year Award in Business and Economics. Frank also authored 70 case studies distributed by Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), with 27 achieving “bestseller” status among the cases distributed by HBP.

Frank has a wide range of executive education experience, including teaching in programs at GE Management Development Institute (Crotonville, New York), Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, ICN Business School (France), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), St. Gallen University (Switzerland), and the University of Washington. He received numerous teaching awards for excellence in the classroom, including the GT-wide Georgia Power Professor of Excellence award. To inform his research, Frank has conducted extensive fieldwork and executive training with a wide range of companies such as Amgen, Daimler, Eli Lilly, Equifax, GE Energy, GE Healthcare, Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea), Kimberly-Clark, Microsoft, McKesson, NCR, Turner (TBS), and UPS.

Frank held visiting professorships at EBS University of Business and Law (Germany), Singapore Management University (Tommie Goh Professorship), and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Management, and the Strategic Management Society.

Frank holds a Ph.D. in strategic management from the University of Washington, an MBA from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, and is Diplom-Volkswirt (M.Sc. equivalent) in economics from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.