GW Names New School of Business Dean

New York University’s Doug Guthrie is an expert on sociology and economic reform in China.

May 27, 2010

When Doug Guthrie says he is excited about the “amazing opportunity” to come to Foggy Bottom to serve as dean of GW’s School of Business, he is not only referring to the university’s prime location, just blocks from the White House, Treasury Department and the World Bank.

Sure, GW’s location is unique, but it only positions the school to do what he says top business schools should be doing. “A business school should be training students about the intersection of business, politics and society,” he says.

Dr. Guthrie, who holds a joint appointment as professor of management and of sociology at New York University, says business schools sometimes focus too narrowly on finance and economics.

“Now is the moment when business schools are really considering the relationship between corporations and society,” he says.

Dr. Guthrie will take the helm of the GW School of Business in mid-August. Susan Phillips is retiring as dean after 12 years.

“Doug Guthrie brings to this position a unique combination of insight, creativity and global experience,” says GW President Steven Knapp. “The School of Business and the entire university will benefit greatly from his leadership."

New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business, a top five business school, is positioned in one of the world’s financial capitals. But even if the District was not considered a prime place for business 10 or 15 years ago, things are changing fast.

Although Dr. Guthrie says there is a “disciplinary revolution” underway at business schools, which often hire scholars from other disciplines, particularly economics, Dr. Guthrie says GW is revealing that it has a broader view of the field by hiring a sociologist to lead the School of Business. Recent dean-level appointments at the top 50 business schools include only a handful of sociologists.

“GW is not just replicating what every other business school is doing,” he says. “It is adopting a broader view and trying to build a school that understands the field in a more nuanced manner.”

A Pittsburgh native, Dr. Guthrie is an avid skier and an “addicted” runner. When he says he has a “deep passion” for traveling the world, he is also not exaggerating.

While he was earning an A.B. in Asian languages and civilizations, concentrating on Chinese literature, from the University of Chicago, Dr. Guthrie spent a year in Taiwan studying at the Cathay Language Institute in Taipei and developing a fluency in Mandarin Chinese. He then earned a master’s and a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. During his graduate studies, he moved to Shanghai for a year to conduct research for his dissertation, which was recognized with the American Sociological Association’s national award for the top dissertation in the field.

Dr. Guthrie still travels to China three or four times a year, and in the past four years, he has delivered presentations throughout the world, including in France, Italy, China, Singapore and England. He was the keynote speaker at a meeting of the Association of Norwegian Advertisers in Oslo, Norway, last month, and he is executive academic director of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

Since 2006, Dr. Guthrie has served as senior editor of the journal Management and Organization Review, and he serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Contemporary China, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Management and Organization Review.

He’s also done a different sort of publishing, which he hopes to continue at GW. In 2009, Dr. Guthrie launched the blog, Guthrie on Business Leadership. He hopes to bring a new and social media focus to the School of Business and to use it as a platform for innovative technology.

“I am thrilled about the opportunities we have at the GW School of Business. Outgoing Dean Susan Phillips is leaving the school in excellent shape, there is a new building, and we have this incredibly rich environment in which to train business leaders about the intersection of business and politics in a way that no other school can,” he says. “It’s actually amazing to think about what the school might be able to accomplish here.”