Background

Tatiana Kostova is a Carolina Distinguished Professor, the Buck Mickel Endowed Chair and a professor of international business at the Moore School. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Prior to coming to the United States, Kostova was on the faculty of the Department of Management at the University of Economics in Varna, Bulgaria, and was the associate director of the Graduate School of Management at the university. She was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles and subsequently at WU, Vienna, Austria. She has been a Visiting or Affiliated Professor at WU, Vienna, Austria, Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, Tec de Monterrey Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico, EGADE, King's College London UK, and other institutions. 

Kostova completed her Ph.D. degree in 1996. Her dissertation, "Success of the transnational transfer of organizational practices within multinational companies," was awarded the Barry Richman Best Dissertation Award of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management and the Richard Farmer Best Dissertation Award of the Academy of International Business. 

Kostova has taught various international management courses in top-ranked graduate programs at USC and other universities around the world and is the recipient of many teaching awards in programs such as MIBS, IMBA, and PMBA at USC, and the CEMS consortium in Europe. She has also taught in the Faculty Development in International Business Program at the Moore School, where she helps colleagues from other business schools develop their international management courses. She is a regular guest professor in the summer program of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is involved in executive programs offered by USC and some other schools.

Research

Kostova’s research focuses broadly on management of multinational companies (MNCs), including global strategy, organization theory, particularly the institutional perspective, and organizational behavior. More specifically, she studies institutional and cultural embeddedness of MNCs, cross-border transfer of management practices within MNCs, knowledge management, and organizational legitimacy and social capital as a source of competitive advantage in MNCs. She has also done research on organizational behavior topics, such as organization-based self-esteem, psychological ownership, multiculturalism, dual identification, and extra-role behavior in organizations. Her more recent work is on CSR in MNCs and global supply chains, comparative corporate governance and agency theory in MNCs, and the impact of different forms of ownership (e.g., family firms, state owned enterprises, emerging market MNCs) on firm strategy and management.

Kostova has published articles in top academic journals including Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of World Business, Journal of Management Studies, and others. In 2007, she was recognized as the “Rising Star” in economics and business by InCites for the high impact of her publications. As of December 2023, her publications have received more than 27,000 Google Scholar citations. She has been recognized multiple times as being in the top 1% or 2% of scholars in business and economics worldwide by Web of Science. In 2023, she received the Academy of Management International Management Division's Hyundai Motor Eminent Scholar Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement in international management scholarship. She is or has served on multiple editorial boards including Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of Management Studies and others and is a reviewer for many more. She has served as vice president of the Academy of International Business, and chair of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management. She is a fellow of the Academy of International Business.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota 
• M.S., Kiev State University, Ukraine