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. From 1988 to 1989 she was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been a Visiting Professor at WU, Vienna, Austria, Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, Tec de Monterrey Guadalajara, EGADE, Tec de Monterrey, Mexico, 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 graduate programs at UofSC and other universities around the world, and is the recipient of many teaching awards. She also teaches 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 actively involved in the executive programs offered by the Executive Education Center at UofSC and some other schools.

Research

Kostova’s areas of specialization include international management, macro-organizational behavior and organization theory. More specifically, she studies institutional and cultural embeddedness of multinational corporations, cross-border transfer of management practices within MNCs, knowledge management, organizational legitimacy and social capital as a source of competitive advantage in MNCs. She has also done research on organization-based self-esteem, psychological ownership, multiculturalism, dual identification, and extra-role behavior in organizations. Her recent work is on 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 January 2019, her publications have received more than 15,000 Google Scholar citations. 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