Africa Ariño

Biography

Dr. Ariño received her Ph.D. in Management from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is professor and head of the Strategic Management Department at IESE Business School, University of Navarra (Spain). In the past, she served as Deputy Dean for Faculty, and as Director of the Ph.D. Program. She is specialized in Strategic Alliance Management, particularly in their structural design, process issues and evolutionary aspects of the inter-partner relationship.  Her research has been published in first world level academic journals such as Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Management, among others. Also, she is author of numerous contributions in publications aimed at a managerial audience, such as California Management Review or The Academy of Management Executive. She is the co-author of the book Entrepreneurial Alliances (with Jeffrey J. Reuer and Paul Olk), co-editor of two other volumes: Strategic alliances: Governance and contracts (with Jeffrey J. Reuer) and Creating value through international strategy (with P. Ghemawat and J.E. Ricart).  Dr. Ariño is the Academic Director of the Research Centre on Globalization and Strategy at IESE Business School. She is Associate Editor of Academy of Management Discoveries and Global Strategy Journal, and serves or has served as a member of the editorial board of Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, and European Management Review.  Currently, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Strategic Management Society. She has also served in the Executive Committee of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management. Dr. Ariño was the Chairperson of the 2014 Annual International Conference of the Strategic Management Society. The conference theme was "Strategies in a World of Networks" and it was attended by +1,100 strategy academics and professionals. She has also organized several specialized conferences related to her research interests, and presents her research regularly at annual conferences sponsored by the Academy of International Business, the Academy of Management, and the Strategic Management Society. She teaches courses on Competitive Strategy, Corporate Strategy, and Managin External Growth in MBA and Executive Education programs, as well as in the Ph.D. Program. She also teaches a Ph.D. course on Qualitative Research Methods. She has taken part in diverse consulting projects on issues related to Strategic Management such as formulation and implementation of strategic plans and management and governance bodies; design of strategic alliances; and issues particular to family-owned businesses. In 2014, Dr. Ariño spent half a year visiting Lagos Business School (Lagos, Nigeria), and Strathmore Business School (Nairobi, Kenya). She is working on the project "Africa to Africa" about African companies that internationalize within the continent. She comments regularly on African business and social issues in her blog "Africa from Africa."

Research Interest

Areas of Interest * Cooperative strategies * Strategic alliances