Scott Graffin, who holds the Synovus Chair in Servant Leadership at the Terry College of Business, has been appointed to head the Department of Management. The appointment takes effect Aug. 1.
Graffin, who came to the University of Georgia as an assistant professor in 2006, succeeds Robert Vandenberg, who retired this summer. Vandenberg, the Robert O. Arnold Professor of Business, has served as department head since 2013 and came to UGA from Georgia State University in 1993.
“I would like to thank Bob for his years of service to the Department of Management and the college. The department’s reputation flourished during his tenure,” said Dean Ben Ayers. “I am confident the department will continue to excel in its research, teaching and service and grow its influence and impact in important ways under Scott’s leadership. Our students have incredible opportunities to learn from the department’s engaged instructors and scholars.”
Graffin has served as the Department of Management’s Ph.D. coordinator since 2019 and has mentored many doctoral students during his career. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in strategic management and is a sought-after instructor in the Terry College MBA program.
As a researcher, Graffin studies corporate governance structures and their impacts. He is widely known for his expertise on the behaviors and characteristics of corporate CEOS and how they impact a firm’s success.
He serves on the editorial boards of the Strategic Management Journal, Organizational Research Methods and Academy of Management Journal. He also serves as a research fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.
The Department of Management’s faculty is distinguished for its research productivity. The department’s faculty published the most papers in the field’s top research journals in 2019 and again in 2020. And the Terry College of Business was the only school in the TAMUGA Rankings to average more than one top journal publication per faculty member annually from 2016 to 2020.
In addition to the department playing a prominent role in the Terry College MBA programs, management is one of the college’s fastest-growing undergraduate majors with areas of emphasis offered in Human Resource Analytics and Operations/Supply Chain Management.