Twelve New Professors for a University in Evolution
This year the Bocconi faculty is considerably enhanced, by welcoming 12 new professors. Four of them are in senior positions, associate or full professors, others, with a fresh PhD and recruited on the international job market, have been hired as assistant professors. Seven of them are foreigners, four are women. All the eight Bocconi departments have recruited at least one professor.
"Being part of the evolution that Bocconi is experiencing" and "living a moment of growth like this" are among the reasons that pushed some of them to move to Milan and work at Bocconi. "It is clear that the international academic world has perfectly understood the process of change that's been under way for a dozen years, which is transforming Bocconi from an Italian university that stood out for teaching to an European university renowned for reaserch quality", says Vice Rector for the faculty Gianmario Verona. "You can observe that also from the prestige of the universities many of the new teachers come from".
A stunning 1,400 young PhDs have sent their applications to Bocconi. About one in ten have been interviewed at the international job markets, held on the sidelines of major associations' conferences. Fifty have had the opportunity to hold a seminar in the University, in front of the teachers of their department, and eight have been hired.
The Department of Accounting welcomes Claudia Imperatore, with a PhD at the IE Business School and some prominent publications under her belt. A University College London PhD, Joseph-Simon Goerlach, expert in labor economics and migration, strengthens the Department of Economics. Two young professors join the Department of Finance: Alberto Manconi, former associate professor at Tilburg University after a PhD from INSEAD, and Florian Nagler from the Vienna Graduate School of Finance. The Department of Management and Technology grows by two units with Xing (Kelly) Chen, a student of corporate governance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Thorsten Grohsjean, who works on organizational issues and comes from the Munich School of Management. Sungtak Hong, joining the Department of Marketing, has a PhD from the London Business School and studies category management. Nicoletta Balbo returns to Bocconi, where she graduated, and in particular to the Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management, after a PhD at the University of Groningen and a number of important demography publications.
As in the best international universities, assistant professors start a process that, in the course of eight years, can lead them to tenure, i.e. the appointment as associate professor. "It is a rigorous process," Prof. Verona says, "during which they will be evaluated according to three criteria: teaching, service to the institution, and, most of all, quality of research and, therefore, prestige of their publications. A first mid-term assessment is planned at the end of the third year, while they will face the final evaluation, carried out by both internal and external reviewers, at the end of the seventh year".
Nicolai Foss, one of Europe's best known strategy scholars, leaves the Copenhagen Business School after 27 years to become a full professor at the Department of Management and Technology. Igor Pruenster leaves the University of Turin to become a professor at the Department of Decision Sciences and direct the new Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics. Pietro Sirena, after 16 years at the University of Siena, becomes professor at the Department of Legal Studies. Celia Moore, the associate professor who, at the Department of Management and Technology, will study organization psychology comes from a prestigious university such as the London Business School.