Background

Stan Markus is an associate professor of international business and a Business Partnership Foundation Fellow at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the Moore School, he taught at the University of Chicago. He has also spent time in visiting capacity at Stanford GSB, Copenhagen Business School, Peking University (Guanghua School of Management) and University of California San Diego.

Prof. Markus works on non-market strategy and political risk, especially in emerging markets. His projects explore corporate political activity, CSR, property rights protection, stakeholder engagement, populism, corruption, oligarchs, expropriation, regulatory enforcement and institution building.

His book — Property, Predation, and Protection: Piranha Capitalism in Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2015) — was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research, one of the most prestigious book awards across social sciences. The book builds and tests a framework for analyzing political risk as well as effective firm-level non-market strategies in under-institutionalized economies.

His research has also been published in the leading peer-reviewed journals in management (e.g. Academy of Management Review), political science (e.g. Comparative Political Studies), development studies (e.g. Studies in Comparative International Development), economic sociology (e.g. Socio-Economic Review), and general interest (e.g. Daedalus). It has also been recognized through many awards, including the AoM Best Paper Award (Strategic Management Division), the Wilson Center Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Harvard Academy Fellowship from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the Jean Monnet Fellowship from the European University Institute in Florence, and the Best Article in Comparative Politics Award from the American Political Science Association.

Prof. Markus has lived in Russia, Ukraine, China and several West European countries. He has native fluency in Russian and German, proficiency in French and Ukrainian, and a conversational understanding of Mandarin.

His commentary has been featured in media outlets including CNN, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, NPR, Vox, and Voice of America, among others.

Research

Non-market strategy, political risk, political economy, corporate governance, economic development, property rights, stakeholder engagement, emerging markets

Education

• Ph.D., Harvard University, 2009
• B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 2002