Joe DiStefano
Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior and International Business
Mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA
Harvard Business School, USA
Social psychology at Cornell University, USA
Social psychology at Cornell University, USA
University of Western Ontario's Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching
Rensselaer's Demer's Medal for outstanding service
Joe DiStefano is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior and International Business. His areas of interest are cross-cultural management, organizational effectiveness, and human resource management.
DiStefano joined IMD’s full-time faculty in January 2000 after serving as visiting professor in 1979-80 and adjunct professor during most of the intervening 20 years. He rejoined IMD from Hong Kong, where he led the establishment of the first offshore campus of The University of Western Ontario (Canada).
He became Professor Emeritus at IMD upon his retirement in January 2005 but continues to direct several in-company programs at IMD and abroad. From January 1997, he was executive director of the Richard Ivey School of Business (Asia) and served as the Shirley Chan Memorial Professor of International Business at Ivey’s Cheng Yu Tung Management Institute.
Prior to joining IMD, DiStefano’s appointments at the Ivey Business School included the Royal Bank Professor of International Business, Founding Director of Business in Beijing (with Tsinghua University), Associate Dean – Human Resources, and organizational behavior area group coordinator.
He earned a BS in mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MBA at Harvard Business School, and an MA and PhD in social psychology at Cornell University. He is the recipient of The University of Western Ontario’s Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching and Rensselaer’s Demer’s Medal for outstanding service. He has served on several private sector and voluntary boards of directors in the US and Canada.
DiStefano has written over 115 cases and numerous articles and book chapters and has (co)authored several books and monographs, including International Management Behavior: From Policy to Practice (5th edition, 2005) and Effective Managerial Action. He has been actively teaching, researching, and consulting in the North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region for over 30 years. He also co-edited a casebook, Human Resource Management and Development, as part of a 16-volume set specially created at Ivey and published by Chinese Machine Press in August 1998 (English) with a new edition published in April 1999 (Chinese).
Widely in demand as a teacher and consultant around the world, DiStefano’s clients include major multinational companies such as the OECD and the World Bank, as well as universities and governments.
The author begins "A Glimmer of Hope" by talking of the tensions between hope and despair that are familiar to all of whose work is international and cross-cultural.
As countries and their economies are becoming increasingly interdependent, the need for new skills and competencies continues to be a key importance to the effective global manager. But what does t...
The current volatility of Asian financial markets, the ever-changing legal and regulatory conditions of doing business in the region, and the continuing competitive pressures of managing people acr...