Gerald A. McDermott (Ph.D. MIT), is Professor of International Business and the Chair of the Sonoco International Business Department at the Darla Moore School of Business of the University of South Carolina. He has also served as the Faculty Director of the Folks Center for International Business, the Academic Director of both the Ph.D. Program in International Business and Master of International Business Program, as well as the Director of the Double Degree Programs for Doctoral Studies and the EIMBA. He is also Senior Research Fellow at IAE Business School in Argentina. He was previously Assistant Professor of Multinational Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for seven years. He has collaborated with the IDB, World Bank, UNCTAD, and ITC. Dr. McDermott has been named Fulbright Fellow, Ferdinand Braudel Fellow of the European University Institute, and Watson Foundation Fellow, among other awarded honors. In 2024 he became the first foreign national to become a member of the Argentine Council of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. McDermott specializes in international business and political economy, particularly on issues of innovation, risk, corporate strategy, and institutional change in emerging market countries. His earlier work examined the impact of industrial networks on the creation of economic governance institutions in post-communist countries. His second stream of research focused on the creation of new innovative capacities for global competitiveness, with special emphasis on a variety of manufacturing and agricultural industries in Latin America. His third stream of research examines the impact of transnational integration regimes on the internationalization of industry standards and on local institutional development via a comparison of the EU accession, NAFTA, and Mercosur. His latest research stream examines how the institutions supporting international quality standards shape the paths of technological change and economic development around the world. Dr. McDermott has published articles in many of the leading scholarly journals in management, international business, and comparative political economy. His first book, Embedded Politics: Industrial Networks and Institutional Change in Post-Communism, was a finalist for APSA’s Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the Best Book on government, politics, and international affairs. His second book, with Laszlo Bruszt, is Leveling the Playing Field: Transnational Regulatory Integration and Development. He lived in Prague for over 4 years and periodically in Buenos Aires over the last 30 years, being proficient in Czech and fluent in Spanish. Visit his Research Website for more information.