Featured Faculty: Professor Linda Edelman
Biography
Linda Edelman counts herself “so lucky” to be able to work with Bentley’s graduate students. As a Professor of Strategic Management, her research focuses on small firms, entrepreneurship, and the experiences of women entrepreneurs, and she teaches courses on strategic management and innovation. She holds both a DBA and an MBA from Boston University.
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I have always been interested in how the different aspects of a company fit together. To me, this is more exciting than any one of those individual parts. When I took my first course in Strategic Management during my MBA program many years ago, I knew that I had found my intellectual home. Since then, I have been teaching, commenting on, and learning about firm strategy.
Most of my work is at the intersection of strategy and entrepreneurship. I look at strategies around value creation. I am particularly interested in entrepreneurship through a gendered lens. Many women are interested in pursuing an entrepreneurial career. However, the impediments to women starting a high-growth business are significant. One of my research objectives is to illuminate some of the challenges faced by women, and then to offer some solutions.
The course that I teach, Strategic Management, is part of a wider MBA curriculum. Unlike many of the courses in the functional disciplines that prepare students for a particular career path, Strategic Management prepares students for every career in that it hones critical thinking skills. However, one career in which strategy is imperative is management consulting.
No particular educational background is needed to succeed in a Strategic Management course. What is needed is an overall intellectual curiosity. Often the strongest strategy students have an ability to make sense out of myriad different and conflicting information. In essence, they can handle ambiguity.
I absolutely love working with Bentley graduate students. Bentley students are bright, interesting and full or wonderful ideas. I am so lucky to have the opportunity to spend time with them and to discuss different company strategies.