Dr. Hemant Merchant

Dr. Hemant Merchant (PhD, Purdue University) is a professor of Global Business at the University of South Florida (USF).  In late 2016, he was honored with a 'Global Achievement' award for "...outstanding contributions to [the USF System's] mission to ensure student success in a global environment."

Dr. Merchant ranked as the world’s 10th most prolific International Management scholar.  An award-winning researcher, Dr. Merchant’s work focuses on conditions that nurture companies’ financial and non-financial performance.  These companies include SMEs and larger multinationals who compete globally in manufacturing and/or non-manufacturing industries. 

Dr. Merchant has written extensively about value creation via joint ventures and about the performance implications of corporate strategic architecture when companies venture into international markets.  His work includes investigating the performance drivers of companies competing in emerging markets worldwide.  He is currently examining the effectiveness of entrepreneurial ecosystems.  Prior to joining USF, Dr. Merchant was a professor of International Strategy and the Dean's Endowed Research Fellow at Simon Fraser University (Canada); his most recent position was at Florida Atlantic University (FAU).

PUBLICATIONS & GRANTS.  Dr. Merchant has published in several leading refereed journals, including the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Global Strategy Journal, International Business Review, Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, Multinational Business Review, Strategic Management Journal and Thunderbird International Business Review. 

He has authored Competing in Emerging Markets (2008; Routledge) and co-edited Handbook of Research on International Strategic Management (2012; Elgar) as well as a scholarly special issue on multinationals in the services sector.  Moreover, Dr. Merchant has edited the Handbook of Contemporary Research on Emerging Markets (2016; Elgar) and recently published The New Frontiers of International Business (2022; Springer) that showcases thought-leadership in International business.  This book offers researchers and practitioners insights into frontier global issues and offers starting points to meaningfully address them. 

Dr. Merchant’s research endeavors have earned him approximately $500,000 in various types of grants.  In 2023, Dr. Merchant was awarded almost $30,000 to pursue inter-disciplinary research that lays groundwork for a National Science Foundation-funded research program on organizational performance.  In July 2020, the Chilean government awarded him (and his colleagues) a $35,000 grant to augment the global competitiveness of Chilean exporters.  In 2022, Dr. Merchant was a finalist for the US State Department's prestigious Fulbright award. 

RESEARCH AWARDS.  Dr. Merchant's work has earned him nine research accolades--including five 'Best Paper' awards--conferred by the Academy of International Business (AIB), Academy of Management (AOM) and Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC), all premier professional organizations. 

In late 2017, Dr. Merchant's work on the performance impact of the interplay between home-country conditions and international diversification earned him AIB Southeast's Best 'Global Strategy' Track Paper award and the Best Conference Paper award.  In 2006, Dr. Merchant’s research about the effect of competitive pressures on shareholder value earned him ASAC’s prestigious Douglas Mackay Outstanding Paper award—a coveted prize that he also earned in 2005 for identifying joint venture configurations associated with value creation and destruction.  A parallel investigation into mechanisms via which emerging market joint ventures created shareholder value was a finalist for AIB’s 2004 Best Paper award.  In 1990, Dr. Merchant’s work on mergers and acquisitions earned him AOM's Best Paper award.  

Dr. Merchant has also authored two award-winning teaching case-studies.  In 2007, he was awarded ASAC’s Honorable Mention Case award for highlighting the Headquarters-Subsidiary relationship tensions in a large European multinational operating in an emerging market.  Another case-study won Dr. Merchant AOM’s 2006 Best Case Finalist award for unraveling the nexus between an Asian multinational's global expansion strategy and country-specific institutions.  Dr. Merchant’s case-studies have been reproduced in leading textbooks and/or included in the Ivey, Harvard Business School, and Thunderbird case collections.  

At FAU, Dr. Merchant served on a committee that supervised a doctoral dissertation that won AIB's Best Dissertation award and was a runner-up for AOM's Best Dissertation award.  Presently, Dr. Merchant co-chairs and advises four Executive doctoral committees.

EDITORSHIPS & EDITORIAL BOARDS.  Dr. Merchant currently is a Consulting editor at Journal of International Business Studies, the discipline's top-ranked journal and an Associate editor at Asian Business and Management.  Until 2019, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asia Business Studies.  Dr. Merchant has also served as the 'Strategy' editor at International Journal of Emerging Markets, ‘Strategy & Business Environment’ editor at Journal of Asia Business Studies, and ‘Strategic Management & International Business’ editor at Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. 

Additionally, Dr. Merchant serves (or has served) on the editorial boards of, among other, Asian Business and Management, Cross-Cultural and Strategic Management, Global Strategy Journal, International Journal of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, International Journal of Management Studies and Research, Management and Organization Review, Management International Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Thunderbird International Business Review—many of them premier journals in the Strategy and International Business disciplines. 

TEACHING AWARDS.  Dr. Merchant teaches (or has taught) in graduate and executive programs at prestigious universities in Asia, Europe and North America where he has been consistently recognized for his approach to organizational problem-solving.  

In 2014, he was nominated for USF (St. Petersburg) Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Kate Tiedemann College of Business Teaching Award.  In 2009, Dr. Merchant was nominated for FAU’s Distinguished [University] Teacher of the Year Award, the Barry Kaye College of Business Teaching Award, and the Broward Campus Achievement Award (Best Faculty category).  In Canada, Dr. Merchant was awarded the Teaching Honor Roll twice and nominated five times for the elite TD-Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Award. 

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE.  Dr. Merchant has served in numerous professional capacities—including as an expert on the United Nations ‘Experts Panel on Ownership and Control in Multinational Enterprises.’  An active member of the AIB, Dr. Merchant’s contributions include serving as a Paper Development Workshop panelist (2024, 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2017) and Workshop leader (2018), and Co-chair of the 'International Business Theory, Direct Investment, and Entry Mode strategies' track (2017, 2016).  Previously, Dr. Merchant chaired the ‘Strategic Alliances and Inter-firm Relationships’ and ‘Co-evolution of Emerging Markets and Multinational Corporations’ tracks.  Moreover, he served as a panelist several times on AIB's  'Doctoral Student' and 'Junior Faculty' consortiums, most recently in 2024. 

Dr. Merchant has also served other leading professional societies.  In 2015, he was a panelist on AOM’s Doctoral consortium (International Management division) and previously chaired AOM’s ‘Conducting Strategy Research in Emerging Markets’ workshop.  Dr. Merchant also served on Strategic Management Society’s 2012 and 2013 Global Strategy Workshops.  From 2006 to 2008, Dr. Merchant was an elected representative-at-large for the society’s Global Strategy group.  Additionally, he has been included several times in Who’s Who in Canadian Business and Who’s Who in Management. 

CONSULTING & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE.  Dr. Merchant regularly consults with prestigious institutions worldwide and facilitates the formulation and implementation of their internationalization strategies.  He is currently assisting institutions around the world in building and nurturing their portfolio of 'international' competences. 

For several years, Dr. Merchant consulted with a large North American university to develop its International Business program.  He also consults with SMEs and multinationals, assisting them in strategy development and execution, and strategic alliance creation and management.  To illustrate, Dr. Merchant designed and delivered a ‘Doing business in emerging markets’ training seminar for a group of USA-based executives and SME owners.  Dr. Merchant has also consulted with a world-class aerospace company whose senior managers he assisted in the area of developing joint ventures in a key emerging market. 

Prior to joining academia, Dr. Merchant worked for a unit of Reliance Industries Limited, now a Fortune Global 100 company and India’s largest private sector conglomerate with more than U$100 billion in 2023 revenues.