P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

Profile | Curriculum Vitae

Area Coordinator, Marketing

Professor

sundar@uw.edu
(425) 352-5384
UW1-240

Connect with Sundar on LinkedIn.

Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan obtained his Ph.D. in Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has an undergraduate degree in Engineering from I.I.T. Delhi, a Masters’ in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a Masters’ degree in Marketing from The Wharton School. He is the recipient of the 2011 University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Award medal.

Prof. Balakrishnan has been recognized for fundamental contributions to more than one research domain. His work has impacted both the theory and practice of marketing. The substantive areas of Prof. Balakrishnan’s research are directed toward studying New Product Marketing & Marketing Strategy, Buyer-Seller Negotiations, Relationship Marketing, and Retail Locational Decisions. He is recognized as one of a handful of marketing scholars whose work has had a major impact on other disciplines e.g., artificial intelligence, strategy, organizational behavior, and negotiations.

Prof. Balakrishnan joined the University of Washington, Bothell in 1994 as a founding faculty member of the new Business Program. He was promoted to full Professor in 2004. He has served in numerous administrative roles. He was the Acting Director (similar to Dean) of the Business Program for two years where he was responsible for managing and running a business school involving both Strategic and day-to-day operational activities, and launching a number of new options and initiatives. He helped spearhead the AACSB reaccreditation efforts successfully in 2000. He has most recently served as the faculty mentor; and as Chair of the Faculty Personnel committee for the Business School. Among other university level assignments, he has served as Senator to the UW Faculty Senate; Search Committee member for the UWB Chancellor, and Vice-Chancellor; the 5-year Review Committee member for two different Chancellors; Chair of search committee for the Director of Computing & Software Systems; and as Elected Member of the Campus Council on Promotion, Tenure and Faculty Affairs. He is currently Senator (elected) to UW Faculty Senate; member of the Faculty Council on University Libraries – overseeing all 16+ UW libraries with 9+ million books, etc.

He was the Academic thought leader for all business school graduate studies in his recent role as Associate Dean of the Graduate – with Responsibilities that included:

• Taking the lead in crafting an academic vision that encompasses all of our graduate programs both MBA & MS Accounting; MBA has Two Locations x 3 MBA Options.
• Working with faculty, staff, school leadership, and all relevant internal and external stakeholders to manage, vitalize and grow graduate curricula, and experiences.
• Collaborating with staff to ensure effective recruiting, admission, and advising of students- including staff structure design, hiring, review, development, and, promotion.
• Leading accreditation and review activities pertaining to graduate programs.
• Exceptional Results and turnaround of our Graduate Programs. MBA Applications increased by almost 100% in two years, and 65% from last year. At a time when schools nationally are retrenching or shuttering, our entering class is at operating capacity two months before our deadline.
• MS Accounting program turnaround has been completed! Historic accumulated budget deficit has been completely paid off resulting in improved faculty morale. Program will now be returning surplus funds back to the school.
• Accreditation Report on the Redesign, Launch, and Implementation of the New MBA Programs (6 flavors of MBA now available) has been completed. 5 Year Review report of the MSA Program completed.
• Graduate Programs Staff team hired and trained over the last year and a half are now functioning like a “well-oiled machine” in their own words.
• My 360 Review completed in May 2020. Net Positives on every dimension. OEHR Consultant’s comment: “borrow your genius”. Blown away by the positive feedback. Thanks to my entire team of staff, and faculty.

He is very proud of the fact that the Business School that started out as tiny one in rented facilities with about 30 students has now grown to have an international reputation in a beautiful campus. The business school is the same age as his twins, and he thinks of it as his triplet!

He was previously on the Marketing faculty as an Assistant Professor in the College of Business at The Ohio State University. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He served as a Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business of The University of Chicago. At Chicago, he taught at three campus locations, including Hyde Park, the Gleacher Center and Barcelona.

Prof. Balakrishnan has done the pioneering work in employing Artificial Intelligence methodologies such as, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms, for addressing important marketing problems dealing with Business Analytics and New Product Marketing. He is the co-developer of his own DSS software GENESYS and PRODLINE software for product line designs. His research has been commercialized in the leading software. He has recently co-developed GADOS, a data analytics program, for market segmentation that results in significant improvements in customer targetability.

His Negotiations research includes a path breaking paper (with Eliashberg) that develops an analytical process model using fundamental constructs from social psychology and which can predict inefficiency. His recent contribution includes the development of an axiomatic solution concept (with Gomez and Vohra) that accounts for modifications in negotiators’ aspirations (i.e., Tempered Aspirations Solution). His conceptual and recent empirical work includes developing Negotiation Agenda strategies when bargaining over multiple-issues. He has published the classic paper (with Oliver and Barry) on extending the customer satisfaction Expectancy-Disconfirmation paradigm to two-party negotiations (this alone has over 1000 downloads). He is the developer of NEGOTIAT, a negotiation training simulator.

Much of his current work is at the interface of multiple disciplines. He has been working on understanding the evolution of markets. His work at the interface of Marketing, Finance, and Economics examines and analyzes the evolution of US Stock markets over a 40-year period. His first paper on this topic was accepted (by Prof. Eric Maskin the Nobel Prize winning economist) at Economics Letters. His current research in New Products is on the Diffusion of Innovations that integrates the Marketing-Operations nexus with regards to supply constraints. He is currently involved in developing Agent Based Diffusion models for research and pedagogy.

His research papers have appeared in PLoS ONE, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Production and Operations Management, Psychometrika, Decision Support Systems, Economics Letters, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, International Journal of Conflict Management, Journal of Direct Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Health Care Marketing, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, European Journal of Operational Research, and Decision Sciences among others. He has presented his research at numerous conferences nationally and internationally. He has served as a reviewer for many of the leading journals such as the Management Science, the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research. He was ranked as one of the top three Best Reviewers in 2005 and 2006 by Marketing Science. He is on the editorial board from 2000- 2020 of Psychology and Marketing; and is a Senior Editor for Journal of Information Technology and Management. He was listed among the Top 300 most prolific management scholars in a 1997 INFORMS survey based on publications over a ten-year period. He has been listed in various editions of MARQUIS’ Who’s Who in America for many years, including the 70th Platinum Anniversary Edition.

He has taught courses and students at all levels ranging from Undergraduates to Graduates to Executives. He has also been invited to deliver seminars in the United States, Europe, Japan, India, Israel, and Australia. He has received outstanding teaching evaluations from students at all levels. Some of his recognitions for teaching excellence include being recognized as the Business Instructor of the Year 1995 by the UWB Undergraduate Business students; the Best Professor by the Technology MBA students in 2004 and 2007; and in 2011 the Best Professor by the pioneering class of the Leadership MBA program. He was a multiple time nominee or finalist for the University’s Teaching Award. He was awarded the 2011 University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Award, which is given only once in a person’s lifetime.

Prof. Balakrishnan has taught a number of different courses at the undergraduate and MBA programs in a number of schools. The courses he has taught include: Marketing Management, New Product Marketing, Advanced Marketing Strategy, Capstone Marketing Simulation, Marketing Research, Marketing Models, Business Marketing, and Project & Operations Management. He has developed and taught new and innovative courses including Marketing Management Laboratory and Artificial Intelligence and Marketing Decision Support Systems. He has served as a consultant to a number of organizations and presented modules in various executive programs. He was a faculty fellow at the 42nd AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium where he delivered a talk on “Technology in teaching” in the plenary session. He was the Keynote speaker at the 7th annual Great Lakes – NASMEI International Marketing Conference hosted by the Kotler-Srinivasan center in December 2013. His talk was titled “Diversity, Interdisciplinarity & Cross-Fertilization: Evolution in Research and Teaching”. He helped organize for Prof. Jerry Wind the Wharton Fellows Program in Seattle in 2014 and was a featured Dinner speaker. He gave a talk on “Creating a Culture of Innovation”. He has received media coverage locally and internationally.

EDUCATION
1988: Ph.D. Department of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
1987: A.M. Department of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
1983: M.S. Industrial Engineering, The University of Texas at Arlington
1981: B.Tech Textile Engineering, The Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi

RESEARCH INTERESTS
New Product Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Buyers-Sellers Negotiations, Relationship Marketing, Customer Satisfaction, Retail Locations, Evolution of Markets; Marketing-Manufacturing Interface; Marketing Research, Artificial Intelligence: Genetic Algorithms, Neural Networks, Power Law, Diffusion of Innovations.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2004 – Professor, Business Program, University of Washington, Bothell
2008 Visiting Professor, Indian School of Business
2001 – 2002 Visiting Associate Professor, GSB, The University of Chicago
1998 – 2000 Acting Director, Business Administration Program, University of Washington, Bothell
1996 – 2004 Associate Professor, Business Administration Program, University of Washington, Bothell
1994 – 1996 Assistant Professor, Business Administration Program, University of Washington, Bothell
1989 – 1994 Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
1987 – 1988 Instructor, Dept. of Marketing, The Ohio State University
1983 – 1987 Graduate Research Assistant, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
1981 – 1982 Graduate Research Assistant, The University of Texas at Arlington

TEACHING INTERESTS/COURSES TAUGHT

Marketing Management
Advanced Marketing Strategy
Marketing Models and Expert Systems
Business Marketing
Marketing Management Laboratory
Negotiations

Customer Satisfaction
Marketing Research
New Product Marketing
Marketing Engineering
Operations Management

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
“A New Analytical Process Model of Two-Party Negotiation in Channels of Distribution.” The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Doctoral Dissertation Committee: Josh Eliashberg (Chair), Richard L. Oliver, Arvind Rangaswamy, Colin Camerer, and Jerry Wind.

SELECTED REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES
“Impeding the Juggernaut of Innovation Diffusion: A Production-Constrained Model,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and S.D. Pathak. Production Operations Management pp. 1-15. Forthcoming 2014. DOI 10.1111/poms.12106

“Negotiating when outnumbered: Agenda strategies for bargaining with buying teams,” by Charles Patton, and P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29, Issue 3 (September), pp. 280–291, 2012.

“The Tempered Aspirations Solution for Bargaining Problems with a Reference Point,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Juan Camilo Gomez, and Rakesh V. Vohra. Mathematical Social Sciences, 62, Issue 3 (November), pp. 144–150, 2011.

“Dual Objective Segmentation to Improve Targetability: An Evolutionary Algorithm Approach,” by P. V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Subodha Kumar, and Peng Han. Decision Sciences, 42, Issue 4 (November), pp. 831–857, 2011.

“The Impact of Expectation of Future Negotiation Interaction on Bargaining Processes and Outcomes,” by Charles Patton and P.V.(Sundar) Balakrishnan. Journal of Business Research, vol. 63 issue 8 (August), pp. 809-816, 2010.

“Power Law and Evolutionary Trends in Stock Markets,” by P.V.(Sundar) Balakrishnan, James M. Miller and S. Gowri Shankar. Economics Letters, 98, pp. 194-200, 2008.

“The Impact of Communication Media on Negotiation Outcomes,” by Jill Purdy, Pete Nye and P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan. International Journal of Conflict Management, 11 (2), pp 163 – 188, 2000.

“Consumer Rationality and Economic Efficiency: Is the Assumed Link Justified?” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Rajan Nataraajan and Anand Desai. Marketing Management Journal, 10 (Spring/Summer), pg. 1 – 11, 2000 (Lead Article).

“Genetic Algorithm for Product Design,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Varghese S. Jacob. Management Science, 42 (August), 1105-1117, 1996.

“Triangulation in Decision Support Systems: Algorithms for Product Design,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Varghese S. Jacob. Decision Support Systems, 14, 313-327, 1995.

“An Analytical Process Model Of Two-Party Negotiations,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Josh Eliashberg. Management Science, 41 (February), 226 -243, 1995.

“A Maximin Procedure for The Optimal Insertion Timing of Ad Executions,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Nicholas G. Hall. European Journal of Operational Research, 85 (September), 368-382, 1995.

“A Study of the Classification Capabilities of Neural Networks Using Unsupervised Learning: A Comparison with K-Means Clustering,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Martha C. Cooper, Varghese S. Jacob, and Phillip A. Lewis. Psychometrika, 59 (December), 509-525, 1994.

“Outcome Satisfaction in Negotiation: A Test of Expectancy Disconfirmation,” by Richard L. Oliver, P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Bruce Barry. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 60 (November), 252-275, 1994.

“Toward a Theory of Agenda Setting in Negotiations,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Charles Patton and Phillip A. Lewis. Journal of Consumer Research, 19 (4), March, 637-654, 1993.

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
Invited Talks/Guest Lectures
“Bargaining Problems with a Salient Point”. By P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Juan C. Gomez, and Rakesh V. Vohra. This work was presented at the following places: UW Seattle, Economics Department. April, 2011; Rice University. Economics Department Microeconomics Theory Workshop, April, 2011; Texas A&M University, Economics Department workshop, April 2011.

“Genetic Algorithms for Dual Objective Segmentation: Life, Death & Afterlife of K-Means?” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Subodha Kumar” Presented at Faculty of Business & Economics, The University of Sydney, Australia, September, 2009.

“Is There Life after K-Means? Genetic Algorithms for Dual Objective Segmentation” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Subodha Kumar
Presented at School of Business Administration, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, November 2008.

“Efficiency of Negotiated Exchanges.” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan. Invited Presentation at University of California, Riverside, Business School, April, 2005.

Conference Presentations/Keynote
“Impeding the Juggernaut of Innovation Diffusion: Supply Constrained Models,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan and Surya Pathak. Presented at the 6th Great Lakes NASMEI Conference, Kotler-Srinivasan Center for marketing Research, Chennai, India, December 2012.

“Market closings and Concentration of stock trading,“ by A. Steven Holland, P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, James M. Miller, and S. Gowri Shankar. Presented at Presented at WEA, San Francisco, July, 2012.

“Measuring Efficiency of Negotiated Exchanges: An Evaluation, Refinement, and Extension,” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Charles Patton and Robert Wilken. Presented at Marketing Science Conference, Houston/TX, June 11, 2011.

“A Comparative Investigation of Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing Approaches for Dual Objective Segmentation” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, Subodha Kumar, and Peng Han
Presented at Marketing Science Conference, Vancouver, Canada, June 2008.

“The Evolution of Markets: Power Law and Capital Markets”,
by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, James M. Miller, and S. Gowri Shankar. Presented at the Marketing Science Conference, June 2007, in Singapore.

Panel/Company Presentations
“Customer Satisfaction: Service Quality Management” by P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan, PEMCO, Seattle, WA.; Seminar for PEMCO employees, mid-level management to the CEO. September 14, 2006.

“Lessons Learned From The Cialis Success Story”
Panelists: P.V. Sundar Balakrishnan, PhD, Professor of marketing and Founding Faculty Member, MBA Program at the University of Washington, Bothell; and Leonard Blum, Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, ICOS Corporation, February 16th, 2006, Offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Invited Academic Presentations
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Pennsylvania State University; Rutgers University; University of Florida; North Carolina State University; Florida International University; International University of Japan; Southern Illinois University; University of Washington, Seattle; University of California, Riverside; SIES College of Commerce, Mumbai, India; Hebrew University, Israel; University of Sydney, Australia.

SELECTED EXECUTIVE PROGRAMS
ClearWire: Marketing Module in the Essentials of Business Management, UWB certificate program. Bellevue, WA, 2010, 2011.

The Management Program: UW Executive Education certificate program. Responsible for working with 50+ executives during the Residential Program at an off-campus resort. Providing the marketing content. 1999 to 2001.

Softstrat.Com: A UW and Washington Software Association program. Responsible for the Marketing Area and coordinating a major portion of the program. 1999, 2000.

SELECTED RESEARCH PROPOSALS FUNDED
“Project ELCO: Developing an Electronic Learning Community”
Sponsor: University of Washington, Bothell, 1997: $10,000.

“A Genetic Algorithm Based Decision Support System for Product Design.” Sponsor: Dean’s Summer Research Fellowship, The Ohio State University, 1992; Amount: $12,000.

“Optimal Dynamic Repositioning Strategies in the Product Attribute Space.” Sponsor: The Ohio State University; 1988, Dollar Amount:$15,000.

“Empirical Investigation of a New Analytical Process Model of Two-Party Negotiations in Channels of Distribution,” with Josh. Eliashberg. Sponsor: Centre for Risk in Decision Processes, The Wharton School; 1987, Dollar Amount: $1,000.

“The Effect of Temporal Order, Issue Salience, and Expectancy Disconfirmation on Negotiation Perception,” with Richard L. Oliver.
Sponsors: Marketing Science Institute (MSI); and Sears, Roebuck & Co.; 1986 Amount: All Expenses to Sears’ In-house Negotiator Training Seminar.

SERVICE
Administrative Service
1998-2000: Acting Director University of Washington Bothell Business Administration Program
1998-2001: AACSB Accreditation Process

Selected Faculty Service
Chair, Business Program, Senior Faculty Personnel Committee 2009-10; 2011; 2013, 2014.
Chair, Business Program Faculty Personnel Committees 2006-07, 2007-08; 2012, 2014.
Chair, MBA Program Review Committee 2003 – 2004.
Chair, Undergraduate Admissions Committee, 2003 – 2004.
Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor in Marketing, 2012-2013.
Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor in International Business, 2011.
Chair, Search Committee for Associate Professor in MIS, 2009-2010
Chair, Search Committee for Assoc/Asst Professor in Accounting, 2007-2008
Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor in Marketing, 1995, 1997, 2007-2008
Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor in Accounting, 2006-2007
Chair, Search for Assistant Professor in Managerial Economics, 2005-2006
Chair, Search for Associate Professor in Management, 1996
Committee Member Business Program Director Search 1996
Committees: Master’s Curriculum Design; Undergraduate Curriculum Design/Revision; Admissions Committees
AMA Student Chapter: Founding Faculty Advisor
Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) UWB Chapter: President & Faculty Advisor, 1998-2000; 2002-current.

Campus Service, University of Washington Bothell
Chancellor UWB, Search Committee Member, 2012- present
Campus Council on Promotion, Tenure and Faculty Affairs, 2009-2011; 2011-2013.
Chair, Computing & Software Systems, Director Search, 2008
Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs Search Committee Member, 2007.
Chancellor UWB, Dr. Warren Buck, 5 year Review Committee, Member, 2004 – 2005.
Senator, UW Faculty Senate, 2004 – 2006
Techno M.B.A. UW Seattle, Curriculum Design Committee member, 1999.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Editorial Board Member
2004 – Present: Journal of Product and Brand Management
2000 – Present: Psychology and Marketing

Reviewer
Management Science; Marketing Science; Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Marketing; Journal of Consumer Research; Organizational Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of Retailing, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Business Research, Computers and Mathematics with Applications, Applied Soft Computing

AWARDS AND HONORS
University Distinguished Teaching Award, 2011 (Given once in a lifetime)
Distinguished Teaching Award, nominee/finalist 1997, 1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010.
Best MBA Professor UWB Leadership MBA, 2011
Best MBA Professor UWB Technology MBA, 2004, 2007
Business Instructor of the Year Award, by UWB Business Students, 1995.
AMA/Sheth 47th Doctoral Consortium Faculty Fellow, 2012
AMA Doctoral Consortium Fellow The Wharton School Representative, 1986.
The Wharton School Research & Teaching Assistantship, 1983-1987.
IIT Delhi Alumni Association Award for Best Academic Improvement, 1981
Top 300 Most Prolific Management Scholar (1997 INFORMS survey: Publications over 10 years).
MARQUIS’ Who’s Who in America, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010-current editions.

Contact Information

sundar@uw.edu
(425) 352-5384
UW1-240
faculty.washington.edu/sundar