Tom Roehl

Professor of Management

About

Professor Roehl combines his functional training in economics with his knowledge and experience in Asia to write about business relationships in the region. His dissertation research on Japanese trading companies, funded by a Fulbright fellowship, allowed him to begin his research to study industry and firm relationships. He has done research using information from the aerospace, pharmaceuticals, parts supply and on-line brokerage industries. As a result of more than five years of living in Japan, he speaks and reads Japanese well-enough to gather information and data and do his research. Professor Roehl has published in such journals as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Long Range Planning, Managerial and Decision Economics and Asian Business and Management. He is co-author of a well-cited book in resource-based theory (Mobilizing Invisible Assets, Harvard University Press). His current research is on liability of foreignness, Japanese trading companies and the role of relational norms in interfirm relationships.

Professor Roehl began his teaching career at the University of Washington Business School. He taught for several years at the Michigan Business School where he taught courses on Japanese business and also helped train executives in dealing with Japanese partners. At the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, he taught in the MBA program and in the Executive MBA program, where he helped create an innovative European study program as a capstone to that program. His work with the European study program earned him a award for service to the program.

Professor Roehl joined the Western Washington University faculty in 1999. His undergraduate projects class, which has allowed teams of senior international business students to work with more than sixty local firms on programs to expand international markets, won an award in 2006 for teaching innovation. His research has been recognized at Western Washington with three Dean's Research Awards.

 

Department/Program: Management

Specializations: International Business; Asian Business; Foreign Investment; Interfirm Business Relationships