Richard Staelin

Brief Biography

Richard Staelin is a John D. Little Award recipient and the Edward and Rose Donnell Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Staelin received all of his degrees from the University of Michigan, spending 1963 through 1965 as a special student at New York University. During that window, he also worked as a systems analyst and engineer at International Business Machines. After receiving his PhD in 1969, Staelin joined the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie-Mellon University, eventually becoming a full Professor and Department Head of Administration and Management Science.

In 1982, Staelin left Carnegie-Mellon for Duke. From 1983 to 1991, he served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and was Area Coordinator for Marking in 1982-1983, 1993-1995, 1999-2000, and 2012-2013. Staelin has held numerous other administrative and leadership positions with Fuqua including Managing Director of Executive Education, Associate Dean of Executive Education, Managing Director of the Global Executive MBA Program, and Academic Program Director for the Siemens Program. He has held visiting appointments at the Australian Graduate School of Management and the University of Chicago.

Staelin has been an active member of the management and marketing sciences professional publications community. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Marketing Science (1995-1997) and former President of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) Society for Marking Sciences (2009-2009). Staelin has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research. He was Secretary-Treasurer of The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS) College of Marketing.

Staelin’s research has focused on consumer behavior, service quality, and marketing strategies. In 1980, he published Consumer Protection Legislation and the US Food Industry, co-authored with Melvin J. Hinich. In it, the duo covers complex issues through the analysis of then existing regulations pertaining to the distribution and production of food. The book’s release was quite timely given the American electorate’s growing concern for better food policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the mid-1980s through 1990s, Staelin’s research grew to incorporate effective modeling for consumer trends and service quality improvement.

In 1985, Staelin, Amiya Basu, Rajiv Lal, and V. Srinivasan received the John D. C. Little award for best article published in Marketing Science. The paper, “Salesforce compensation plans: an agency theoretic perspective”, presents a theory wherein the sales of a product depend not only on the salesperson’s effort but also on the uncertainty in a selling environment. The following year, Staelin and Lal published a follow-up article on compensation plans in environments with asymmetric information.

Staelin is a recipient of the Paul D. Converse Award of the American Marketing Association. In 2008, he was named a Fellow of both INFORMS and it’s Society for Marketing Sciences.

Other Biographies

Duke University Fuqua School of Business: Faculty Bios: Richard Staelin. Accessed June 4, 2014. (link)