Ram Ranganathan
Assistant Professor | The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business
Austin, TX, UNITED STATES
Former engineer and Big Four management consultant with expertise in technology strategy
Areas of Expertise (4)
Firm Strategy
Technological Change and Innovation
Alliances and Networks
Securities Analysts
Biography
Ram Ranganathan's research focuses on firms’ strategies in settings of technological change, looking at both factors that affect firms’ responses during technological change and factors that enable them to control the evolution of technologies. Before earning his Ph.D. from Wharton, Ranganathan was a management consultant with Deloitte’s Southern California practice for more than six years, where he consulted for a variety of large multinational corporations and state governments, providing expertise on technology strategy, vendor selection, M&A due diligence as well as technology integration and execution issues. Prior to his consulting career with Deloitte, he worked as a software engineer with Siemens, developing communication software for their telecom exchanges.
His research interests include firm strategy, technological change and innovation, alliances and networks, securities analysts, and learning from failure in dynamic environments.
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Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School: Ph.D., Management (Strategy) 2012
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore: Master of Business Administration (MBA), Business 2000
Karnatak University: Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering 1995
Media Appearances (2)
Blame Those Darn Negative Analysts
CFO World online
2012-02-24
A new paper being published in the February-March Academy of Management Journal tries long-term corporate decline to the short-sighted securities analyst who won't give management revival strategies a chance. The paper finds those Wall Street naysayers are a significant negative force.
Why Do Established Companies Fail in the Face of New Technologies? Study Indicts Previously Overlooked Culprits -- Analysts and Investors
Academy of Management online
2012-02-01
"During periods of radical technological change," the new research finds, "increasingly negative analysts' recommendations are associated with subsequent decreases in firms' strategic investments... Even in the face of strong pressures to adapt to new technologies, institutional pressures from analysts outweigh the technical pressures, as incumbent firms tended to reduce their investments under increasingly negative recommendations."
Articles (3)
Do Ties Really Bind? The Effect of Knowledge and Commercialization Networks on Opposition to Standards
Academy of Management Journal
2014-04-01
We examine how the multiplicity of interorganizational relationships affects strategic behavior by studying the influence of two such relationships-knowledge linkages and commercialization ties-on the voting behavior of firms in a technological standardssetting committee.
Divergent Reactions to Convergent Strategies: Investor Beliefs and Analyst Reactions During Technological Change
Organization Science
2013-03-01
We study the reactions of securities analysts, as important sources of institutional pressures for firms, to the similar product/market strategies undertaken by firms from different prior industries responding to industry convergence.
Offsetting Illegitimacy? How Pressures from Securities Analysts Influence Incumbents in the Face of New Technologies
Academy of Management Journal
2012-02-01
We study how analysts' recommendations affect firms' strategies during radical technological shifts. We find, from our study of firms in three industries undergoing technological change, that analysts' recommendations trigger changes in strategic investments during periods of uncertain technological change.
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