Dr. Gerald A. McDermott is Professor of International Business at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Prior to joining the Moore School, he was for seven years Assistant Professor of Multinational Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and held a secondary appointment in the Department of Political Science.
He specializes in international business and political economy. McDermott received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at MIT. His first stream of research focused on the impact of industrial networks on the creation of economic governance institutions in post-communist countries. His current research in South America uses both comparative and statistical survey methods to examine the socio-political conditions under which societies build new innovative capacities to achieve sustained upgrading in their industries. Besides relevant scholarly articles, this work has thus far produced a highly unique multi-region, multi-sector (wine and autos) data base with state of the art measurements of firm-level upgrading capabilities, inter-firm networks, and institutional networks. He has also recently launched a project about the impact of international integration regimes on local institutional development via a comparison of the EU accession, NAFTA, and Mercosur.
His publications include articles in such scholarly journals as Comparative Political Studies, Industrial and Corporate Change, Review of International Political Economy, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Studies,Politics & Society as well as his book, Embedded Politics: Industrial Networks and Institutional Change in Post-Communism (University of Michigan Press, 2002), which was a finalist for APSA’s 2003 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the Best Book on government, politics, and international affairs. McDermott has also consulted for the multilateral lending institutions and the governments of the Czech Republic and Argentina. He lived in Prague for over 4 years and in Buenos Aires for over 6 years, being fluent in both Czech and Spanish. Professor McDermott earned his Ph.D. (1998) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and B.A. (1988) from Middlebury College.
Dr. McDermott’s personal research website is: www.geraldamcdermott.com