Elizabeth K. Thurston

Assistant Professor, General Faculty
Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers Center for Innovation in Professional Services

Office phone: 434-924-0889
e-mail: thurston@virginia.edu

Education:

Ph.D., Business Administration, Darden School, University of Virginia
M.B.A., Harvard Business School
B.A., Economics and French, University of Virginia

Areas of Expertise:

Professor Thurston specializes in management, with teaching and research in the fields of management consulting, business advising, entrepreneurship, and strategy. Her current research interests are in three areas: (1) management consulting, (2) distance learning in management education, and (3) entrepreneurship.

Professional Activities:

Professor Thurston had extensive cross-functional strategy, operations, and systems consulting experience at Gemini (The Mac Group), CSC Consulting, Ernst & Young, and Price Waterhouse before becoming an academic. She has written many business cases and was co-recipient of the Best Case Award at the Eastern Academy of Management. Her most recent publications have appeared in Journal of Management Education’s special issue on “Challenges and Frontiers for the 21st Century” and Leadership and Organizational Development Journal. She has delivered several presentations on conducting and analyzing field research and on Web-based survey design. She currently serves on the corporate advisory boards of several private firms.

Selected Publications:

“Enabling Systems Thinking in the “Mesonic Millennium”: The Need for Systemic Methodologies for Conceptual Learning in Undergraduate Management Education,” Journal of Management Education, Challenges and Frontiers for the 21st Century: Management Education in Universities and Corporations Special Issue, 2000.

“Achieving Empowerment Using the Empowerment Strategy Grid,” Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 1997 (with R. Johnson).

“Challenges in the Classroom.” Selected for the VIP Case Session at the Eastern Case Writers Association. Eastern Academy of Management Case Proceedings, 1998 (with J. Clawson).

“Assessing the Empowerment Process at Multicorp,” Eastern Academy of Management Case Proceedings, 1996 (with R. Johnson), Recipient of Best Case Award at Eastern Academy of Management.