Nelson gains international exposure

By Sun Min

Management Professor Reed Nelson

Every summer, Southern Illinois University Professor of Management Reed E. Nelson crosses the equator to teach at Fundação Instituto de Administração, part of Brazil’s University of São Paulo.

Fluent in Portuguese, Nelson has no problem getting around São Paulo, the southern hemisphere’s most populous city with nearly 11 million people. He’s been travelling to the South American country for decades and this summer he hosted a special guest, J. Dennis Cradit, dean of SIUC College of Business.

Cradit and Nelson met with Brazilian executives and academics about efforts to implement a Disney model of customer service at SIUC College of Business. They also met with administrators at the University of São Paulo, described by Nelson as “the country’s largest and most influential university.” 

At the Brazilian institution, Nelson teaches executive education and collaborates with professors on research projects. “Our most recent research is a study on the social networks and organizational culture of subcontractors that provided the infrastructure and managed the 2007 Pan American games,” he said.

Nelson is not the only beneficiary of the worldly experience. “These summers have given me an international management perspective that my formal research could never provide and I have passed that knowledge along to SIU students,” said Nelson who also participates in the College of Business Executive MBA programs offered in Asia. “The Asian EMBA experience gives me quite a bit of credibility among Brazilians,” he said.

“Business schools today need to be globally focused,” said Cradit. “SIU students benefit from professors like Dr. Nelson who gain invaluable experiences abroad.”

At SIUC, Nelson teaches applied managerial research, organizational behavior, organizational theory, small business management, leadership and management, organizational change and research methods.

A member of the SIUC faculty since 1991, Nelson holds a bachelor’s degree in Portuguese and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from Brigham Young University, and a doctorate in organizational behavior from Cornell University.