Timothy Werner
Professor
Department: Business, Government & Society
Industry Areas: Business Management, Public Policy
Research Areas: Corporate Social Responsibility, Governmental Regulation, Public Policy
Timothy Werner is a professor of business, government, and society and the Eleanor T. Mosle fellow at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. He has taught courses on corporate political strategy, studies in global management, and managing social and political risk. Prior to joining McCombs, Werner worked as an assistant professor of political science at Grinnell College.
Werner is an accomplished researcher and academic, studying how companies manage their institutional environments through corporate political activity and corporate social responsibility, as well as how these efforts intersect with their corporate governance. He has published numerous papers for journals including the Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and the Strategic Management Journal. His most cited article discusses how social activism affects the willingness of politicians to associate with targeted businesses. Werner has also written a book, “Public Forces and Private Politics in American Big Business,” that explores the political motivations behind organizational decisions to adopt self-regulation policies that go beyond compliance with state, federal, and local law.
For his contributions and expertise, Werner has been invited to talks and roundtables at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Management, and The University of Oxford, among others. He has also been invited to conference presentations for the Academy of Management, the American Political Science Association, and the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability. Werner serves as a senior editor at Organization Science and is on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Review and Strategic Management Journal. Additionally, he is vice chair of the board of directors for The Washington Campus, a public policy-focused consortium of business schools that McCombs helped established during the 1970s, and, in 2021, he served as chair of the Stakeholder Strategy Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society.
Werner earned a B.A. in political science with honors from Rice University. He earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP & AWARDS
2024 |
Best Paper Award, Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability |
2023 |
Executive MBA Faculty Honor Roll, University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business |
2022 |
Research Excellence Award for Associate Professors (co-winner), University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business |
2021 |
Undergraduate Business Council Faculty Honor Roll, University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business |
2020 |
Outstanding Contribution to the Editorial Board, Strategic Management Journal 2020: Best Paper Award, Stakeholder and Nonmarket Strategy Track, Strategic Management Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting Best Conference Paper Award, Strategic Management Society Annual Meeting |
2019 |
University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Department of Management, Senior Fellow |
Pei Sun, Jonathan Doh, Tazeeb Rajwani, Timothy Werner, and Xiaowei Rose Luo. Mar 2024. The Management of Socio-Political Issues and Environments: Toward a Research Agenda for Corporate Socio-Political Engagement. Journal of Management Studies 61:2 (277-306).
The Evolving Political Marketplace: Revisiting 60 Years of Theoretical Dominance Through a Review of Corporate Political Activity Scholarship in Business & Society and Major Management Journals. By: Stefanie Lenway, Douglas Schuler, Richard Marens, Timothy Werner, and Colby Green. Business and Society. May 2022. Vol. 61(5): 1416-147
Timothy Werner, Amanda Shanor, and Mary-Hunter McDonnell. Corporate Political Power: The Politics of Reputation and Traceability. Emory Law Journal, forthcoming.
Firm Partisan Positioning, Polarization, and Risk Communication: Examining Voluntary Disclosures on COVID‐19. By: Richard A. Benton, J. Adam Cobb, Timothy Werner. Strategic Management Journal. Apr2022, Vol. 43 Issue 4, p697-723.
Nan Jia, Stanislav Markus, and Timothy Werner. April 2023. Theoretical Light in Empirical Darkness: Illuminating Strategic Concealment of Corporate Political Activity. Academy of Management Review 48(2): 264-291.
Timothy Werner, Ishva Minefee, and Mary-Hunter McDonald. 2021. Reexamining Investor Reaction to Covert Corporate Political Activity: A Replication and Extension of Werner. Strategic Management Journal 42(6), 1139-1158.
Hollis A. Skaife and Timothy Werner. 2020. Changes in Firms' Political Investment Opportunities, Managerial Accountability, and Reputational Risk. Journal of Business Ethics 163(2), 239-263.
Brian Richter and Timothy Werner. 2017. Campaign Contributions from Corporate Executives in Lieu of Political Action Committees. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 33(3), 443-474.
Timothy Werner. 2017. Investor Reaction to Covert Corporate Political Activity. Strategic Management Journal 38(12), 2424-2443.
Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Timothy Werner. 2016. Blacklisted Businesses. Administrative Science Quarterly 61(4), 584-620.
Timothy Werner and John J. Coleman. 2015. Citizens United, Independent Expenditures, and Agency Costs: Reexamining the Political Economy of State Antitakeover Statutes. Journal of Law, Economics & Organization 31(1), 127-159.
Timothy Werner. 2015. Gaining Access by Doing Good: The Effect of Sociopolitical Reputation on Firm Participation in Public Policymaking. Management Science 61(8), 1989-2011.
Brian Richter and Timothy Werner. 2015. Sources of Congressional Candidates' Funds: Does Interest Group Money Dominate?, in Interest Group Politics, 9th ed., Allan J. Cigler, Burdett A. Loomis, and Anthony J. Nownes, eds. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 155-175.
Timothy Werner. 2013. Total Executive Compensation and Regulatory Threat, in Business and Government: Critical Perspectives, Matthew Maquire and Graham K. Wilson, eds. London (UK): Routledge.
Timothy Werner. 2012. Public Forces and Private Politics in American Big Business. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Timothy Werner. 2011. The Sound, the Fury, and the Nonevent: Business Power and Market Reactions to the Citizens United Decision. American Politics Research 39(1), 118-41.
Timothy Werner and Graham K. Wilson. 2010. Divided but Strong: Business Representation in Washington, D.C. in Oxford Handbook of Business and Government, David Coen, Wyn Grant, and Graham K. Wilson, eds. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Timothy Werner. 2009. Congressmen of the Silent South: The Persistence of Southern Racial Liberals, 1949-1964. Journal of Politics 71(1), 70-81.
Timothy Werner and Graham K. Wilson. 2008. Interest Groups, in Comparative Politics, Daniele Caramani, ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Timothy Werner and Kenneth R. Mayer. 2007. Public Election Funding, Competition, and Candidate Gender. PS: Political Science and Politics49(4), 661-67.
Timothy Werner, Kenneth R. Mayer, and Amanda D. Williams. 2006. Do Public Funding Programs Enhance Electoral Competition?, in The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics, Michael P. McDonald and John Samples, eds. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.