Charlotte Ren

Charlotte Ren is Robert A. Fox Leadership International Faculty Director and Professor of Practice in Strategy and Innovation at the Partnership for Innovation, Cross-Sector Collaboration, Leadership, and Organization (PICCLO) in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also Senior Fellow at Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management. Previously, she was on the faculty at Purdue University (Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, 2005-2012), the University of Pennsylvania (Visiting Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, 2013-2016), and Temple University (Associate Professor of Strategic Management, 2016-2021). Dr. Ren holds a PhD in Management and an MA in Economics from UCLA, as well as a bachelor’s degree in International Politics and a minor degree in Law from Peking University.

Dr. Ren’s research centers on innovation, entrepreneurship, and competitive strategy. She examines how firms adjust their innovation strategies and manage corporate entrepreneurial processes to enhance technological capabilities and overall performance. Her work also explores non-price competition including product variety, geographic location, and service. For example, she has shown that when retails adopt “price match guarantees” that prevent them from turning to price reductions to attract consumers, they strategically choose to compete or coordinate on product variety depending on whether rival stores are co-located. Her research spans multiple industries, such as general retail, consumer electronics specialty retail, information technology, aircraft manufacturing, hard disk drives, computer workstations, machine tools, movie studios, and charter schools.

Dr. Ren’s research has received the inaugural IDEA Award from the Academy of Management and has been published in leading journals, including Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, and MIS Quarterly. She has earned several teaching honors, most notably the 2017 Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award from the Academy of Management. She currently serves on the editorial board of Strategic Management Journal and as a representative-at-large for two interest groups—Corporate Strategy and Research Methods—at the Strategic Management Society.