Faculty

Pushkala Prasad   

Professor Management and Business and The Zankel Chair in Management for Liberal Arts Students

Email: pprasad@skidmore.edu
Phone: 518-580-5238
Office: Palamountain 237

Education

• Ph.D., management, University of Massachusetts
• MBA, Xavier Institute
• B.A., history, Stella Maris College, University of Madras

Courses:

• IA 351 Faces and Phases of Global Capitalism
• ID 221 Multicultural Flareups
• MB 306 Foundations of Business in the International Environment
• MB 336H Diversity and Discrimination in the American Workplace

Selected refereed articles:

• True Colors of Global Economy: In the Shadows of Racialized Capitalism. Organization, 30: 1-17. 2022.
• One Mirror in Another: Managing Diversity and the Discourse of Fashion (with A. Prasad & R. Mir) Human Relations, 64:703-726. 2012.
• In the Name of the Practical: Unearthing the Hegemony of Pragmatism in the Discourse of Environmental Management (with M.B Elmes) Journal of Management Studies, 42: 845-867. 2005.
• The Context of Third World Tourism Marketing (with C. Echtner). Annuals of Tourism Research, 30:660-682. 2003.
• Stretching the Iron Cage: The Constitution and Implications of Routine Workplace Resistance. (with A. Prasad). Organization Science, 11: 387-403. 2000.
• Everyday Struggles at the Workplace: The Nature and Implications of Routine Resistance (with A. Prasad). Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 15: 225-257. 1998.

Books:

• Capitalism’s Dark Complexion: Race, Markets and the Politics of Value. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2026.
• Crafting Qualitative Research: Working in the Post-Positivist Traditions. (second edition). New York: Routledge, 2018. Translated into Japanese, 2017.
• Routledge Companion to Critical Management Studies (Co-edited with A. Prasad, A Mills & J. Helins Mills). London: Routledge. 2016
• Handbook of Workplace Diversity (co-edited with A. Konrad & J. Pringle). London: Sage Publications. 2006.
• Managing the Organizational Melting Pot (with A. Mills, M.B. Elmes & A. Prasad). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 1997.

Research grants:

• Jan Wallander Foundation of the Bank of Commerce of Sweden (Handelsbanken) for $186,000. “Diversity Professionals in the Swedish Employment Sector. March 2010-Dec. 2015.
• Swedish Quality of Work Life Foundation (Forsknings Arbetsliv), Stockholm. $240,000. “Managing Diversity as an Organizational Process. 2001-2006.
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. $50,000. Diversity and Discrimination in the North American Workplace. 1995-1998.

Selected guest lectures and invited research seminars:

• Racial Capitalism and the Development of White Managerialism. Keynote Address, Annual Meetings of ASAC (Administrative Sciences Association of Canada), Waterloo, Ontario, May 2025.
• Global Inequalities, Divisions of Labor and the Politics of Racial Capitalism. Keynote Address, Organization Studies Conference, Mykonos, Greece, May 2024.
• Hermeneutics as a Methodology in the Social Sciences. Invited Research Workshop, Design and Sustainability Research Center, Parana Federal University, Curitiba, Brazil, September 2022.
• True Colors of the Master’s Tools: Race as Symbolic Capital. Invited Presentation, Gender and Work Symposium, Harvard Business School, May 2022.
• The Open Door: Inclusive Excellence and its Challenges. Keynote Address, Implement Diversity Conference, Stockholm, September 2019.
• Institutional Entrepreneurship and Gender Identities in the U.S.  Tobacco Industry. University of Massachusetts, Boston. April 2016.
• Permission to Wander: Taking Interdisciplinarity Seriously in Organizational Research. Featured Speaker at the Kern Symposium for Business and the Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, March 2013.
• The Discourse of the Islamic Veil in Scandinavia. Fourth Annual lecture at CRED (Center for Research of Equality and Diversity). Queen Mary, University of London, November 2010.
• Restoring Quality to Qualitative Research. Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, December 2006. 
• Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity. (Studieforbundet Narlingsliv och Samhalle) (Center for Business and Policy Studies) Stockholm, October 1999.
• Speaking about Resistance: Routine Opposition under Conditions of Flexible Capitalism. Faculte des sciences de l’administration, Laval University, Quebec City, January 1999.

Honors and Awards:

• Ralph Ciancio Award for Excellence in Teaching, Skidmore College, April 2026.
• President’s Award for Excellence in Service to Skidmore College, May 2025.
• Up to Us Voting Fellow Award from the Periclean Project for Instituting a Deliberative Dialogue on the National Debt. 2021.
• Edwin Moseley Lectureship. Skidmore College’s highest academic honor given annually to a faculty member in recognition of their outstanding scholarly achievements. March 2017.
• Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Center for Public Interest Accounting, University of Calgary, 2006.
• Ascendent Scholar Award, Western Academy of Management, U.S.A., 1997.