Richard M Locke

Alvin J. Siteman (1948) Professor of Entrepreneurship
Professor of Political Science

Biography

Richard Locke has been a consistent voice for integrating social and economic concerns into curriculum and research. His teaching case on Nike's response to NGO pressures to address labor standards of Nike contractors was selected for teaching at MIT Sloan's 50th Anniversary Convocation. His work has also had an impact on Nike's business practices, helping the company to integrate reporting and auditing labor conditions with its quality improvement efforts. Locke was recently named a 2005 Faculty Pioneer in Academic Leadership by the Aspen Institute.

Locke's research focuses on economic development, comparative labor relations, and political economy. He is currently working on two projects. The first analyzes patterns of entrepreneurship and economic development in southern Italy and northeast Brazil , two regions supposedly void of trust and lacking the “right” institutions - both factors often seen as prerequisites for development. Locke's work shows that both trust and development can be created in these two supposedly “backward” regions and that this has implications for development in other regions as well. Locke's second research project focuses on globalization and labor standards in the athletic footwear/sportswear industries.

Locke is Faculty Director of the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, a mid-career executive education program at the Sloan School of Management and co-director of the MIT Italy Program, an innovative collaboration with Italian private and public partners. In addition to MIT, Locke has taught at the Universita Degli Studi Ca'Foscari in Venice ; the Georg-August Universitat in Göttingen, Oxford University , and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. At MIT, Locke teaches both in the Sloan School of Management and in the Department of Political Science. At Sloan, Locke pioneered the popular Global Entrepreneurship Laboratory, a course that teaches students about entrepreneurship in developing countries by placing them in internships with start-ups in an array of companies in various emerging markets.

His publications include Remaking the Italian Economy (Cornell University Press, 1995, 1997); with Thomas Kochan and Michael Piore, Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy (MIT Press, 1995)., and with Paul Osterman, Thomas Kochan and Michael Piore, Working in America (MIT Press, 2001). He has also published numerous articles in Politics & Society, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, European Journal of Industrial Relations, and Stato E Mercato.