Karen Flaherty
Karen Flaherty, associate professor of marketing who has been on faculty at Oklahoma
State University for the last 13 years, has been named an Associate Dean for the Spears
School of Business, Dean Ken Eastman announced.
Flaherty begins as Associate Dean on July 1.
“Dr. Flaherty is highly respected within the Spears School of Business and throughout
Oklahoma State University, and she has a keen interest in issues related to undergraduate
education,” said Eastman. “I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm and professionalism
she brings to the school.”
Flaherty has taught courses at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels
at OSU. She also serves as Director of the Spears School Honors Program. She was nominated
for the Greiner Teaching Award in 2005 and 2011, and was named a faculty member of
distinction by the Spears School Business Student Council in 2012. She received the
Richard W. Poole Research Excellence Award from the Spears School in 2008 and 2009.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing from Providence College in Providence,
Rhode Island, her MBA at Suffolk University in Boston, and her doctoral degree from
the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass.
“I am delighted to join the Spears School of Business leadership team. I look forward
to working with our talented faculty and staff to continue to deliver world-class
undergraduate programs to our students,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty’s academic research focuses on issues related to the management of frontline
sales professionals. In particular, she has studied the motivation, leadership, and
control of salespeople. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and the Journal of Business Research.
She is the author of several book chapters, including a chapter on Strategic Leadership
in Sales in the Oxford Handbook of Sales Management and Sales Strategy (edited by Cravens, Le Meunier-Fitzhugh, and Piercy). She serves on the editorial
boards of the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management and the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice.
Flaherty is an active member of the American Marketing Association. She has served
as Chair of the AMA Selling and Sales Management Special Interest Group, and is currently
the Vice-Chair for Awards and Recognition. She is also a member of the Global Sales
Science Institute.
