About BPI Network

Detailed Bio

Charles J. Corbett
Professor of Operations Management and Sustainability
UCLA

Professor Corbett’s research and teaching focus on the interfaces between operations management, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. The environmental work revolves around examining links between good business practices and environmental protection. This has included studying the effects and global diffusion of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 and of the LEED green building standards; the way in which supply contracts are changed from volume-based to service-based to align incentives between suppliers and buyers; the environmental footprint of a project-based industry such as the motion picture and television industry; and adoption of energy-efficiency practices in small and medium-sized businesses. His research in entrepreurship focuses on how for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs and small business owners make decisions and run their organizations on a day-to-day basis. His earlier work has focused mostly on how contracts can help improve coordination between buyers and suppliers, whether related to inventory control, service contracts or project management.

Dr. Corbett has published in his field’s top academic and business journals in several countries. He holds or has held various editorial positions at Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Operations Research, Management Science and Production and Operations Management, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management.

He has given around 100 presentations at academic conferences and institutions around the world, including (semi-)plenary and keynote presentations in Bali, Istanbul, Lima, Mexico City, Shanghai, and Tainan.

He currently serves as Department Chairman and Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs. He served as Associate Dean of the MBA program from 2004-2006, and is the founding director of the UCLA Leaders in Sustainability graduate emphasis. Before joining the faculty in 1996, Professor Corbett was a visiting scholar at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.