UW News

March 6, 2008

Shah wins Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship

Sonali K. Shah, assistant professor of management and organization in the UW’s Foster business school, is one of five young researchers nationwide chosen to receive Sloan Industry Studies Fellowships.


“The Industry Studies Fellowships support the work of researchers early in their academic careers who are recognized for their exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge as well as to U.S. industrial development,” Said Paul L. Joskow, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Each Fellow receives a grant of $45,000 for a two-year period and is free to pursue whatever line of inquiry or research that is most interesting to them and their industry partners.”


Shah, who earned her doctorate at MIT and has been at the UW since last summer, plans to continue research she has been doing on software development.


“My work will examine how corporations can benefit from working with open source communities,” Shah said. “Such cooperative development efforts are likely to become increasingly prevalent as both a response to and a contributor to software commoditization.”


Shah said she plans to focus on three questions:



  • How is cooperative development managed?
  • How do firms create value based on open technology platforms and what business strategies do they employ?
  • How do firms organize and motivate employees who work with the community and structure the relationship between the community and the firm?


Shah’s work, like that of all the Sloan Industry Studies Fellows, is done with industry partners. Candidates for the fellowships are nominated and recommended by their department chairs and other senior scholars and executives who are familiar with their talents and promise.