K. Sivakumar

K. Sivakumar (“Siva”) is the Arthur Tauck Chair and a professor of marketing at Lehigh University. Before joining Lehigh in 2001, Siva was a tenured faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He spent nine years at UIC and was named an Academic Leadership Fellow during 1999-2000. Siva received his Ph.D. in marketing from Syracuse University in 1992. He has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering (PSG College of Technology, Madras University, India) and a master’s degree in rural management (Institute of Rural Management, India). Before obtaining his Ph.D., Siva held managerial positions in marketing and general management for six years at the National Dairy Development Board and the National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India. These organizations were at the forefront of a multi-million-dollar initiative called “Operation Flood” and “White Revolution.” The initiative aimed to connect rural milk producers with urban markets by integrating farmers’ organizations, production facilities to manufacture value-added milk products, and marketing expertise—a social-cum-economic initiative. The initiative resulted in India eventually becoming the largest milk producer globally.

Siva joined Lehigh in 2001 to build and develop the marketing group. Siva helped to start the new department of marketing at Lehigh in July 2005 and was the inaugural chairperson of the department until June 2012. As of July 2012, the department had ten full-time faculty members. After a six-year gap, Siva became the department’s chairperson again in July 2018. Since then, an endowed chair, an assistant professor, and a teaching associate professor have been recruited to join the department. 

Siva has served as the secretary of the faculty for Lehigh University since 2015. In this role, he prepares the minutes of faculty senate meetings and faculty meetings. Furthermore, since 2016 Siva has been the faculty secretary for the College of Business and prepares the minutes of the college faculty meetings.

Siva’s research interests include globalization, innovation, pricing, services, and supply chains. He has published widely in leading journals, including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Service Research, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Decision Sciences, the Journal of Business Research, and other publications. The “Editors’ Briefing” section of the Harvard Business Review has summarized his research on international marketing and pricing. 

Siva has been an associate editor (marketing) for the Journal of Business Research since 2016. He was the vice-chair of the Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association (AMA) during 2003-2004. He was the vice president (academic affairs) of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) from January 2008 to December 2009. He has participated as track chair for conferences on many occasions. He serves on the editorial review boards of several scholarly journals.

Siva has given several keynote presentations and plenary addresses on a variety of topics including research strategies for career management, long-term purpose and impact of higher education, early career strategies, preparing doctoral students for future success, innovation management for impact, broadening the service research umbrella, and the manifestations of globalization.

Siva is the recipient of the Donald Lehmann Award (the best dissertation-based article) from the AMA, the Best Services Article Award from the AMA, and the Martin J. Whitman Distinguished Ph.D. Alumni Award from Syracuse University, Alpha Kappa Psi Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Academy of Marketing Science (AMS), Honorable Mention for the John Howard Doctoral Dissertation Award from the AMA, Best Conference Paper Award at the AMA, Best Conference Paper Award at the AMS Conference, Runner-up to the Best Paper Award at the PDMA Research forum, Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, MBA Excellence in Teaching Award at Lehigh University, Faculty Citizenship Award at Lehigh University, and other awards.
 

Education

• P.S.G. College of Technology, University of Madras, India, B.E. (Honors) (Mechanical Engineering)
• Institute of Rural Management, Anand, India, PGDRM (Rural Management)
• Syracuse University, Ph.D. (Marketing)

Research Interests

• Globalization
• Innovation
• Pricing
• Services
• Supply Chains