People
Center Administration
Page West
Director, BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism
Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
BB&T Fellow in Capitalism and Free Enterprise
Schools of Business
Phone: 336-758-4260
Email: westgp@wfu.edu
Dr. West joined the Wake Forest University faculty in 1995. He earned his B.A. in Economics at Hamilton College, an MBA at The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. in Strategic Management at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Prior to earning his Ph.D. he held positions in marketing and new business development for 17 years at consumer packaged goods companies including General Mills and Celestial Seasonings, and consulted with Westinghouse and other technology companies. He also started his own food manufacturing company, raised venture capital, and expanded the business to a national level.
Dr. West has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Strategic Management, Entrepreneurship, International Entrepreneurship, Shakespeare on Management, and Foundation of Capitalism. His international experience includes teaching management in London, UK, and he is a regular visiting faculty member of École de Management in Bordeaux, France.
His research focuses on top management teams and the evolution of strategy in new ventures. He has published articles in Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Technology Transfer, Journal of Small Business Management and International Journal of Organizational Analysis. Two new books were recently published: a textbook titled Strategic Management: Value Creation, Sustainability, and Performance, and an edited Handbook of University-wide Entrepreneurship Education.
Joanne Davidson
Project Coordinator
Schools of Business
Phone: 336-758-6173
Email: davijc@wfu.edu
Heather Shoemaker
Administrative Assistant
Schools of Business
Phone: 336-758-6193
Email: shoemah@wfu.edu
Susan Tague
Web Coordinator
BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism
Phone: 336-922-4235
Email: taguesc@wfu.edu
Advisory Board
A committee composed of faculty across the university serves as an advisory board to the Center. The following currently serve on the advisory board:
David Coates
Professor
Department of Political Science
Phone: 336-758-3544
Email: coatesd@wfu.edu
David Coates joined Wake Forest University in 1999 as the Worrell Professor of Anglo-American Studies. He was educated at the universities of York (his undergraduate degree) and Oxford (his doctorate) before teaching at the Universities of York, Leeds, the Open University and Manchester – all in the UK. Before coming to Wake Forest, he held the chair of Contemporary Political Economy at the university of Leeds, and then the chair of Labour Studies at the University of Manchester, where he directed the International Center for Labour Studies.
He has written extensively on UK labour politics, American public policy, contemporary political economy and models of capitalism. He has recently co-edited Getting Immigration Right: What Every American Needs To Know, and authored Answering Back: Liberal Responses to Conservative Arguments. His current research is focused on issues of market regulation and deregulation.
James Cotter
Associate Professor of Finance
Schools of Business
Phone: 336-758-7220
Email: cotterjf@wfu.edu
Dr. James F. Cotter is the Thomas S. Goho Chair of Finance and Associate Professor of Finance at Wake Forest University’s Calloway School of Business in Winston-Salem, NC. He earned a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, an MBA in Finance from Indiana University in Bloomington and a Civil Engineering degree from New Mexico State University. Dr. Cotter has published extensively in academic, peer reviewed journals in the areas of Corporate Governance, Mergers and Acquisitions, Initial Public Offerings, Corporate Governance as well as Auditing and Auditor realignments. He has also published in a number of pedagogical journals writing both cases as well as papers that examine effective classroom strategies. Dr. Cotter teaches courses in Corporate Finance, Strategic Finance, Portfolio Management, Fixed-Income Securities at the undergraduate, MBA and Ph.D. level.
Win-chiat Lee
Professor
Department of Philosophy
Phone: 336-758-5772
Email: leew@wfu.edu
Dr. Lee joined the Wake Forest faculty in 1983. He received his undergraduate education at Cornell University majoring in philosophy. He went on to do graduate work in philosophy at Princeton University and earned his Ph.D. there. He research interests originally were mostly in the areas of ethics and social and political philosophy. But his involvement in the teaching of philosophy of law has gradually shifted his research to that subject. His current research projects include the philosophical foundation of international criminal law, especially the question of universal jurisdiction, and the relation between the moral foundation of the duty to obey the law and the nature of legal reasoning. He has published in journals such as Law and Philosophy and, mostly recently, contributed a chapter to the book, “International Criminal Law and Philosophy” (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
He chaired the Philosophy Department from 1993 to 2001 and served as the first Director of Asian Studies and East Asian Studies from 1991 to 1996.
Alan Palmiter
Professor
Wake Forest University School of Law
Phone: 336-758-5711
Email: alan.palmiter@wfu.edu
Alan Palmiter is a Wake Forest law professor who specializes in business law subjects (corporate law, securities regulation, legal valuation). His research interests lie in “corporate democracy,” including investor participation in corporate voting, regulation of institutional investors (particularly mutual funds), and judicial protection of shareholder rights. He has authored books used to teach Corporations and Securities Regulation. His articles have been published both nationally and internationally, and he has five times been selected by corporate/securities law professors as having written one of ten best corporate/securities law articles of the year. Before joining the law school faculty, he practiced law with the international law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton-Washington. He earned his J.D. at the University of Michigan and his B.S. (Mathematics) at The Ohio State University.
Ian Taplin
Professor
Department of Sociology
Phone: 336-758-4880
Email: taplin@wfu.edu
Ian Taplin joined the faculty in 1985 and is currently Professor of Sociology and International Studies. He has degrees from University of York and Leicester in the UK and a Ph.D from Brown University. He has been visiting professor at University of Bradford Management School, Napier University, Toulouse Business School and University of California, Irvine. In addition to his current WFU appointment he currently holds the position of Visiting Research Professor at Bordeaux Ecole de Management.
His research interests are generally in the areas of work and occupations, organizational studies and business strategy with a current focus upon the wine industry. He has published in the Journal of Management Studies, Industrial and Corporate Change, Organization Studies, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Social Science Quarterly, Social Science Journal, Work and Occupations, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy and European Business Review, in addition to several books on the apparel industry and human resource issues.
Robert Whaples
Professor, Department Chair
Department of Economics
Phone: 336-758-4916
Email: whaples@wfu.edu
Dr. Whaples joined the Wake Forest University faculty in 1991 and became Chair of the Department of Economics in 2006. He earned BAs in Economics and History at the University of Maryland (1983) and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania (1990). He is the book review editor for EH.NET, edits its Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History and is EH.NET’s former director. His courses at WFU include Introduction to Economics, American Economic History, Current Economic Issues, and Entrepreneurs in American History. His course “Modern Economics Issues,” a series of 36 30-minute lectures is available on CD and DVD from The Teaching Company.
His research focuses on the history of American labor markets and consensus among economists. He has published articles in Journal of Economic History, Economic Inquiry, Social Science History, Southern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Education, American Economist, Econ Journal Watch, Independent Review, and Economists’ Voice.
