Prof Taran Patel has lived and worked in several countries including India, France, Spain, UAE, Singapore, Finland and the UK. She is Senior/Full Professor in the People, Organization, and Society Department of GEM. She was also the Program Director of the MIB (Masters of International Business) program of Grenoble Ecole de Management from September 2009 to July 2013. She earned her PhD from the Open University at Milton Keynes (UK) under the supervision of Prof Steve Rayner (University of Oxford) in 2006 and her Habilitation à Diriger des Recherche (HDR) from University of Rouen (France) under the guidance of Prof Michalis Lianos in 2022.
Prof. Patel's teaching interests include: Cultural Issues in International Business, Human Resources Management, Organizational Behavior, Leadership and Followership, and Qualitative Research Methods. Professor Patel has published academic articles in many internationally recognized peer-reviewed journals such as Organization, Management Decisions, European Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business and Society. Her first book entitled ‘Stereotypes of Intercultural Management' was published in 2007 and was the culmination of her doctoral thesis, which won the EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) Award for best doctoral thesis in the Corporate Governance category in 2006. Her second book entitled 'Cross-Cultural Management- Toward a Transactional Approach' was published in 2013 by Routledge.
Prof Patel has been a consultant to companies such as Salmson in France and Technip-Coflexip in India, and has led diversity training programs at Atos Origin and AXA. Her initiatives in creating awareness regarding Diversity Management were recognized when she was invited as a speaker at the World Diversity Leadership Summit at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2007. In April 2013, Prof Patel was conferred an award for ‘Research Excellence' (with Professors Robert Hamlin, Sandy Whitford, and Carlos Ruiz) from the President of India, Dr Pranab Mukherjee (as part of the IFTDO conference). In addition to her permanent position at GEM, she serves on the Research Advisory Committees and Faculty Recruitment Committees of certain Indian and European business schools.