| Overview | Biography | Publications & Course Materials | Current Research | Areas of Interest |
Regina Abrami is a senior fellow and faculty chair of the HBS Immersion Experience Program (IXP). In addition, she is an executive committee member of Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a faculty associate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Her primary area of expertise is comparative political economy, with special focus on China and Vietnam.
Abrami’s research is broadly concerned with institutions of accountability and their impact on patterns of economic organization and change. Projects underway that examine this relation include work on the political origins of private entrepreneurship in Vietnam and China, conditional trade agreements as a means to improve political and economic governance, and Chinese investment in emerging markets.
At HBS, Abrami has taught courses in the M.B.A., executive education, and doctoral programs, all focused on issues of international business, including most recently the 2nd year MBA course “Doing Business in China” and a doctoral course on “Political Economies of Business in the Developing World.” In addition, she has consulted to the World Bank, the UNDP, and business on strategic issues related to corporate diplomacy, private sector development in emerging markets, and doing business in Vietnam and China. She has extensive experience conducting field research in both countries, including the design and implementation of the Ford Foundation’s first urban-based participant-centered research appraisal in China, a collaborative project focused on small entrepreneurs in Chengdu City and the impact of local and national state regulation.
Abrami earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was both a Reinhard Bendix and John L. Simpson Memorial Fellow. In addition, she has received support from the Social Science Research Council, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, Institute of World Politics, and Fulbright. Recent HBS honors include selection as a Hellman Faculty Fellow (2004-2006) and the Robert F. Greenhill Award (2007-2008). Abrami speaks both Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese.
HBS Immersion Experience Program: http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academics/immersionexperiences.html