Pooja Thakur-Wernz Authors Paper in the Journal of International Business Policy The article assesses how international business is affected when violence is directed at civilians and violence levels are constantly changing.

By Brian Laubscher
September 17, 2024

Pooja Thakur-Wernz, assistant professor of business administration at Washington and Lee University, recently co-authored a paper published in the Journal of International Business Policy titled “Knightian Uncertain Violence and the Challenge of FDI-Assisted Development: Policy Recommendations Where Civilian Lives are at Risk.”

Thakur-Wernz authored the article with assistance from Helena Barnard and Marianne Matthee from the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), where Thakur-Wernz served as a visiting research fellow in 2022.

The paper investigates how the unpredictability of violence against civilians impacts foreign direct investment (FDI) in African nations. The researchers used data from the University of Sussex’s (U.K.) Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which studied violence in 48 African countries from 1997-2021.

“Thanks to the pre-tenure sabbatical leave at W&L, I spent a month in South Africa at one of the top business schools in the African continent,” said Thakur-Wernz. “During my time there as a visiting research scholar, my co-authors and I looked at how uncertainty in violence negatively impacts the level of foreign investment coming into Africa. One of the interesting findings is that local firms increase exports when foreign direct investment decreases due to greater unpredictability in violence. This finding has important policy implications as it suggests that countries with violence should focus on export-focused growth rather than depend primarily on foreign firms to develop the economy.”

Thakur-Wernz has served as a member of the W&L faculty since 2020. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Osmania University (India), a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in management from Rutgers University.

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