Giuseppe Soda: A Traveler Arrives as Dean of SDA Bocconi
The first thing you read in his webpage is not a cv, nor a bibliography. It is Invictus by William Ernest Henley, Nelson Mandela's favorite poem. "These words perfectly define perseverance in the face of adversity", Giuseppe Soda says. "It is a poem against the despair of loneliness, it's an urge to courageously look ahead".
At 18, Soda began studying economics convinced that "any plan for an equitable society starts there". He was involved in the Osservatorio Organizzativo project directed by Vincenzo Perrone at the Centro Ricerche sull'Organizzazione Aziendale (CRORA). It was a pivotal moment: he chose to apply for a PhD in Business Administration and Management. And he likes to enquire about human behavior in oganizational contexts, so he follows the route of Organization Theory, "a discipline that encompasses economics, psychology, sociology". After his doctorate, there is another turning point: at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he meets David Krackhardt, one of the greatest scholars of Network Analysis. The subject becomes the core of the research activities on organizational networks he began during his PhD with Anna Grandori.
Full professor at the Department of Management and Technology, from November 1 Soda takes on the role of Dean of SDA Bocconi, in the team of new Rector Gianmario Verona. "The School of Management is the place where you are closer to reality. Scholars should not shut the world off, but keep an ongoing conversation with those who use the results of their findings".
Discovery is always a pleasure for him, whether at work or when sailing the Mediterranean. "Looking for answers to important questions is a bit like wandering in the sea of knowledge and reaching your destination, sooner or later. In every researcher there's a traveler. And like all good travelers, researchers love the trip in itself. As the poem by Antonio Machado goes: 'Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking'. And you need good travel companions to discuss, to understand the best direction to take, to improve. Every discovery is the outcome of a collective process, even when attributed to an individual. It is in this spirit that we have founded and strengthened the Department of Management and Technology". From his father, a primary school teacher, he inherited the love for the transmission of knowledge and is therefore convinced that academics must be passionate about teaching. "Knowledge is like happiness. And happiness, as Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild says, is only real when shared".