Sarika Pruthi San Jose State University, California, USA

Sarika Pruthi is Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship at the School of Global Innovation and Leadership, Lucas College & Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University (SJSU), California, USA. Sarika’s research is situated at the intersection of international and immigrant entrepreneurship, and international business. Her research interests are in the areas of immigrant and social entrepreneurship, international venture capital and private equity finance. She is passionate about ethnic and immigrant, transnational and returnee entrepreneurs, their start-up motivations, and the role of their social ties in the founding and growth of their ventures, especially in the context of rapidly growing start-ups and born global firms. Her work spans both developed and emerging economy contexts, in particular, the US, UK, and India due to her personal experience of living and working in all three countries. 

Sarika’s work has appeared in top peer-reviewed entrepreneurship and international business journals including the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, International Business Review, International Journal of Management Reviews, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Small Business Economics, Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management Journal, among others. She has reviewed for top academic journals including the Journal of Management and the Journal of World Business. For over ten years, Sarika has reviewed for the Entrepreneurship Division at the Academy of Management (AOM), and the Academy of International Business (AIB), the two highest ranked management conferences in the world, where she has also presented papers, chaired competitive paper sessions, co-hosted PDWs and teaching symposia. Sarika serves the executive board of the Academy of International Business (AIB)-West Chapter and the editorial board of the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies. 

Sarika teaches introductory and advanced courses in entrepreneurship and international business. These include Introduction to Entrepreneurship, Global Entrepreneurship, Developing Your Entrepreneurial Potential, Global Dimensions of Business, and Entrepreneurship (MBA). She was recently invited to teach on a transformative, new interdisciplinary (HonorsX) learning program at SJSU, of which she is also one of the co-founding members. Envisioned as a program for future change makers and leaders, the goal of HonorsX is to empower students from a variety of disciplines to propose innovative solutions to pressing global problems, and build complementary skills and practical knowledge outside of their major areas of study to implement proposed solutions. Sarika is extremely passionate about the cause of student success. She organizes the Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge, an annual business ideas competition at SJSU, leads the International Programs and Students Committee, and Student Success Committee, respectively, and serves the International (I-) House executive board in an advisory role at SJSU. 

Sarika has won several awards and honors for her research, teaching, and service. These include the 'extremely competitive' Sybil Weir-John Galm Award for her research contributions, and Master Teacher Awards (2015-16; 2018-19; 2020-21; 2021-22) for exemplary teaching at SJSU. In Spring 2022, she was selected to receive the 2022 Lucas College of Business Distinguished Teaching Award. She has received recognitions for her outstanding service to the Academy of International Business (2022 Best Reviewer Award; International Entrepreneneurship track), and the Academy of Management (five years of outstanding service to the Teaching & Learning Conference, probably the biggest and most successful teaching conference in the world). In 2019, she received the Dean’s nomination for the Outstanding Professor Award at SJSU.

Prior to joining SJSU, Sarika taught and researched at King’s College London, University of London (UK) (ranked among top 10 UK universities in the world), and the University of Nottingham (UK) where she also earned her MA and PhD. She now lives in California with her family and two children.