Dr. Linda Sprague

Linda G. Sprague is the Thomas J. Petters Distinguished Professor of International Business at Rollins College. She was previously Professor of Manufacturing & Operations Management at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai where she erved as Chair of the CEIBS AACSB Accreditation Steering Committee and Faculty Supervisor for the CEIBS Internship and Group Consulting Project programs. She was previously Professor of Operations Management at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, USA. At the University of New Hampshire she was Founding Director of the Manchester Manufacturing Management Center. From 1991-1999 she was also Professor of Manufacturing Management at the School of Industrial and Manufacturing Science, Cranfield University in the UK. At Cranfield University she was Curriculum Director for the British Aerospace Inventory Management program and for the Kalyani Cranfield Fellowship in Manufacturing Management in India. From 1991-95 Dr. Sprague was Principal Investigator for a multi-stage information systems implementation project with Airspares, the spare parts organization of Airbus Industrie. Professor Sprague has served on the faculties of IESE (University of Navarra, Barcelona), IMD (International Management Development Institute, Switzerland), The Tuck School (Dartmouth College, USA) and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University (USA). She was a Founding Professor of the National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management at Dalian, China, in 1980.

Professor Sprague received her doctorate in Production/Operations Management from the Harvard Business School. She holds an MBA from Boston University and an SB in Industrial Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Management in the UK, and a Certified Practitioner in Inventory Management. In 2005 she was appointed Visiting Professor of Cranfield University assigned to the School of Management. Mrs. Sprague is an Associate Editor of Decision Sciences and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Operations Management. For twelve years she served on the National Certification Council of the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS). Dr. Sprague is a Founding Member of the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG), President of the International Society for Inventory Research (ISIR) and Past-President of the Asia Pacific Region of the DSI. She was Operations and Manufacturing Management Co-Editor for the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of Business & Management. In August 2003 Dr. Sprague was named an Operations Management Distinguished Scholar by the Operations Management Division of the Academy of Management.

Prof. Sprague’s current research and consulting focus on international manufacturing, distribution and supply systems, inventory management systems and the management of engineering spares, strategic management of operations, capacity management, operations information systems, and the particular problems of Small- to Medium-sized Manufacturers (SMMs). Her publications include works on inventory management and control, manufacturing and operations information systems, strategic analysis for global manufacturing, and SMMs in larger manufacturers' supply chains.

Education