The Improbable Professor: An Autobiography

A Prominent Professor’s Stirring Life-Journey

In this heartfelt and revealing chronicle, Donald C. Hambrick, an internationally prominent management scholar, describes his personal life-journey.

His initial decades were not auspicious. A certifiably clueless kid raised in a middle-class suburb of Denver, he fathered a child at sixteen and later almost dropped out of college to elope with the baby’s mother. Later still, he was drafted and fought in the jungles of Vietnam. As part of Hambrick’s hodgepodge wanderings, he applied for doctoral programs four distinct times over an eight-year period before deciding that he indeed wanted to be a professor.

The rest, as they say, is history. Hambrick reports on his long tenures at Columbia and Penn State, providing a glimpse of two major American universities and their business schools in particular. He downplays his achievements, instead highlighting his shortcomings and setbacks, delivering an emotionally stirring book that will resonate for many.

“The Improbable Professor touched my heart and gave me a deeper appreciation for the persistence, self-reflection, and intellectual passion that fueled Don Hambrick’s remarkable and impactful career. His story is inspiring and deeply human. It made me cry and laugh, and it will resonate with anyone who cares about scholarship, growth, and making a meaningful contribution to both research and practice.”
Herman Aguinis, The George Washington University

“...engaging, charming, inspiring, and often laugh-out-loud funny. It’s a tour de force...”
James D. Westphal, University of Michigan

Donald C. Hambrick, an internationally influential management scholar, is Evan Pugh University Professor and Smeal Chaired Professor of Management at the Smeal College of Business, the Pennsylvania State University. He is also emeritus professor of Columbia University. Hambrick has received numerous career achievement awards, including several honorary doctorates, as well as multiple teaching honors. Beyond his academic work, Hambrick has advised many business and government leaders.