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Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson

Department Chair | Marketing
Teaching Faculty III | Marketing
Dean and E.M. Statler Professor Emeritus, Cornell University
3116 Grainger Hall

About Michael

A distinguished scholar, experienced academic administrator, and social scientist by training, Michael D. Johnson is Dean Emeritus and E.M. Statler Professor Emeritus at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration, SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University, and Marketing Department Chair at the Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Johnson is one of the world’s leading experts on customers satisfaction with over 30,000 Google Scholar citations. He has published over 100 academic articles and industry reports and six books over the course of his career. His most recent book, co-authored with Fred Selnes, is Customer Portfolio Management: Creating Value with a Large Leaky Bucket of Customers (MIT Press). His research interests include customer satisfaction and loyalty, customer portfolio management, marketing strategy, and innovation. Dr. Johnson previously served as President and Professor of Marketing at John Carroll University, Provost and Professor of Marketing at Babson College, the Bradley H. Stone Dean and E.M. Statler Professor at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and the D. Maynard Phelps Collegiate Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Dr. Johnson serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Advanced Business Studies, an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin School of Business, in support of executive education opportunities. He is a member of the Corporate Governance and Compensation Committee. From 2016-2023 he served as a member of the President’s International Advisory Board of BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway. From 2011 to 2022 he served as an Independent Director, Audit Committee member, and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee member on the board of Carey Watermark Investors I and II, which became Watermark Lodging Trust, a Chicago-based real estate investment trust focused on lodging properties. The REIT was sold to Brookfield Properties in October of 2022.

Selected Published Journal Articles

Ghanbarpour, T. & Crosby, L. & Johnson, M. & Gustafsson, A. (2024). The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Stakeholders in Different Business Contexts Journal of Service Research

Practitioner-Oriented Publications

Selnes, F. & Johnson, M. (2025). Customer Portfolio Management: Creating Value with a Large Leaky Bucket of Customers

Selnes, F. & Johnson, M. (2025). What Leaders Still Get Wrong About Customer Portfolio Management Sloan Management Review

Selnes, F. & Johnson, M. (2022). Manage Your Customer Portfolio for Maximum Lifetime Value Sloan Management Review

Richter, M. & Lang, N. & Hagenmaier, M. & Herrmann , A. & Johnson, M. (2022). Whose Disruptions are Winning the Autonomous Driving Race? When Disruptive Innovations Come to Cities California Management Review Insights

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