Tan Kim

About Tan

I study how unknown organizations become known and how that process shapes their success.

New ventures and their founders face a fundamental problem: nobody knows who they are. Without track records or established reputations, they need to find other ways to earn attention, trust, and resources. My research investigates how startups and entrepreneurial leaders build what I call social approval assets — celebrity, reputation, and status — and how these intangible resources translate into competitive advantages at critical moments like fundraising, IPOs, and talent acquisition.

I bring an unconventional path to this work. Before earning my Ph.D. in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Tennessee, I studied political science and international political economy at Yonsei University, served as an intelligence officer in the Republic of Korea Air Force, and worked in human resources at a global trading firm. These experiences gave me an instinct for how narratives are constructed, how organizations project credibility under uncertainty, and how stakeholders make decisions with incomplete information.

At Texas A&M University–San Antonio, I teach management and advise the Entrepreneurship Club. I use computational methods — NLP, text embeddings, and content analysis — to trace how stories, identities, and perceptions evolve over time. I’m particularly interested in the startup ecosystem in Texas, where I’m building connections with founders, incubators, and investors to bridge academic research with entrepreneurial practice.

When I’m not researching, I’m probably at a national park, a local brewery, or on a road trip looking for stories worth telling.