Patricia H. Thornton is an American organizational theorist, and Grand Challenge Initiative Professor of Sociology and Entrepreneurship at Texas A&M University as well as Adjunct Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
[3] Her committee was W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Nancy Tuma, and her dissertation was "Acquisition Growth of College Publishing, 1958-1990."
One of her first publications to come out of her dissertation research was "The problem of boundaries in contemporary research on organizations," co-authored with Nancy Tuma and which won the best paper award from the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management.
At Duke University Fuqua School of Business she is appointed adjunct professor and is affiliated with its Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
She was also visiting associate professor at Stanford University's Department of Sociology.