Magnus Thor Torfason is the Dean of the School of Social Sciences as well as a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Iceland. Magnus previously held a position in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he taught the MBA Courses “The Founders’ Dilemmas” and “The Entrepreneurial Manager”.
His research focuses on how behavior is influenced by the social structure of individuals and organizations. One research stream explores how social networks and group identities jointly affect adherence to informal societal rules and norms of behavior. Another research stream examines norms and their violation within exchange networks, including VC investment networks, transactions using electronic currency, as well as in social entrepreneurship and impact investing. In a third stream, Magnus has examined the birth and death of network weaving organizations – organizations whose main purpose is to provide connections between other actors.
Several of Magnus’s research projects rely on electronic trace data generated in online interactions, and he has a deep interest in both the methodological questions associated with the analysis of large scale electronic data sets and the theoretical questions associated with studying behavior in environments that are not considered “real” in the conventional sense.
Magnus is the recipient of a number of awards for his research and scholarly work. In 2024, he was one of the recipients of the seizmic MSCA Doctoral Network grant funded by the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
His work has also been profiled in media outlets such as The Washington Post, BBC, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.com. He holds a doctorate in Management from Columbia University, and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Iceland, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in both electrical and electronic engineering and computer science.
Magnus was a co-founder of HandPoint, which develops payment and point-of-sale solutions for handheld computers. He served as Technical Director until he began his doctoral studies at Columbia in 2005, and served on the board of the company until it was acquired by Electronic Payments Inc. He is chairman of the board of Frumtak Ventures, a leading Icelandic venture fund, as well as of Arctic Stone, a research and development company within the mineral processing sector. Over the years he has been involved with various startups, accelerators and incubator programs.