Robert A. Burgelman

Robert Burgelman is The Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management of Stanford Graduate School of Business where he has taught since 1981. He obtained a Licenciate degree in Applied Economics from Antwerp University (Belgium), an MA in Sociology and an MPhil and a PhD in Management of Organizations from Columbia University, where he studied with a European doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation (U.S.) and one from ICM (Belgium). His research has focused on the role of strategy making in firm evolution. In particular, he has studied the strategy-making processes involved in how companies enter into new businesses and exit from existing ones to secure continued adaptation. In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate from the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) for his contributions to the study of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2017, he received an honorary doctorate in economics from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), as well as the Leadership in Technology Award from the Portland International Center for Engineering and Technology Management (PICMET 2017). In 2022 he was elected a PICMET Fellow. He is a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society and a Fellow of the Academy of Management. He has been on the faculty of Antwerp University, New York University, Harvard Business School (as a Marvin Bower Fellow), and Cambridge University (as a Visiting Professor of Marketing Strategy and Innovation at the Judge Business School).

Burgelman has published many articles in leading academic and professional journals, as well as 200 case studies of companies and organizations in many different industries. His books include Inside Corporate Innovation: Strategy, Structure, and Managerial Skills (Free Press, 1986); Research of Technological Innovation, Management and Policy (JIA Press, Elsevier; Volume 4, 1989, Volume 5, 1993, Volume 6, 1997, and Volume 7, 2001); Strategy is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future (Free Press, 2002); Strategic Dynamics: Concepts and Cases (McGraw-Hill, 2006); Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation (5th edition, McGraw-Hill-Irwin, 2009); Becoming Hewlett Packard: Why Strategic Leadership Matters (Oxford University Press, 2017); and Strategy-Making and Organizational Evolution: A Managerial Agency Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Burgelman has served as an Associate Editor of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2007–2013. He has served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Executive Program (SEP) during 1996–2015, and has taught executive programs and led senior and top management seminars for major companies worldwide. He has also served on boards of directors and boards of advisors of several private companies.