Daniel Levinthal

Education

PhD, Stanford University, 1985; BA, Harvard University, 1979

Academic Positions Held

Wharton: 1989present (named Reginald H. Jones Professor of Corporate Strategy in 2005)

Chairperson, Management Department, 20012010 and 20132016

Julian Aresty Professor of Management, 19992005

Previous appointment: Carnegie Mellon University

Other Positions

Systems Analyst, Decision Analysis Group, SRI International, 19781979

Professional Leadership

• EditorinChief, Strategy Science, 2013present
  
• EditorinChief, Organization Science, 20102013
• Editor, Industrial and Corporate Change, 20102015
• Department Editor for Business Strategy for Management Science, 2003

Past Courses

MGMT223 BUSINESS STRATEGY

This course encourages students to analyze the problems of managing the total enterprise in the domestic and international setting. The focus is on the competitive strategy of the firm, examining issues central to its long and shortterm competitive position. Students act in the roles of key decisionmakers or their advisors and solve problems related to the development or maintenance of the competitive advantage of the firm in a given market. The first module of the course develops an understanding of key strategic frameworks using theoretical readings and casebased discussions. Students will learn concepts and tools for analyzing the competitive environment, strategic position and firmspecific capabilities in order to understand the sources of a firm's competitive advantage. In addition, students will address corporate strategy issues such as the economic logic and administrative challenges associated with diversification choices about horizontal and vertical integration. The second module will be conducted as a multisession, computerbased simulation in which students will have the opportunity to apply the concepts and tools from module 1 to make strategic decisions. ,The goal of the course is for students to develop an analytical tool kit for understanding strategic issues and to enrich their appreciation for the thought processes essential to incisive strategic analysis. This course offers students the opportunity to develop a general management perspective by combining their knowledge of specific functional areas with an appreciation for the requirements posed by the need to integrate all functions into a coherent whole. Students will develop skills in structuring and solving complex business problems.

MGMT611 MANAGING EST ENTERPRISE

The management of large, established enterprises creates a range of multifacet challenges for the general manager. A general manager needs to understand the internal workings of a firm, how to assess and create a strategy, and how to take into account increasing, globalization. While these issues are distinct, they are very much intertwined. As a result, this course will provide you with an integrated view of these challenges and show you that effective of an established enterprise requires a combination of insights drawn from economics, sociology, psychology and political economy.

MGMT900 SEM STRAT MGMT

This course examines some of the central questions in management with economic approaches as a starting point, but with an eye to links to behavioral perspectives on these same questions. It is not a substitute for a traditional microeconomics course. Economics concerns itself with goal directed behavior of individuals interacting in a competitive context. We adopt that general orientation but recognize that goal directed action need not take the form of maximizing behavior and that competitive processes do not typically equilibrate instantaneously. The substantive focus is on the firm as a productive entity. Among the sorts of questions we explore are the following: What underlies a firms capabilities? How does individual knowledge aggregate to form collective capabilities? What do these perspectives on firms say about the scope of a firms activities, both horizontally (diversification) and vertically (buysupply relationships)? We also explore what our understanding of firms says about market dynamics and industry evolution, particularly in the context of technological change. ,A central property of firms, as with any organization, is the interdependent nature of activity within them. Thus, understanding firms as "systems" is quite important Among the issues we explore in this regard are the following. Organizational "systems" have internal structure, in particular elements of hierarchy and modularity. Even putting aside the question of individual goals and objectives and how they may aggregate, the question of organizational goal is nontrivial. To say that a firms objective is to maximize profits is not terribly opera tional. How does such an overarching objective get decomposed to link to the actual operating activities of individual subunits, including individuals themselves. This issue of goals has links to some interesting recent work that links the valuation process of financial markets to firm behavior. Financial markets are not only a reflection of firm value, but may guide firms initiatives in sys tematic ways.

MGMT953 SEM RES METHODS

This is an introductory doctoral seminar on research methods in management. We examine basic issues involved in conducting empirical research for publication in scholarly management journals. We start by discussing the framing of research questions, theory development, the initial choices involved in research design, and basic concerns in empirical testing. We then consider these issues in the context of different modes of empirical research (including experimental, survey, qualitative, archival, and simulation). We discuss readings that address the underlying fundamentals of these modes as well studies that illustrate how management scholars have used them in their work, separately and in combination.

• Irwin Award as Distinguished Educator, Business Policy Division of the Academy of Management, 2015
• Honorary Doctorate, Tilburg University, 2014
• Fellow of the Strategic Management Society, 2011
• Fellow of the Academy of Management, 2010
• Distinguished Scholar Award, Organizational and Management Theory, Academy of Management, 2010
• Honorary Doctorate, University of Southern Denmark, 2010

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Can Twitter Find a Reliable Growth Model?, Knowledge @ Wharton 02/17/2016
• Advice for YouTube: Find a Subscription Model to Keep Viewers Clicking, Knowledge @ Wharton 07/17/2013
• Can RIM Reinvent Itself?, Knowledge @ Wharton 02/04/2013
• Has the ‘Death of the PC’ Been Greatly Exaggerated?, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/24/2012
• Will Buying a Hospice Keep the Washington Post Co. Off Life Support?, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/24/2012
• Are RIM’s Days Numbered?, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/31/2012
• Vertical Integration Works for Apple — But It Won’t for Everyone, Knowledge @ Wharton 03/14/2012
• Can New Leadership Get RIM Back in Motion?, Knowledge @ Wharton 01/24/2012
• Is RIM Riding on the Edge?, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/28/2011
• HP’s Exit from the PC Business: Bold Move or Too Little, Too Late?, Knowledge @ Wharton 08/22/2011
• With Its New Music Storage and Player, Can Amazon Deliver in the Cloud?, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/11/2011
• Can HP’s New Leadership Create a Vision for the Future?, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/27/2010
• Dell’s Diversification Strategy: ‘A Day Late and a Dollar Short?’, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/01/2010
• A Groundlevel View of India’s New Opportunities and Challenges, Knowledge @ Wharton 08/26/2010
• Netflix: One Eye on the Present and Another on the Future, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/28/2009
• The Disney/Marvel Marriage: Will They Live Happily Ever After?, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/16/2009
• 3D Movies: Adding Depth or Falling Flat?, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/01/2008
• ShortCircuited: Cutting Jobs as Corporate Strategy, Knowledge @ Wharton 04/04/2007
• A New Tool for Resurrecting an Old Theory of the Firm, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/17/2006
• As Sony Gets a Tuneup, Samsung Zooms Ahead, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/19/2005
• Sony’s Next Act: Will It Play?, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/21/2005
• Free Advice from Wharton: Here’s What HewlettPackard’s New CEO Should Do, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/10/2005
• Is It time to Give Up on AOL Time Warner?, Knowledge @ Wharton 02/26/2003
• Sony vs. Sony, Knowledge @ Wharton 06/05/2002
• HewlettPackard and Compaq: If It Goes Through, Here’s How to Try and Make It Work, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/13/2001