Frederick Charles Williams

I am a strategy scholar at Bocconi University with an interest in how people, structure, and experience affect the evolution and adaptation of firms. I have studied how firms adapt their knowledge while expanding abroad, how executive movement through firms affects the likelihood of entering and exiting markets, and how entrepreneurial firms face the challenges of growth. My research has been published in Management Science and Strategic Management Journal, and I have served on the editorial boards of Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science. In 2020 one of my papers was awarded the Glueck Best Paper Award from the STR Diision of the Academy of Management. I teach strategy and entrepreneurship at Bocconi and previously taught at University of Illinois and Duke University. Before earning my PhD at the University of Michigan I worked in journalism and market research.

2020 Glueck Award for Best Paper, STR Division of the Academy of Management

Research interests

How do new and established firms grow and thrive?; How does prior experience shape firms’ adaptive capabilities?; How do organizational structure, people, and systems influence adaptation and innovation?; How do executives and founders shape strategic and structural change?

Latest publications

ABOLFATHI N., SANTAMARIA S., WILLIAMS C. How Does Firm Scope Depend on Customer Switching Costs? Evidence from Mobile Telecommunications Markets Management Science, 2022, vol.68, no. 1, pp.316-332

WILLIAMS C., CHEN P., AGARWAL R. Rookies and seasoned recruits: How experience in different levels, firms, and industries shapes strategic renewal in top management Strategic Management Journal, 2017, vol.38, no. 7, pp.1391-1415

CHEN P., WILLIAMS C., AGARWAL R. Growing pains: the effect of pre-entry experience on impediments to growth Strategic Management Journal, 2012, vol.33, no. 3, pp.252-276

KARIM S., WILLIAMS C. Structural knowledge: how executive experience with structural composition affects intrafirm mobility and structural change Strategic Management Journal, 2012, vol.33, no. 6, pp.681-709

WILLIAMS C. Comparing evolutionary and contingency theory approaches to organizational structure in Designing Organizations: 21st Century Approaches Richard M. Burton, Bo Eriksen, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, Thorbjørn Knudsen, Charles C. Snow(Ed), Springer, pp.41-56, 2008

WILLIAMS C. Transfer in context: replication and adaptation in knowledge transfer relationships Strategic Management Journal, 2007, vol.28, no. 9, pp.867-889