Riitta Katila
W.M. Keck Professor and Professor of Management Science and Engineering
Web page: http://web.stanford.edu/~rkatila/lagunita/index.html
Bio
Riitta Katila is the W. M. Keck Sr. Professor of Management Science, Faculty Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and HAI Sabbatical Scholar at Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. Her research is in the intersection of technology strategy and organizational learning, using machine learning, statistical analysis and mixed methods. She is an expert on innovation, competition, and entrepreneurship in large firms, and her current research centers on digital platforms, regulation of technology ecosystems, decentralization of decision-making, and responsible and inclusive innovation. Katila's research pushes the theoretical boundaries of institutional logics, resource dependence and evolutionary search theories to understand how organizations innovate and change.
Prof. Katila's research has received several international honors. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow and winner of the Schendel Prize by the Strategic Management Society. Katila is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Management and Fellow of the Strategic Management Society.
Katila received Academy of Management's Stephan M. Schrader Award for Outstanding Research in Technology and Innovation Management, and the Thought Leader Award in Entrepreneurship. Katila is the recipient of the Eugene L. Grant Faculty Teaching Award at Stanford, an alumni impact award from Aalto University's School of Science (former Helsinki University of Technology) and was selected to Tau Beta Pi Teaching Honor Roll at Stanford. She is Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Annals and of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and has served on the editorial review boards of Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Strategic Organization, and the Strategic Management Journal. She is currently on Strategic Management Society's Board of Directors, and is past-President of the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management.
Katila studied engineering economics and information systems as an undergraduate, earned a Ph.D. in technology strategy at UT Austin on a Fulbright Scholarship, and received a Doctorate in Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology in Finland. In between, she worked at a management consultancy and in telecommunications. Trained as an industrial engineer, she is known as a trailblazer for women engineers and scientists.
Media Resources for Recent Research:
For the Strategic Management Journal 2024 paper on AI and supervised machine learning for strategy scholars,
Video abstract https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaiazcpPucI
Sage Research Methods video https://methods.sagepub.com/video/machine-learning-and-publicprivate-firm-collaboration and AI for good https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.09573. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS6qJG3vZPM
For access to publications, http://web.stanford.edu/~rkatila/lagunita/publications.html
Award-winning SMS video abstract on lean startup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ3uvFGf1o8
On expertise https://hbr.org/2017/12/too-many-experts-can-hurt-your-innovation-projects
On innovation and experiments https://hbr.org/2021/04/to-make-lean-startups-work-you-need-a-balanced-team
On big tech antitrust https://hbr.org/2023/02/the-surprising-consequences-of-antitrust-actions-against-big-tech
On how to best use your expertise: What’s the sweet spot for experts? Academy of Management Journal 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSKM9jjmS5k
Honors & Awards
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Fellow, Strategic Management Society
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Fellow, Academy of Management
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Tau Beta Pi Teaching Award, Stanford University
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Best Research Video Abstract, Strategic Management Society
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Schendel Prize, Strategic Management Society
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President, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Academy of Management
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Thought Leader Award, Entrepreneurship Division, Academy of Management
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Top Strategy Scholar, "Emerging Scholar of the Year", Strategic Management Society
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Industry Studies Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
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Best Paper, Industry Studies Association
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Alumnus of the Year, Aalto University School of Science
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Best Paper, Competitive Dynamics Conference
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Best Doctoral Dissertation, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Academy of Management
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Eugene L. Grant Faculty Teaching Award, Stanford University
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Best Doctoral Dissertation, Technology Management Section, INFORMS
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Best Symposium Award, Organization & Management Theory Division, Academy of Management
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Best Dissertation Finalist, Business Policy and Strategy Free Press Award, Academy of Management
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Best Student Paper, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Academy of Management
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Leadership Track, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Academy of Management
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W.M. Keck Foundation Faculty Scholar, Stanford University
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
The question that drives Prof. Katila's research is how technology-based firms with significant resources can stay innovative. Her work lies at the intersection of the fields of technology, innovation, and strategy and focuses on strategies that enable organizations to discover, develop and commercialize technologies. She combines theory with longitudinal large-sample data (e.g., robotics, biomedical, platform and multi-industry datasets), background fieldwork, and state-of-the-art quantitative methods. The ultimate objective is to understand what makes technology-based firms successful.
To answer this question, Prof. Katila conducts two interrelated streams of research. She studies (1) strategies that help firms leverage their existing resources (leverage stream), and (2) strategies through which firms can acquire new resources (acquisition stream) to create innovation. Her early contributions were firm centric while recent contributions focus on innovation in the context of competitive interaction and ecosystems.
Professor Katila's work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Strategy Science, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy and other outlets. In her work, supported by the National Science Foundation, Katila examines how firms create new products successfully. Focusing on the robotics and medical device industries, she investigates how different search approaches, such as the exploitation of existing knowledge and the exploration for new knowledge, influence the kinds of new products that technology-intensive firms introduce.
2024-25 Courses
- Fundamental Concepts in Management Science and Engineering
MS&E 302 (Aut) - Part-Time Practical Training
MS&E 208E (Aut, Win, Spr) - Practical Training
MS&E 208A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Practical Training
MS&E 208B (Aut, Win, Spr) - Practical Training
MS&E 208C (Aut, Win, Spr) - Practical Training
MS&E 208D (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Project
MS&E 108 (Win) - Strategy Doctoral Research Seminar
MS&E 376 (Win) - Strategy in Technology-Based Companies
MS&E 270 (Win) -
Independent Studies (3)
- Directed Reading and Research
MS&E 408 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Special Studies in Engineering
ENGR 199 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Writing of Original Research for Engineers
ENGR 199W (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Reading and Research
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Innovation and Strategic Change
MS&E 371 (Win) - Part-Time Practical Training
MS&E 208E (Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208A (Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208B (Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208C (Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208D (Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Project
MS&E 108 (Win)
2022-23 Courses
- Fundamental Concepts in Management Science and Engineering
MS&E 302 (Aut) - Innovation, Creativity, and Change
MS&E 175 (Win) - Part-Time Practical Training
MS&E 208E (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208A (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208B (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208C (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208D (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Project
MS&E 108 (Win) - Strategy Doctoral Research Seminar
MS&E 376 (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- Fundamental Concepts in Management Science and Engineering
MS&E 302 (Aut) - Innovation and Strategic Change
MS&E 371 (Win) - Innovation, Creativity, and Change
MS&E 175 (Win) - Part-Time Practical Training
MS&E 208E (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208A (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208B (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208C (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Practical Training
MS&E 208D (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Project
MS&E 108 (Win)
- Innovation and Strategic Change
Stanford Advisees
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Pradyumna Singh, Yerzhan Suleimenov -
Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Seyedeh Zahra Hejrati -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Philipp Reineke -
Doctoral Dissertation Co-Advisor (AC)
Christopher Flowers -
Master's Program Advisor
Hanh Giao, Will Moyo -
Doctoral (Program)
Yikai Cao, Naman Gupta, Cuehyon Kim, Yuxiang Liu, Joshua Lyman, Yulia Venichenko, Xilan Zhang
All Publications
- Decentralization in Organizations: A Revolution or a Mirage? Academy of Management Annals 2025
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Making the most of AI and machine learning in organizations and strategy research: Supervised machine learning, causal inference, and matching models
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2024
View details for DOI 10.1002/smj.3604
View details for Web of Science ID 001222668700001
- INNOVATION AND PROFITABILITY FOLLOWING ANTITRUST INTERVENTION AGAINST A DOMINANT PLATFORM: THE WILD, WILD WEST? Strategic Management Journal 2023; 44 (4): 907-1138
- The surprising consequences of antitrust actions against big tech. Harvard Business Review 2023
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Walking the Walk of AI Ethics: Organizational Challenges and the Individualization of Risk among Ethics Entrepreneurs
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2023: 217-226
View details for DOI 10.1145/3593013.3593990
View details for Web of Science ID 001062819300021
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BIG FISH VERSUS BIG POND? ENTREPRENEURS, ESTABLISHED FIRMS, AND ANTECEDENTS OF TIE FORMATION
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2022; 65 (2): 427-452
View details for DOI 10.5465/amj.2018.1197
View details for Web of Science ID 000803633400004
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Seeing What Others Miss: A Competition Network Lens on Product Innovation
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
2021; 32 (5): 1346-1370
View details for DOI 10.1287/orsc.2021.1430
View details for Web of Science ID 000718956600010
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Enabling Technologies and the Role of Private Firms: A Machine Learning Matching Analysis
STRATEGY SCIENCE
2021; 6 (1): 5–21
View details for DOI 10.1287/stsc.2020.0112
View details for Web of Science ID 000628795100002
- To make lean startups work, you need a balanced team Harvard Business Review. 2021
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The lean startup method: Early-stage teams and hypothesis-based probing of business ideas
STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOURNAL
2020
View details for DOI 10.1002/sej.1373
View details for Web of Science ID 000584284200001
- The lean startup method video abstract Strategic Management Society. 2020
- Systemic Innovation of Complex One-Off Products: The Case of Green Buildings Organization Design: Advances in Strategic Management 2018; 40: 299 - 328
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IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? EXPERT PRODUCT USERS, ORGANIZATIONAL ROLES, AND INNOVATION
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2017; 60 (6): 2415–37
View details for DOI 10.5465/amj.2014.1112
View details for Web of Science ID 000418761000015
- Too many experts can hurt innovation projects Harvard Business Review 2017
- Who takes you to the dance? How partners' institutional logics influence innovation in young firms. ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY 2015; 60: 561-595
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Evolving Strategies for Social Innovation Games
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2015: 1135-1142
View details for DOI 10.1145/2739480.2754790
View details for Web of Science ID 000358795700142
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HOW DO SOCIAL DEFENSES WORK? A RESOURCE-DEPENDENCE LENS ON TECHNOLOGY VENTURES, VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTORS, AND CORPORATE RELATIONSHIPS
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2014; 57 (4): 1078-1101
View details for DOI 10.5465/amj.2012.0003
View details for Web of Science ID 000340441400008
- “Distant Search” and “Local Search” Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management 2014
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TOP MANAGEMENT ATTENTION TO INNOVATION: THE ROLE OF SEARCH SELECTION AND INTENSITY IN NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTIONS
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2013; 56 (3): 893-916
View details for DOI 10.5465/amj.2010.0844
View details for Web of Science ID 000321599800013
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The complex search process of invention
RESEARCH POLICY
2013; 42 (1): 90-100
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.respol.2012.04.020
View details for Web of Science ID 000313374400008
- Comparing novice and expert user inputs in early stage product design. Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), Tokyo, Japan 2013
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All the right moves: How entrepreneurial firms compete effectively
STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOURNAL
2012; 6 (2): 116-132
View details for DOI 10.1002/sej.1130
View details for Web of Science ID 000304905900003
- Sequences of competitive moves and effects on firm performance. ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BEST PAPER PROCEEDINGS 2012
- Design Thinking Research – Understanding Innovation User-Centered Innovation for the Design and Development of Complex Products and Systems. edited by Plattner et al., H. 2012: 135–149
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LIFE IN THE FAST LANE: ORIGINS OF COMPETITIVE INTERACTION IN NEW VS. ESTABLISHED MARKETS
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2010; 31 (13): 1527-1547
View details for DOI 10.1002/smj.894
View details for Web of Science ID 000284014000008
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Effects of Search Timing on Innovation: The Value of Not Being in Sync with Rivals
ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
2008; 53 (4): 593-625
View details for Web of Science ID 000265122000001
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Swimming with sharks: Technology ventures, defense mechanisms and corporate relationships
ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
2008; 53 (2): 295-332
View details for Web of Science ID 000258783000004
- Technology perspective on network resources. ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW 2008; 33: 550-553
- Rival Interpretations of Balancing Exploration and Exploitation: Simultaneous or Sequential? Blackwell Handbook on Technology and Innovation Management 2008
- Business Performance Measurement – Theory and Practice Measuring innovation performance. edited by Neely, A. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2007: 304–317
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Measuring innovation performance
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: UNIFYING THEORIES AND INTEGRATING PRACTICE, 2ND EDITION
2007: 304-317
View details for Web of Science ID 000304455300015
- Never too early, never too late: Effects of search timing on product innovation. ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BEST PAPER PROCEEDINGS 2006
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When does lack of resources make new firms innovative?
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2005; 48 (5): 814-829
View details for Web of Science ID 000233406300008
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Where do resources come from? The role of idiosyncratic situations
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2004; 25 (8-9): 887-907
View details for DOI 10.1002/smj.401
View details for Web of Science ID 000223115800009
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Exploiting technological opportunities: the timing of collaborations
RESEARCH POLICY
2003; 32 (2): 317-332
View details for Web of Science ID 000181014800009
- R&D collaboration – Timing is of the essence WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITISCHE BLATTER 2003; 3: 348-352
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Something old, something new: A longitudinal study of search behavior and new product introduction
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2002; 45 (6): 1183-1194
View details for Web of Science ID 000180081400009
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New product search overtime: Past ideas in their prime?
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
2002; 45 (5): 995-1010
View details for Web of Science ID 000178849900010
- Technological acquisitions and the innovation performance of acquiring firms: A longitudinal study. STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL 2001; 22: 197-220
- Business Performance Measurement – Theory and Practice Using patent data to measure innovation performance. edited by Neely, A. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.. 2001: 304–312
- Measuring innovation performance. International Journal of Business Performance Measurement 2000; 2: 180-193
- Interorganizational development activities: The likelihood and timing of contracts. ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BEST PAPER PROCEEDINGS 1999
- Distinguishing the roles of the external environment in organizational learning Southwest Academy of Management 1998: 206-210
- Using patent data to measure innovation performance. Proceedings of the International Conference on Performance Measurement 1998
- Distinguishing the roles of the external environment in organizational learning Southwest Academy of Management 1998
- Technology strategies for growth and innovation: A study of biotechnology ventures. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research Waltham, MA: Babson College. 1997
- Economic and sociological explanations in high technology environments – Issues for science and technology policy. International Association for Business and Society 1996