Sarah Kaplan Faculty Profile

Sarah Kaplan
Assistant Professor of Management

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2004; MA, Johns Hopkins University, The Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), 1990; BA, University of California at Los Angeles, 1986

Research Areas
Innovation; strategic management; cognition; technical change

Recent Consulting
Working with firms in a variety of industries on issues of strategic renewal and reinvention.

Current Projects
Understanding the role of interpretive processes in shaping firm response to discontinuities with a particular focus on strategic choice and action. Studies of the biotech, nanotechnology and telecoms equipment industries.

Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 2004-present

Other Positions
McKinsey & Company, 1990-1999; Theodore Barry & Associates, 1986-1988

Representative Publications
(with R. Foster)
Creative Destruction New York: Currency/Doubleday, 2001.

(with E. Beinhocker)
"The Real Value of Strategic Planning." The Sloan Management Review 44.2 (2003).

(with R. Henderson)
"Inertia and Incentives: Bridging Organizational Economics and Organizational Theory." Organization Science 16(5), 509-521 (2005).

(with M. Tripsas)
"Thinking about Technology: Applying a Cognitive Lens to Technical Change." Research Policy 37(5), 790-805 (2008).

Framing Contests: Strategy Making Under Uncertainty. Forthcoming in Organization Science (2008).

"Cognition, Capabilities & Incentives: Assessing Firm Response to the Fiber-Optic Revolution." Forthcoming in Academy of Management Journal (August 2008).