Faculty Directory

Vijay Govindarajan

Coxe Distinguished Professor of Management

Email

vijay.govindarajan@tuck.dartmouth.edu

Phone

603-289-0007

Personal Website

http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/people/vg/

Degree

DBA, Harvard University, 1978; MBA, Harvard University, 1976; BC, Annamalai University, 1969

Areas of Expertise

Strategy, innovation, execution

Courses

Implementing Strategy

Bio

Vijay Govindarajan (VG) is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and faculty partner at the Silicon Valley incubator Mach49. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. His latest book is The Three Box Solution. His Harvard Business Review articles “Engineering Reverse Innovations” and “Stop the Innovation Wars” won McKinsey Awards for best article published in HBR. His HBR articles “How GE Is Disrupting Itself” and “The CEO’s Role in Business Model Reinvention” are HBR all-time top-50 bestsellers. Follow him on LinkedIn.

Current Research Topics

  • Three Box Solution
  • Reverse innovation
  • Digital business transformation

Professional Activities

Academic positions

  • Tuck School of Business, 1985–present
  • Faculty Director, William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership, Tuck School, 2000–10
  • Visiting Professor, INSEAD, 1994
  • Visiting Professor, International University of Japan, 1989–90
  • Associate Professor, Ohio State University, 1981–85
  • Visiting Associate Professor, Harvard University, 1980–81
  • Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Management, 1978–80

Nonacademic positions

  • Chief Innovation Consultant, Professor in Residence, General Electric, 2009, 2008

Awards

  • Institute of Management Studies Lifetime Achievement Award, only the fourth recipient in the 50-year history of the IMS; for excelling in research, teaching, and impact, to improve the practice of management; 2022
  • Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame, for lifetime contribution to management theory and practice, 2019
  • Thinkers 50 Innovation Award, for major contribution to the study of innovation, 2019
  • Best Article Award, Strategic Management Society, 2017; for “Reverse Innovation, Emerging Markets, and Global Strategy,” Global Strategy Journal, October 2011
  • McKinsey Award for the Best HBR Article, first place, 2015; for “Engineering Reverse Innovation,” Harvard Business Review, July–Aug 2015
  • NYT and WSJ bestseller, Reverse Innovation, 2012
  • Thinkers 50 Breakthrough Innovation Award, 2011
  • McKinsey Award, second place, with C. Trimble, for “Stop the Innovation Wars,” Harvard Business Review, 2010
  • Accenture Award for the Best Article, with C. Trimble, for “Organizational DNA for Strategic Innovation,” California Management Review, 2005
  • Top Five Most Respected Executive Coach on Strategy, rated by Forbes
  • Top Ten Professor in Corporate Executive Education, rated by BusinessWeek
  • Outstanding Faculty, named in BusinessWeek Guide to the Best Business Schools
  • Outstanding Teacher of the Year, voted by MBA students
  • Top Ten Most Frequently Cited Research Paper in the 40-year history of the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), with A. K. Gupta, “Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation”
  • Second Most Frequently Cited Research Paper, with A. K. Gupta, for “Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation,” survey of The Fifty Most-Noted Strategy Works of 1980-1985, by Donald C. Hambrick, Columbia University
  • Top 20 Academic Superstar in North America for research in strategy and organization, by Management International Review
  • Gluek Best Research Paper Award, in business policy and strategy from the Academy of Management
  • Academy of Management Hall of Fame, in recognition of the number of articles published in the academy journals

Selected Publications

  • With V. Venkatraman, “The Next Great Digital Advantage,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 2022
  • With I. K. Nooyi, “Becoming a Better Corporate Citizen: How PepsiCo Moved Toward a Healthier Future,” Harvard Business Review, March–April 2020
  • Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation, HBR Press, 2016
  • With A. Winter, “Engineering Reverse Innovations,” Harvard Business Review, July–Aug 2015
  • “Building a $300 House For The Poor,” Harvard Business Review, March 2011
  • With B. Goldner, “Transforming Your Organization with the Three-Box Approach,” Harvard Business Review, January 2011
  • “Reverse Innovation, Emerging Markets, and Global Strategy," Global Strategy Journal, 2011, 1(3–4):191–205
  • With C. Trimble, “Stop the Innovation Wars,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2010, 88(7):76–83
  • With J. Immelt and C. Trimble, “How GE Is Disrupting Itself,” Harvard Business Review, October 2009, 87(10):56–65
  • With P. Kopalle, “Disruptiveness of Innovations: Measurement and an Assessment of Reliability and Validity,” Strategic Management Journal, February 2006, 27(2): 189–99
  • With A. K. Gupta, “Knowledge Flows Within Multinational Corporations,” Strategic Management Journal, 2000, 21: 473–96
  • With A. K. Gupta, “Knowledge Flows and Structure of Controls in Multinational Corporations,” Academy of Management Review, 1991, 16(4):768–92
  • With J. Fisher, “Impact of Output versus Behavior Controls and Resource Sharing on Performance: Strategy as a Mediating Variable,” Academy of Management Journal, 1990, 33(2):259–85
  • “A Contingency Approach to Strategy Implementation at the Business-Unit Level: Integrating Administrative Mechanisms with Strategy,” Academy of Management Journal, 1988, 31(4):828–53