Research Expertise and Interest

social networks, entrepreneurship, innovation, strategy

Research Description

Toby E. Stuart is the Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation; the Faculty Director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship; and the Chairman of the Department of Management and Organizations at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Previously, he has been: The Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; the Arthur J. Samberg Professor and Faculty Director of the Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School; and the Fred G. Steingraber-A.T. Kearney Professor of Leadership & Strategy at University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. He received his first chaired, full professorship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business at the age of 32. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He holds an A.B., summa cum laude, in economics from Carleton College.  

Professor Stuart is the recipient of the 2007 Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, which is granted every other year to recognize one individual’s contributions to entrepreneurship research. He has received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School and the Cheit Award for Teaching Excellence at Berkeley Haas. He has won the Administrative Science Quarterly’s Scholarly Contribution (best paper) award, and other recognitions for scholarly contributions. He is a Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Center for Corporate Reputation. Much of Professor Stuart’s research has examined social networks, particularly their role in entrepreneurship, innovation, and strategy. In some of his current projects, he is investigating email networks and employment outcomes in a variety of companies; the referral network among doctors in the U.S. healthcare system; matching in a few online networks; and the collaboration network in the academic life sciences.

At Harvard Business School and Columbia Business Schools, he served as course head for Entrepreneurship and Strategy Formulation, respectively. He has taught MBA and executive courses in the areas of corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, innovation and technology strategy, leadership, venture capital and private equity, and entrepreneurship. He launched and remains co-director of the Executive Program in Corporate Strategy at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business; he is the founding faculty director of the Program on Competitive Strategy and Innovation at Haas; and he has co-directed Harvard Business School’s Creating Corporate-Level Advantage Strategy Program for senior executives. He has served as a consultant or executive educator at dozens of companies around the world. Currently, he is a member of the board of directors of HNTB Holdings and also advises a number of startups, including OvaScience (Ticker: OVSC), Kyruus, and GoEuro. He is on the Advisory Boards of ShanghaiTech School of Entrepreneurship and Management, PhilDev and Skydeck, a startup incubator at UC Berkeley.