Michael L. Tushman

Michael L. Tushman

Senior Fellow
Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

Senior Fellow
Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

Organizational Behavior
+1 (617) 495-5442
 
Michael L. Tushman
Unit
Contact Information
(617) 495-5442
Featured Work Publications Research Summary Teaching Awards & Honors
Senior Teams, Strategic Innovation, and Change
This research stream explores the relations between technological change, senior executive teams, and organizational evolution. I continue to explore how innovation streams pose strategic challenges to organizations and their senior teams, and how different organizational architectures, particularly ambidextrous designs, affect a firm's ability to explore as well as exploit. I also explore how ambidextrous designs are created in firms and how they evolve over time. This work is in both the private and public sectors.
Organizational Identity and Firm Strategy
This research stream focuses on the role of organizational identity as a powerful tool to adjudicate the tensions between contrasting strategic requirements. With a range of colleagues, we explore the relations between organizational identity, a firm's strategy, and its fate.
Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries
I am exploring how open innovation complements traditional innovation logics. With a range of colleagues, we explore how open or distributed innovation affects incumbent firms' boundaries, designs, and identities.
 
Senior Teams and Paradox

This research area explores processes senior teams employ in order to attend to and deal with strategic paradox (e.g. explore and exploit, do well and do good).

Michael Tushman holds degrees from Northeastern University (B.S.E.E.), Cornell University (M.S.), and the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. (Ph.D.). Tushman was on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, from 1976 to 1998 where he was the Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business from 1989 to 1998. He has also been a visiting professor at MIT (1982, 1996) and INSEAD (1995-1998, 2011).

Tushman was awarded the Academy of Management’s Career Achievement Award for Distinguished Scholarly Contributions to Management (2013) and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva (2008). Tushman received distinguished scholar awards in the Technology and Innovation Management (1999), Organization Management and Theory (2003), and Organization Development and Change (2016) Divisions of the Academy of Management. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Management (1996). Tushman received the distinguished scholar award at INFORMS’ Technology Management Section (2010) and was recognized as a Foundational Scholar in the Knowledge and Innovation Group of the Strategic Management Society (2014). He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Training and Development (2013). Tushman received the Career Achievement Award for Major Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Technology Management from the Tusher Center for Management of Intellectual Capital, University of California, Berkeley, (2017). Tushman received The Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Rigour & Relevance in the Study of Management from London Business School (2011); HBS’s Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching (2013); and was named Lecturer of the Year at CHAMPS, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden, 2005).

Professor Tushman is internationally recognized for his work on the relations between technological change, executive leadership and organization adaptation. His work centers on the role of senior teams in building organizations that host incremental as well as discontinuous innovation as well as leading those organizational changes associated with innovation streams. His work on ambidextrous organizational designs focuses on organizational and senior team characteristics that enable firms to exploit current capabilities as well explore into new spaces. He is working on the impact of distributed innovation on incumbent firms and the role of organizational identity in shaping a firm’s ability to handle paradoxical strategic requirements.

Tushman has published numerous articles and books including Corporate Explorer (with A. Binns and C. O’Reilly), Wiley, 2022; Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator’s Dilemma(with C. O'Reilly), Stanford University Press, 2016, 2nd Edition 2021; Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Renewal and Change (with C. O'Reilly), Harvard Business School Press, 1997; Leading Sustainable Change (with R. Henderson and R. Gulati), Oxford University Press, 2015; Navigating Change: How CEOs, Top Teams, and Boards Steer Transformation (with D. Hambrick and D. Nadler), Harvard Business School Press, 1998; Competing by Design: A Blueprint for Organizational Architectures (with D. Nadler), Oxford University Press, 1998; and Managing Strategic Innovation: A Collection of Readings (with P. Anderson), Oxford University Press, 1997, 2004. He and Mary Benner won the Academy of Management Review’s Best Paper Award (2004) and its Decade Award (2013). His papers with Charles O'Reilly won the Accenture Award from the California Management Review in 1997 and 2010.

Tushman teaches courses on leading innovation and organization effectiveness and on leading strategic innovation and change. At Columbia, he won the first W. H. Newman Award for excellence and innovation in the classroom. At Harvard, Tushman is involved in comprehensive and focused executive education programs, the MBA program, as well as its doctoral programs. Tushman is the faculty chair of the Advanced Management Program as well as co-chair of the Management track of the DBA program and co-faculty chair of Leading Change and Organizational Renewal (LCOR). He was previously the faculty chair of the Program for Leadership Development (PLD). He has supervised many doctoral students, several who have won national awards for their dissertation research.

Professor Tushman has served on the boards of many scholarly journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Management Studies, Organizational Dynamics, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He has served as chairperson of the Organization and Management Theory and the Technology and Innovation Management Divisions of the Academy of Management. Tushman is a consultant and instructor in corporate executive education programs around the world. Tushman was senior advisor to the Delta Consulting Group and past trustee of IBM Credit Corporation. Tushman is a founding director of Change Logic.

Featured Work
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
by O’Reilly, C. & Tushman, M. L. 2016. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

In the past few years, a number of well-known firms have failed; think of Blockbuster, Kodak, or RadioShack. When we read about their demise, it often seems inevitable—a natural part of "creative destruction." But closer examination reveals a disturbing truth: Companies large and small are shuttering more quickly than ever. What does it take to buck this trend?

The simple answer is: ambidexterity. Firms must remain competitive in their core markets, while also winning in new domains. Innovation guru Clayton M. Christensen has been pessimistic about whether established companies can prevail in the face of disruption, but Charles A. O'Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman show they can. The authors explain how shrewd organizations have used an ambidextrous approach to solve their own innovator's dilemma. They contrast these luminaries with companies which—often trapped by their own successes—have been unable to adapt and grow.

Bridging Present Capabilities and Future Success: Organizational Ambidexterity
IESE presentation - 21 September 2014 - Madrid

Large, incumbent firms are often handicapped by their inability to explore new opportunities. Great firms, on the other hand, are able to overcome the tension between present and future success by exploiting and exploring simultaneously. Michael Tushman discusses ambidexterity in organizations and senior teams and the key ingredients that help them succeed.
Winning through Innovation
A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal
Tushman and O'Reilly examine how leadership, culture, and organizational architectures can be both important facilitators of innovation and, not uncommonly, formidable obstacles. They demonstrate how to clarify today's critical managerial problems, use culture and commitment to promote innovation and implement strategy, and deal with changing innovation requirements as organizations evolve.
The Ambidextrous CEO
Tushman, Michael L., Wendy K. Smith, and Andy Binns. "The Ambidextrous CEO." Harvard Business Review 89, no. 6 (June 2011): 74–80
Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Altman, Elizabeth J., and Michael Tushman. "Platforms, Open/User Innovation, and Ecosystems: A Strategic Leadership Perspective." In Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Platforms. Vol. 37, edited by Jeffrey Furman, Annabelle Gawer, Brian Silverman, and Scott Stern, 177–207. Advances in Strategic Management. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael. "Paul R. Lawrence: A Career of Rigor, Relevance, and Passion." In The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Continuously updated ed. Edited by David Szabla, William Pasmore, Mary Barnes, and Asha Gipson. Springer, 2017. Electronic. (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_12-2.) View Details
  • Binns, Andrew, and Michael Tushman. "Getting Started with Ambidexterity." Chap. 4 in Advancing Organizational Theory in a Complex World, edited by Jane Qiu, Ben Nanfeng Luo, Chris Jackson, and Karin Sanders, 60–73. Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society. London, UK: Routledge, 2017. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael, Charles O'Reilly, and Bruce Harreld. "Leading Proactive Punctuated Change." Chap. 10 in Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective, edited by Rebecca Henderson, Ranjay Gulati, and Michael Tushman. Oxford University Press, 2015. View Details
  • Altman, Elizabeth J., Frank Nagle, and Michael Tushman. "Innovating without Information Constraints: Organization, Communities, and Innovation when Information Costs Approach Zero." In The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, edited by Christina E. Shalley, Michael A. Hitt, and Jing Zhou, 353–379. Oxford University Press, 2015. View Details
  • Lakhani, Karim R., Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, and Michael L. Tushman. "Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: Task Decomposition, Knowledge Distribution and the Locus of Innovation." Chap. 19 in Handbook of Economic Organization: Integrating Economic and Organization Theory, edited by Anna Grandori, 355–382. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013. View Details
  • Altman, Elizabeth J., Frank Nagle, and Michael L. Tushman. "Technology and Innovation Management." In Oxford Bibliographies: Management, edited by Ricky W. Griffin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Electronic. View Details
  • Smith, Wendy K., Marianne W. Lewis, and Michael L. Tushman. "Organizational Sustainability: Organization Design and Senior Leadership to Enable Strategic Paradox." Chap. 61 in The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship, by Kim S. Cameron and Gretchen M. Spreitzer, 798–810. Oxford Library of Psychology. Oxford University Press, 2011. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael. "On Knowing and Doing: A Perspective on the Synergies between Research and Practice." In Useful Research: Advancing Theory and Practice, edited by Susan Albers Mohrman and Edward E. Lawler III. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011. View Details
  • Benner, Mary, and M. Tushman. "Process Management, Technological Innovation, and Organizational Adaptation." Chap. 15 in Business Process Transformation, edited by Varun Grover and M. Lynne Markus, 317–326. Advances in Management Information Systems. Irvine, CA: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. View Details
  • Westerman, George, and Michael L. Tushman. Comment on "Designs, Technology Cycles, and Organizational Outcomes." Chap. 10 Managing in the Modular Age: Architectures, Networks, and Organizations, edited by Raghu Garud, Arun Kumaraswamy, and Richard Langlois, 348–361. Blackwell Publishing, 2002. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael L., and Johann Peter Murmann. "Dominant Designs, Technology Cycles, and Organizational Outcomes." Chap. 10 in Managing in the Modular Age: Architectures, Networks, and Organizations, edited by Raghu Garud, Arun Kumaraswamy, and Richard Langlois, 316–348. Blackwell Publishing, 2002. View Details
  • Tushman, M., and W. Smith. "Organizational Technology: Technological Change, Ambidextrous Organizations and Organizational Evolution." Chap. 17 in Blackwell Companion to Organizations, edited by J.A.C. Baum, 386–414. Boston: Blackwell Publishers, 2002. View Details
  • Murmann, J., and M. Tushman. "From the Technology Cycle to the Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Placing Dominant Designs in Social Context." In The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: The Origins of Entrepreneurship and Its Role in Industry Evolution, edited by K. Schoonhoven and E. Romanelli, 178–203. Stanford University Press, 2001. View Details
  • Anderson, P., M. Tushman, and C. O'Reilly. "Technology Cycles, Innovation Streams and Ambidextrous Organizations." In Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, edited by P. Anderson and M. Tushman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. View Details
  • Tushman, M. "Types of Organization Change: From Incremental Improvements to Discontinuous Transformation." In Discontinuous Change, edited by E. Walton, D. Nadler, and R. Shaw. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. View Details
  • Tushman, M., and D. Nadler. "Designing Organizations that Have Good Fit: A Framework for Understanding New Architectures." In Organization Architecture, edited by M. Gerstein, D. Nadler, and R. Shaw. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. View Details
  • Tushman, M. "Leadership and Organization Change: Beyond the Magic Leader." In Large Scale Organization Change, edited by A. Mohram. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989. View Details
  • Tushman, M. "Executive Leadership and Organization Evolution: Managing Incremental and Discontinuous Change." In Corporate Transformation, edited by T. Covin and R. Kilman. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988. View Details
  • Tushman, M. "Executive Leadership and Organizational Outcomes: An Evolutionary Perspective." In The Executive Effect: Research in Executive Leadership, edited by D. Hambrick. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1988. View Details
  • Tushman, M. "Managing Innovation Over the Product Life Cycle." In Reading in the Management of Innovation, edited by W. Moore and M. Tushman. Marshfield, MA: Pitman Publishing, 1982. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael. "Information Processing as an Integrating Concept in Organizational Design." In Organizations and Management, edited by D. Fisher. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1980. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael. "Network Analysis on Organization." In Organizational Assessment: Perspectives on the Measurement of Organizational Behavior and the Quality of Working Life, edited by Edward Lawler. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980. View Details
  • Nadler, D., and M. Tushman. "A Diagnostic Model for Organizational Behavior." In Perspectives on Behavior in Organizations, edited by Richard J. Hackman, Edward E. Lawler, Lyman W. Porter, and Patricia S. Nave. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. View Details
Working Papers
  • Vuori, Timo O., and Michael L. Tushman. "Senior Team Emotional Dynamics and Strategic Decision Making at a Platform Transition." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-054, March 2023. View Details
  • O'Reilly, Charles A., III, David Nadler, and Michael Tushman. "Designing and Aligning Organizations: The Congruence Model." Working Paper, 2016. View Details
  • Tushman, Michael, and Andy Binns. "Getting Started with Ambidexterity." Working Paper, 2016. View Details
  • Raffaelli, Ryan, Mary Ann Glynn, and Michael Tushman. "Innovation Adoption and Organizational Identity: Identity Dynamism as a Strategic Resource for Top Management Team Decision Making." Working Paper, 2016. View Details
  • Jansen, Justin, Costas Andriopoulos, and Michael Tushman. "Organizing for Ambidexterity: (Re)Configuring and Orchestrating Exploration and Exploitation Over Time." 2012. View Details
  • Westerman, George, Wendy Smith, Robert Chapman Wood, and Michael Tushman. "Leadership, Learning, and Organization Designs: On Exploring and Exploiting in IBM's Microelectronics Division." January 2008. View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
Other Publications and Materials
Research Summary
Senior Teams, Strategic Innovation, and Change
This research stream explores the relations between technological change, senior executive teams, and organizational evolution. I continue to explore how innovation streams pose strategic challenges to organizations and their senior teams, and how different organizational architectures, particularly ambidextrous designs, affect a firm's ability to explore as well as exploit. I also explore how ambidextrous designs are created in firms and how they evolve over time. This work is in both the private and public sectors.
Organizational Identity and Firm Strategy
This research stream focuses on the role of organizational identity as a powerful tool to adjudicate the tensions between contrasting strategic requirements. With a range of colleagues, we explore the relations between organizational identity, a firm's strategy, and its fate.
Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries
I am exploring how open innovation complements traditional innovation logics. With a range of colleagues, we explore how open or distributed innovation affects incumbent firms' boundaries, designs, and identities.
 
Senior Teams and Paradox

This research area explores processes senior teams employ in order to attend to and deal with strategic paradox (e.g. explore and exploit, do well and do good).

Teaching
Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
Market-leading organizations habitually innovate, adjust quickly to new business conditions, and seize emerging opportunities before competitors do. They perform efficiently today while continuing to explore new sources of value for tomorrow. Such companies don't just happen; they're created by leaders who understand the importance of change. Leading Change and Organizational Renewal prepares you to lead a nimble organization—one that blends best practices, innovation, and evolutionary change.
Related Link: http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/lcor/Pages/default.aspx
Program for Leadership Development
Accelerating the Careers of High-Potential Leaders

Successful businesses know that investing in the next generation of leaders is critical to sustaining competitive advantage and achieving corporate growth over the long term. The Program for Leadership Development (PLD) equips functional managers with the advanced decision-making and execution skills they need to excel as multifaceted leaders. You will emerge fully prepared to take on greater cross-functional responsibilities, facilitate change and innovation, and, ultimately, drive improved performance throughout your organization.
Related Link: http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/pld/Pages/default.aspx
Harvard Business Analytics Program

The Harvard Business Analytics Program is offered through a collaboration between Harvard Business School (HBS), the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Designed for aspiring and established leaders in any industry, the program leverages a rigorous cross-disciplinary curriculum to help students not just analyze data but understand it, translate it, and incorporate it into strategy at the top levels of their organizations. Students benefit from world-class instruction in courses designed by esteemed Harvard faculty and collaborate with diverse peers in highly interactive online classes. In addition, students attend two in-person immersions hosted at Harvard Business School, where they formulate solutions to real-world business scenarios and develop a network of data-minded business leaders. Students emerge from the program poised to advance into analytics-focused leadership roles and drive disruptive innovation through data.

Related Link: https://analytics.hbs.edu/
Advanced Management Program

Market volatility and disruptive innovation are changing the way companies compete in every industry—and increasing the demand for business leaders who can manage globally in the age of digital transformation. Whether you are looking to move up to the executive suite or are about to take on greater leadership responsibilities, the Advanced Management Program will help you accelerate your personal and organizational growth.

This career-changing program is designed to bring about a full-scale transformation that empowers executives to lead agile, innovative firms. For seven uninterrupted and fulfilling weeks, you will strengthen your leadership gaps and expand your ability to anticipate change, capitalize on disruptive innovations, and drive performance across domains, industries, and borders.

Related Link: https://www.exed.hbs.edu/advanced-management-program/
Leading Innovation and Change
This portion of a doctoral seminar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education explores the relationship between innovation, organization design, and leadership in complex educational environments.  We pay particular attention to leading large system change.
Organization and Management Theory

This doctoral seminar explores fundamental aspects of organizations and organization theory. This seminar will cover various approaches to organizations and the institutional contexts within which they operate. We will pay particular attention to innovation and differential organizational outcomes, and the role (and limits) of agency within the firm and in institutional contexts. We will also discuss organization and management theory in the context of today’s society. In particular, we will explore the impact of sharply decreased communication and information processing costs on organizations and industries. This course is for students interested in understanding and, in turn, conducting research on macro-organizational topics. As research in organizations, institutions, and innovation areas are contested terrains, after moving through the basics we will focus on contentious and unresolved issues. 

Related Link: Syllabus
Awards & Honors
The Academy of Management Annals (AMA) recognizes particularly impactful papers with the "Decade Award' which is an award for the paper with the most citations 10 years after publication. Mike's 2013 paper, “Organizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present, and Future” is the winner of the 2023 AMA Decade Award.
The Academy of Management Annals (AMA) recognizes particularly impactful papers with the "Decade Award' which is an award for the paper with the most citations 10 years after publication. Mike's 2010 paper, “Exploration and Exploitation Within and Across Organizations” is the winner of the 2020 AMA Decade Award.
"Frame Flexibility: The Role of Cognitive and Emotional Framing in Innovation Adoption by Incumbent Firms" with Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn (July 2019) received a 2020 Strategic Management Journal Certificate of Achievement which is given for SMJ articles in the top ten percent of downloads in the year since published.
Received the 2018-2019 Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching.
Received the 2017-2018 Robert F. Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community.
Winner of the Career Achievement Award for Major Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Technology Management, Tusher Center for Management of Intellectual Capital, University of California, Berkeley, 2017.
Winner of the 2016 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management.
Recognized in 2014 as a Foundational Scholar in the Knowledge and Innovation Group of the Strategic Management Society.
Winner of the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).
Won the 2013 Academy of Management Review Decade Award for his paper with Mary J. Benner, “Exploitation, Exploration and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited" (Academy of Management Review, 2003)
Awarded the 2013 Academy of Management Career Achievement Award for Distinguished Scholarly Contributions to Management.
Received the 2013 Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching.
Won the 2011 Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Rigour and Relevance in the Study of Management from London Business School.
Won the 2010 Accenture Award with Charles O'Reilly and Bruce Harreld for the article "Organizational Ambidexterity: IBM and Emerging Business Opportunities" (California Management Review, summer 2009). The Accenture Award is given each year to the author (or authors) of the article published in the preceding volume of the California Management Review that has made the most important contribution to improving the practice of management.
Honored with the 2010 INFORMS Distinguished Lecture in Technology Management.
Received the Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Université de Genève in 2008.
Won the 2003 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management.
Winner of the 2004 Academy of Management Review Best Paper Award for "Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited" (with Mary J. Benner, April 2003).
Won the 1999 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management.
Winner of the 1998 Stephan Schrader Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management for "Dominant Designs, Innovation Types and Organizational Outcomes" (with P. Murmann, Research in Organizational Behavior, 1998).
Winner of the 1997 Anderson Consulting Award for "Ambidextrous Organizations: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change" (with Charles O'Reilly, California Management Review, summer 1996).
Winner of the 1986 Pacific Telesis Foundation Award for "Convergence and Upheaval: Managing the Unsteady Pace of Organizational Evolution" (with W. Newman and E. Romanelli, California Management Review, fall 1986).
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