Professor Christopher A. Bartlett received an economics degree from the University of Queensland, Australia (1964), and both the masters and doctorate degrees in business administration from Harvard University (1971 and 1979).
As a practicing manager prior to joining the faculty of Harvard Business School, he worked as a marketing manager with Alcoa in Australia, as a management consultant in McKinsey's London office, and as the country general manager of Baxter Laboratories' subsidiary company in France.
After joining the Harvard Business School faculty in 1979, his research interests focused on the strategic and organizational challenges confronting managers in large, complex corporations, and on the organizational and managerial impact of transformational change.
In addition to his teaching and research responsibilities at HBS, he assumed various leadership roles at the school. He headed the International Senior Management Program, chaired the School’s General Management Unit, led the Program for Global Leadership, and directed the Humanitarian Leadership Program.
He has published eight books, including (co-authored with the late Sumantra Ghoshal) Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (named by the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential business books of the century) and The Individualized Corporation (named one of the Best Business Books for the Millennium by Strategy + Business magazine). Both books have been translated into more than ten languages.
He has authored or co-authored more than 50 articles which have appeared in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Journal of International Business Studies. His more than 100 case studies have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, making him the best-selling case author in the history of Harvard Business School.
He has been elected as a Fellow of three professional organizations: the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, and the Strategic Management Society. In 2001, the Academy Management’s International Division honoured him with its first Distinguished Scholar Award.
In addition to his academic responsibilities, he maintains ongoing research interests in the organization and management of multinational enterprise, the impact of radical corporate transformational change, and the management of human and intellectual capital for competitive advantage. He has consulted and served on the board of many large international companies, and currently is actively contributing to several nonprofits in the US, Asia, and Australia.