Faculty and Research

David A. Garvin is the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He joined the Business School faculty in 1979 and has since then taught courses in leadership, general management, and operations in the MBA and Advanced Management programs, as well as serving as faculty chair of the School's Teaching and Learning Center. He has also taught in executive education programs and consulted for over fifty organizations, including Biogen Idec, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, BP, Frito-Lay, Gillette, KeySpan, L. L. Bean, 3M, Mitsubishi, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Seagate, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Professor Garvin's research interests lie in the areas of general management and strategic change. He is especially interested in organizational learning, business and management processes, and the design and leadership of large, complex organizations. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including General Management: Processes and Action, Learning in Action, Education for Judgement, and Managing Quality; more than thirty articles, including "The Multiunit Enterprise," "Change Through Persuasion," "What Every CEO Should Know About Creating New Businesses," and "What You Don't Know About Making Decisions," and eight CD-ROMs and videotape series, including A Case Study Teacher in Action, Working Smarter, and Putting the Learning Organization to Work. He is a three-time winner of the McKinsey Award, given annually for the best article in Harvard Business Review; a winner of the Beckhard Prize, given annually for the best article on planned change and organizational development in Sloan Management Review; and a winner of the Smith-Weld Prize, given annually for the best article on the University in Harvard Magazine.

Professor Garvin received an A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1974, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. in 1979, where he held a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship.

Prior to coming to the Business School, he worked as an economist for both the Federal Trade Commission, studying federal energy policies, and the Sloan Commission on Government and Higher Education, studying the impact of federal regulation on the academic and financial policies of colleges and universities. From 1988-1990 he served as a member of the Board of Overseers of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and from 1991-1992 he served on the Manufacturing Studies Board of the National Research Council. He served on the Board of Directors of Emerson Hospital from 2002-2006.

In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, bicycling, and travel. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts with his wife, Lynn, and his daughters, Diana and Cynthia.