Faculty and Research

John A. Davis is Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Davis
is co-founder and faculty chair of Harvard Business School's Families in Business: From Generation to
Generation program. This one-week executive program examines the pivotal issues facing family-owned
companies, such as management and ownership succession, developing the next generation, and governance
and leadership of the business and family. He also teaches leadership and family business management in
the Owner/President Management program. 
 
Since joining the HBS faculty in 1996, Professor Davis has taught two entrepreneurial management courses
in the MBA program. Management of the Family Business explores the management, family, career and
personal issues found in family-owned and managed companies, and Building a Business in the Context of a
Life addresses entrepreneurship, life planning and success. He has also taught in the Key Executives
program and other executive programs at HBS.
 
Trained in business management, psychology, and economics, Professor Davis earned his Doctorate in
Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1982. He has served on the faculty of the
Graduate School of Business at the University of Southern California, and has lectured on family business
management at Stanford University, IMD (Switzerland), INCAD (Costa Rica), Universidad Adolfo Ibanez
(Chile), and Universidad de los Andes (Chile).
 
Recognized as one of the world's leading experts and advisors concerning family business and family
wealth, Professor Davis consults and speaks globally to family companies on the topics of dynastic success,
family and business governance, working with relatives, shareholder relationships, managing succession,
developing the next generation and professionalizing the family business. He is the founder and chairman of
the Owner Managed Business Institute, an organization that advises family businesses globally.
 
Professor Davis is co-creator of the Three-Circle Model, with Professor Renato Tagiuri, which is the
fundamental paradigm in the family business field, and co-author of Generation to Generation: Life Cycles
of the Family Business, a preeminent work in the field. He has published on a wide range of topics pertinent
to family companies. Professor Davis is completing books on the practices of successful family companies,
family business governance, and successful family business dynasties. He also serves on the editorial
boards of Family Business Review, the leading journal in the field, and the Journal of Family Business
Strategy. His theories and observations have been cited by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,
Financial Times, Economist, Fortune, Business Week, Exame, Family Business Magazine, and several other
publications. 

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