Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage

About our authors Jay Barney is currently a Presidential Professor of Strategic Management and holds the Lassonde Chair in Social Entrepreneurship at the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University, and his master's and PhD degrees from Yale University. Previously, he served on the faculties at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University, and as the Chase Chair for Excellence in Strategic Management at the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. He has also served as a visiting scholar at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and as a visiting professor at the Said Business School at Oxford University, United Kingdom.

Most of Professor Barney's research focuses on how firms can gain and sustain competitive advantages. He has published over 100 articles in a variety of outlets, including the Harvard Business Review, the Sloan Management Review, the Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, and has published 6 books, including a novel titled What I Didn't Learn at Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World (with Trish Gorman). He has published some of the most widely cited papers in the field of strategic management.

Professor Barney has won several awards for his research and writing, including the Irwin Outstanding Educator Award for the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management, the Scholarly Contributions Award for the Academy of Management, and 3 honorary doctoral degrees, from Lund University (Sweden), the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and Universidad Pontifica Comillas (Spain). He has also been elected to the Academy of Management Fellows and the Strategic Management Society Fellows and has won teaching awards at UCLA, Texas A&M, and Ohio State.

Professor Barney has also served as an officer of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management, as a member of the board and later an officer of the Strategic Management Society, as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Management, as a Senior Editor at Organization Science, as a Co-editor at the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and currently serves as Editor at the Academy of Management Review.

Professor Barney consults with companies and other organizations to help identify and leverage their sources of sustained competitive advantage. His over 50 clients have included Honeywell, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, Koch Industries, Nationwide Insurance, Cardinal Health, and Columbus Public Schools.

William Hesterly is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Research and the Dumke Family Presidential Chair of Strategic Management in the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. After studying at Louisiana State University, he received bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University and a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Hesterly's research on organizational economics, vertical integration, organizational forms, and entrepreneurial networks has appeared in top journals including the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. His research has been mentioned on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and was featured prominently in Malcolm Gladwell's 2010 New Yorker article, "Talent Grab."

Professor Hesterly's research was recognized with the Western Academy of Management's Ascendant Scholar Award in 1999. Dr. Hesterly has also received best paper awards from the Western Academy of Management and the Academy of Management. Professor Hesterly has served on the editorial boards of Strategic Organization, Organization Science, and the Journal of Management. He also served as the Senior Editor of Long Range Planning, the leading European journal in strategy.

Professor Hesterly has previously served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Department Chair, and also as Vice-President and President of the faculty at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He was a founding member of the Strategic Human Capital Interest Group in the Strategic Management Society as well as a co-founder of the Utah-BYU Winter Strategy Conference.

Professor Hesterly has been recognized multiple times as the outstanding teacher in the MBA Program at the David Eccles School of Business and he has also been the recipient of the Student's Choice Award. He has also received the outstanding teacher awards in both the EMBA and PhD programs at the David Eccles School of Business.

Professor Hesterly has served as a consultant to Fortune 500 firms in the electronic, office equipment, paper, telecommunications, energy, aerospace, and medical equipment industries. He has also consulted with smaller firms in several other industries. He has taught in a variety of executive programs, both in universities and corporations.