Rita Gunther McGrath

Rita Gunther McGrath
Born	(1959-07-28) July 28, 1959 (age 66) New Haven, Connecticut
Alma mater	Barnard College Columbia University The Wharton School
Scientific career
Fields	Strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship
Institutions	Columbia Business School
Website	www.ritamcgrath.com

Rita Gunther McGrath (born July 28, 1959, in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American Strategic Management Scholar and Professor of Management at Columbia Business School. She is regarded for her works in innovation and entrepreneurship, including the development of discovery-driven planning. ^{[1] [2]}

McGrath is also the founder of the innovation platform Valize. ^[3]

Life and work

McGrath graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College in 1981 and earned a Masters of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in 1982.^{[ citation needed ]} In 1993, she completed her Ph.D. at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) with the dissertation entitled Developing New Competence in Established Organizations. ^[4]

After her graduation in 1993, she joined Columbia as Assistant Professor of Management, was promoted to Associate Professor of Management in 1998, and recently became a full Professor in the Faculty of Executive Education.^{[ citation needed ]}. In 2014, she was elected Deputy Dean of the Strategic Management Society Fellows. ^[5]

In 2009, she was elected Fellow of the Strategic Management Society ^[6] . In 2013, she was elected Fellow of the International Academy of Management. In 2013, she also received the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy. ^[7]

McGrath received the C. K. Prahalad award for scholarly impact on practice from the Strategic Management Society in 2022. ^[8]

McGrath is the author of five books, including “Discovery Driven Planning” (1995), which was recognized^{[ by whom? ]} as an early articulation of today’s “lean” startup philosophy. ^[9]

Honors and awards

• 2022 C. K. Prahalad award for scholarly impact on practice from the Strategic Management Society
• 2022 Inducted into the Business Excellence Hall of Fame by the Business Excellence Institute
• 2016 Theory to Practice award from the Vienna Strategy Forum
• 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy from Thinkers50

Selected publications

Books

• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. The entrepreneurial mindset: Strategies for continuously creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty. Vol. 284. Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. MarketBusters: 40 Strategic moves that drive exceptional business growth. Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. Discovery Driven Growth: A breakthrough process to reduce risk and seize opportunity. Harvard Business Review Press, 2009.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther The End of Competitive Advantage. How to keep your strategy moving as fast as your business. Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. Seeing Around Corners. How to spot inflection points in business before they happen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Articles^{[ full citation needed ]}

• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “Discovery-driven planning.” Harvard Business Review (1995)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, Ian C. MacMillan, and Sankaran Venkataraman. "Defining and developing competence: a strategic process paradigm." Strategic Management Journal 16.4 (1995): 251-275.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. "A real options logic for initiating technology positioning investments." Academy of Management Review 22.4 (1997): 974-996.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “Discovering new points of differentiation.” Harvard Business Review (1997)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. "Falling forward: Real options reasoning and entrepreneurial failure." Academy of Management review 24.1 (1999): 13-30.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. "Exploratory learning, innovative capacity, and managerial oversight." Academy of Management Journal 44.1 (2001): 118-131.
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “MarketBusting: strategies for exceptional business growth.” Harvard Business Review (2005)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “How to get unstuck.” Harvard Business Review (2009)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. “Failing by design.” Harvard Business Review (2011)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther. “Transient advantage.” Harvard Business Review (2013)
• McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ryan McManus. “Discovery-Driven Digital Transformation.” Harvard Business Review (2020)

References

1. Zahra, Shaker A., and Gerard George. "Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization, and extension." Academy of management review 27.2 (2002): 185-203.
2. Hitt, Michael, R. Duane Ireland, and Robert Hoskisson. Strategic management cases: competitiveness and globalization. Cengage Learning, 2012.
3. "Valize". Valize. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
4. Gunther, Mcgrath (1993). The Development of New Competences in Established Organizations (Thesis). University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
5. "SMS Fellows - Strategic Management Society - Welcome from Dean". Fellows.strategicmanagement.net. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
6. "Fellows of the Strategic Management Society". Fellows.strategicmanagement.net. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
7. "Distinguished Achievement Awards 2013". Thinkers 50. 11 November 2013. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
8. "Rita McGrath, winner of the 2022 CK Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice" . Retrieved 17 April 2023.
9. "Rita McGrath". Innosight. Retrieved 2019-03-03.

External links

• Official website
• Columbia directory page