Kevin Boudreau (PhD Behavioral and Policy Sciences MIT; MA Economics UToronto; B.A.Sc. Engineering UWaterloo)
  • Fulbright Canada Distinguished Research Chair of Entrepreneurship,
    visiting Carleton U and Ottawa, as part of 1-year Fulbright Scholarship

  • Associate Professor, Northeastern University:
    Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship DMSB; courtesy appointments at Khoury College of Computer Science and School of Social Science and Humanities in the dept of Economics; faculty member of College of Engineering's Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at the Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex

  • Research Associate, Harvard University: Institute for Quantitative Social Science

  • Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research: Productivity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Other responsibilities:
  • Associate Editor of Management Science: Business Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship; ad hoc associate editor for Data Science, Information Systems, Behavioral and Decision Sciences, Market Analytics departments
  • Editorial board member of Strategic Management Journal
  • Co-editor of Journal of Economics & Management Strategy

Contact:kevin@northeastern.edu417 Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex805 Columbus Ave, Boston, MA 02118

Prior to academic research, I led multi-disciplinary teams for large M&A and telecoms infrastructure projects for Qualcomm; led the creation of The Economist Intelligence Unit's Western European and US technology and media advisory practice; and consulted on business strategy in network industries for Braxton Associates. I also advised and founded several platform and data science startups. My earliest engineering responsibilities involved designing and running engineering research randomized controlled experiments and building statistical production tools for Bell Northern Research, Canada's Bell Labs.

Organizing Digital Platforms for Innovation and Competitive Success

Digital platforms are an increasingly important approach to organizing and leveraging large numbers of actors--with considerable machine and data-driven governance and infrastructure. Where and when should we use these approaches? Which particular approach? Optimal models/designs?

Organizing Science & Universities as Knowledge Platforms

Universities can play a platform orchestration role while managing many surrounding actors (scientists, talent, industry, local economy, philanthropy). What are ways that universities can lean into their roles as orchestrators, conveners, providers of infrastructure, knowlege, and incentives?

Running "Live" Experiments to Optimize Platform Innovation & Business Models

I carry out large-scale quantitative analyses and field experiments, often in collaboration with Industry, Government, Universities and Scientific Research Organizations.

I study how to design large-scale platforms and digital infrastructure to scale up and organize large numbers of actors most productively.


I contribute to general lessons and theoretical insights by empirically studying the micro-mechanisms shaping behaviors of individual actors in these systems (incentives, knowledge, diversity, sociology, psychology, cognition). This fine-grained understanding of behavior then serves as a means to understand optimal overall optimal design at the aggregate level of organizations, platforms and industry. Thus, I build up a grounded understanding of governance, precise business model design, scaling, innovation, and competitiveness.


My research increasingly involves embedding large-scale field experiments within "live platforms" in partnership with industry and government. This results in better-designed business models for parner organizations, based on discerning data analysis and experiments, while also generating generalizable lessons for the academic literature.


I kindly thank a number of generous funders and supporters of my research: Fulbright Foundation, G.E. Corp., Google, the Kaufmann Foundation, Microsoft, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Paris Chamber of Commerce, and the Sloan Foundation.


SELECTED CURRENT PROJECTS & DEVELOPMENT:

  • K. Boudreau, E. Lyons. Attention Economics in Crowdsourcing Experiment

  • Bana, S., K. Boudreau. AI and Online Job Platform Field Experiment

  • Boudreau, K., N. Kaushik. Diversity and Innovation Field Experiment

  • K. Boudreau, M. Menietti, K. Lakhani. Strategic and Behavioral Responses to Competition in a Tournament Experiment

  • K. Boudreau. Platforms & Long Tails

  • K. Boudreau, K. Lakhani. Artificial Intelligence

  • K. Boudreau, M. Marx. Educating Engineers Experiment

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