Kevin J. Boudreau is a Professor at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

His research focuses on the economics, management, and strategy of large-scale innovation, discovery, knowledge-creation and entrepreneurship around massively scalable platforms and digital infrastructure. This includes digital platforms and digital organization and infrastructure, in addition to understanding universities and the Institutions of Science as large organizational platforms.

His work has been published in leading journals including Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, The RAND Journal of Economics, Science, Nature, and Harvard Business Review. He has led large-scale experimental studies both in collaboration with industry partners and by leading internal research engineering teams to design and prototype experimental systems for research and system innovation.

Having begun his own career as a co-op student in Engineering, he maintains a longstanding interest in experiential learning, cooperative education and currently leads several field experiments examining how co-op education shapes student learning, career trajectories, and entrepreneurship.

In addition to his research, he develops frameworks and teaching materials on platform strategy and human–machine operating models, and collaborates widely with academic, industry, and policy partners on the design of next-generation innovation and knowledge systems.

Quick Materials

📄 PDFs of Papers Curriculum Vitae Google Scholar

Upcoming & Recent Presentations - See you there!

Harvard University Economics of Science & Engineering
UCLA Price Center Entrepreneurship & Experiments Keynote
Boston University Digital Business
AoM: Symposium: "Generative AI Foundation Models: Trade-offs among Openness, Ecosystem Development, and Value Capture"
AoM Session: "How will AI Impact the Management of Science and Innovation?"
Aom PDW: "Platform Research: Assessing the Past and Exploring the Future"

🔴 - Field experiments

Platform Strategy, Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Current projects:

AI and Job Markets (w/ S. Bana)
AI Markets (w/ T. Jungbauer, C. Williams)
Long Tails (solo)
Assembling Platform Teams (w/ N. Kaushik)
Motivating Complementors

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🆕 AI-Enabled Job Markets & Market Participation: A Field Experiment on How AI Shapes Jobseekers' Expectations of Competition, with Sarah Bana, Working Paper (2025) 🔴

🆕 Inducing Innovation at the Edge: Adding Marginal Complementors to a Mature Platform, Working Paper (2025)

🆕 Artificial Intelligence as a Platform Technology: Strategic Implications of Competing on Top of an AI Platform, with Lars Bo Jeppesen and Milan Miric, in Handbook on AI and Strategy, eds. F. Csaszar and N. Jia (forthcoming 2025)

Gender Differences in Response to Competitive Organization: Evidence from a Product Development Platform, with Nilam Kaushik, Organization Science (2023) 🔴

Free(mium) Strategies for Digital Goods, with Lars Bo Jeppesen and Milan Miric, in Research Handbook on Digital Strategy (Edward Elgar, 2023)

Competing on Freemium: Digital Competition with Network Effects, with Lars Bo Jeppesen and Milan Miric, Strategic Management Journal (2022)

Profiting from Digital Innovation: Patents, Copyright, and Performance, with Lars Bo Jeppesen and Milan Miric, Research Policy (2022)

Crowdfunding as Donations to Entrepreneurial Firms, with Lars Bo Jeppesen, Toke Reichstein, and Francesco Rullani, Research Policy (2021)

Promoting Platform Takeoff and Self-Fulfilling Expectations: Field Experimental Evidence, Management Science (2021) 🔴

Protecting Digital Assets: The Use of Formal and Informal Appropriability Strategies by App Developers, with Milan Miric and Lars Bo Jeppesen, Research Policy (2019)

"Crowds" of Amateurs and Professional Entrepreneurs in Marketplaces, NBER Working Paper No. 24512 (2018)

Platform Boundary Choices and Governance: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Growth in Mobile Computing, in Advances in Strategic Management: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Platforms (2017)

Platform-Based Organization and Boundary Choices: "Opening-Up" While Still Coordinating and Orchestrating, Working Paper (2017)

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill Levels in Rank-Order Tournaments, with Karim Lakhani and Michael Menietti, RAND Journal of Economics (2016)

Unpaid Platform Complementors and the Network Effect Mirage, with Lars Bo Jeppesen, Strategic Management Journal (2014)

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom? An Early Look at Large Numbers of Software App Developers and Patterns of Innovation, Organization Science (2012)

The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort, with Karim Lakhani, in The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited (NBER, 2011) 🔴

Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis, with Nicola Lacetera and Karim Lakhani, Management Science (2011)

Open Platform Strategies and Innovation: Granting Access vs. Devolving Control, Management Science (2010)

Platform Rules: Multi-Sided Platforms as Regulators, with Andrei Hagiu, in Platforms, Markets and Innovation (Edward Elgar, 2009)

Opening the Platform vs. Opening the Complementary Good? The Effect on Product Innovation in Handheld Computing, Working Paper (2008)

The Boundaries of the Platform, MIT Sloan Research Paper (2008)

Management of Knowledge & Discovery

Current projects:

Generations of AI across Science (w/ F. Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Z. Rasouli, K. Lakhani)
Developing Applied Scientists Experiment (w/ Matt Marx)
Developing Entrepreneurs (w/ M. Marx, M. Wu)
Multi-Disciplinary Researchers Experiment (w/ I. Ganguli)

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🆕 Field Experiments in the Science of Science: Lessons from Peer Review and the Evaluation of New Knowledge, forthcoming NBER chapter 🔴

🆕 This Time Is Different: A Comparison of Three Waves of AI Adoption in Science, Working Paper

From Theory to Practice: Field Experimental Evidence on Early Exposure of Engineering Majors to Professional Work, with Matt Marx, NBER Working Paper No. 26013 (2019) 🔴

Randomized Insights: Field Experiments in Understanding Knowledge Production in the Sciences, with Karim Lakhani and Eva Guinan, Science (2018) 🔴

A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations, with Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva Guinan, Tony Hollenberg, and Karim Lakhani, Review of Economics and Statistics (2017) 🔴

Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance, Novelty, and Resource Allocation in Science, with Eva Guinan, Karim Lakhani, and Christoph Riedl, Management Science (2016) 🔴

Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production, and the Design of Supporting Institutions, with Karim Lakhani, in Innovation Policy and the Economy, Vol. 16 (NBER, 2015) 🔴

'Open' Disclosure of Innovations, Incentives, and Follow-on Reuse: Theory and a Field Experiment in Computational Biology, with Karim Lakhani, Research Policy (2014) 🔴

Prize-Based Contests Can Provide Solutions to Computational Biology Problems, with Karim Lakhani, Po-Ru Loh, Lars Backstrom, Carliss Baldwin, Eric Lonstein, Mike Lydon, Alan MacCormack, Ramy Arnaout, and Eva Guinan, Nature Biotechnology (2013) 🔴

🔴 - Field experiment

📄 PDFs of Papers

Translation to Innovation, Strategy, & Entrepreneurship Practice

Current projects:

Designing the Modern Digital Firm (manuscript)

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A Short Guide to Strategy for Entrepreneurs, Harvard Business Review (2017)

Designing Your Company: Creating, Delivering, and Capturing Value, Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 16-131 (2016)

Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner, with Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business Review (2013)

Experiments in Open Innovation at the Harvard Medical School, with Eva Guinan and Karim Lakhani, MIT Sloan Management Review (2013)

How to Manage Outside Innovation: Competitive Markets or Collaborative Communities?, with Karim Lakhani, MIT Sloan Management Review (2009)

Teaching Case Studies

Digital Twins Platform, Teaching Case Study (2025)

NuGig AI Platform

The Economist Corporate Network Platform

Fubles: The Birth of a Social Sport Sharing Platform, with Andrea Blasco, Teaching Case Study (2015)

Space Industry: EADS Astrium, Teaching Case Study with Stephane Francioli (2010)

Debate on Licensing the Palm OS Platform, with Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell, (2008)

Curriculum Vitae Google Scholar

Dr. Kevin Boudreau is a Professor at Northeastern University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has previously taught at LBS, HEC-Paris, and Harvard Business School (visiting). He was a Presidential Scholar at MIT and holds a PhD in Behavioral and Policy Sciences from MIT-Sloan, an MA in Economics from the University of Toronto, and a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo (Magna Cum Laude, Dean’s Honors List, Canada Scholar).

His research focuses on digital platforms, multi-sided markets, and data-driven and AI-enabled organizations, examining how firms and entrepreneurs navigate competition, innovation, and market design in these ecosystems.

He also studies the economics and organization of research and scientific discovery, creative endeavors, and the generation of new knowledge investigating how incentives, collaboration, and institutional structures shape innovation, knowledge production, and technological progress.

His research employs field experiments and the analysis of naturally occurring data, testing theories on live platforms in partnership with industry and governments. He has run many large scale research projects to learn across a wide range of creative, scientific, and innovative contexts in collaboration with government, industry, and education.

Dr. Boudreau's research has been published in leading journals such as Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, RAND Journal of Economics, and Science. He serves as an Associate Editor for Management Science and is on the editorial boards of Strategic Management Journal and Strategy Science.

A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Boudreau has received research funding from the Kauffman Foundation, Google, Microsoft, NBER, Paris Chamber of Commerce, Industry Studies Association to support his work.

He has held positions at NASA, The Economist, Qualcomm, and Deloitte Strategy Consulting, and has founded and advised technology startups across telecommunications, mobile computing, data science-driven financial services, algorithmic crowdsourcing, and AI-driven platforms, applying research insights to real-world innovation ecosystems. He has worked across North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East, collaborating with businesses, startups, policymakers, governments, and research institutions to advance digital strategy and innovation. He began his career in Waterloo's co-op engineering program, where he conducted experiments and research on the development of statistical tools for the design and production of microelectronics, worked for the Canadian Space Agency, and initially got exposed to strategy consulting.