Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. A member of the faculty since 2003, Professor Oberholzer-Gee received his Masters degree, summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich. His first faculty position was at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches competitive strategy in executive education programs such as the Program for Leadership Development, the Senior Executive Program for China, and in a program for media executives titled Effective Strategies for Media Companies. His course Strategies Beyond the Market is a popular elective class for second-year MBA students. Professor Oberholzer-Gee won numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including the Harvard Business School Class of 2006 Faculty Teaching Award for best teacher in the core curriculum, and the 2002 Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for best teacher in the Wharton MBA program. Prior to his academic career, Professor Oberholzer-Gee served as managing director of Symo Electronics, a Swiss-based process control company.

Professor Oberholzer-Gee’s research and consulting are centered on competitive strategy, international competition, and non-market strategy, a branch of strategic management that studies how companies best work with government and non-governmental groups. In recent work, he studied how entertainment companies can successfully manage the digital transition. Dating back to a study abroad program as an undergraduate, Professor Oberholzer-Gee has a long-standing interest in the Chinese economy and Chinese companies. In recent academic work, he compared the financial performance of Chinese companies with the performance of multinationals operating in China. In a related study, he explored how and why Chinese companies diversify their activities. Professor Oberholzer-Gee’s academic work has been published in the very best, peer-reviewed journals of his profession, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Financial Economics, and Journal of Law & Economics. His work has been profiled by media outlets around the world, including ABC Nightly News, Financial Times, Guardian, Le Figaro, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, New York Times, Singapore Straits Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix. Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, forthcoming. View Details
• Figueiredo, John de, Michael Lenox, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Rick Vanden Bergh, eds. Strategy Beyond Markets. Vol. 34, Advances in Strategic Management. Emerald Group Publishing, 2016. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix. The Economics of NIMBY Problems: Why We Cannot Find Sites for Nuclear Waste Repositories. Basel, Switzerland: Helbing Lichtenhahn Verlag, 1998. View Details

JOURNAL ARTICLES

• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Dennis Yao. "Integrated Strategy: Residual Market and Exchange Imperfections as the Foundation of Sustainable Competitive Advantage." Special Issue on Strategy and the Institutional Environment edited by Gautam Ahuja, Laurence Capron, Michael Lenox, and Dennis A. Yao. Strategy Science 3, no. 2 (June 2018): 463–480. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Koleman Strumpf. "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales, Revisited." Information Economics and Policy 37 (December 2016): 61–66. View Details
• Halaburda, Hanna, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "The Limits of Scale: Companies That Get Big Fast Are Often Left Behind. Here's Why." Harvard Business Review 92, no. 4 (April 2014): 95–99. View Details
• Fisher III, William W., and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Strategic Management of Intellectual Property: An Integrated Approach." (pdf) California Management Review 55, no. 4 (Summer 2013): 157–183. View Details
• Fong, Christina, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor." Special Issue on Charitable Giving and Fundraising Journal of Public Economics 95, nos. 5-6 (June 2011): 436–444. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Dennis A. Yao. "Antitrust—What Role for Strategic Management Expertise? (pdf)" Boston University Law Review 90, no. 4 (August 2010): 1457–1478. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, Joel Waldfogel, and Matthew White. "Friend or Foe? Cooperation and Learning in High-Stakes Games." Review of Economics and Statistics 92, no. 1 (February 2010): 179–187. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Joel Waldfogel. "Media Markets and Localism: Does Local News en Español Boost Hispanic Voter Turnout?" American Economic Review 99, no. 5 (December 2009). View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Reiner Eichenberger. "Fairness in Extended Dictator-Game Experiments." Art. 16. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 8, no. 1 (July 2008). View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix. "Nonemployment Stigma as Rational Herding: A Field Experiment." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 65, no. 1 (January 2008): 30–40. View Details
• Fan, Joseph P.H., Jun Huang, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Troy D. Smith, and Mengxin Zhao. "Diversification of Chinese Companies: An International Comparison." Chinese Management Studies 2, no. 1 (2008): 3–13. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Koleman Strumpf. "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis." Journal of Political Economy 115, no. 1 (February 2007): 1–42. View Details
• Elberse, Anita, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Superstars and Underdogs: An Examination of the Long Tail Phenomenon in Video Sales (pdf)." MSI Reports: Working Paper Series 4 (2007): 49–72. (Featured in HBS Working Knowledge.) View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Dennis Yao. "Strategy Frameworks and Teaching Antitrust to Business Students." Antitrust (American Bar Association) 21, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 13–15. (Harvard users click here for full text.) View Details
• Leuz, Christian, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Political Relationships, Global Financing and Corporate Transparency: Evidence from Indonesia." Journal of Financial Economics 81, no. 3 (September 2006): 411–439. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Miki Mitsunari. "Information Regulation: Do the Victims of Externalities Pay Attention?" Journal of Regulatory Economics 30, no. 2 (August 2006): 141–158. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix. "A Market for Time: Fairness and Efficiency in Waiting Lines." Kyklos 59, no. 3 (August 2006): 427–440. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Joel Waldfogel. "Strength in Numbers: Group Size and Political Mobilization." Journal of Law & Economics 48, no. 1 (April 2005): 73–91. View Details Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Noorein Inamdar. "Merck's Recall of Rofecoxib: A Strategic Perspective." New England Journal of Medicine 351, no. 21 (November 18 2004): 2147–2149. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Hannelore Weck-Hannemann. "Pricing Road Use: Politico-economic and Fairness Considerations." Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 7, no. 5 (September 2002): 357–371. View Details
• Strumpf, Koleman, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Endogenous Policy Decentralization: Testing the Central Tenet of Economic Federalism." Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 1 (February 2002): 1–36. View Details
• Frey, Bruno S., and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out." American Economic Review 87, no. 4 (September 1997): 746–755. View Details
• Frey, Bruno S., Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Reiner Eichenberger. "The Old Lady Visits Your Backyard: A Tale of Morals and Markets." Journal of Political Economy 104, no. 6 (December 1996). View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Bruno S. Frey. "Fair Siting Procedures - An Empirical Analysis of Their Importance and Characteristics." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 15, no. 3 (Summer 1996). (
• Winner of Raymond Vernon Prize For the best research article published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management presented by Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management​.)

WORKING PAPERS

• Luo, Jiao, Stephan Meier, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events. (pdf)" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-091, April 2012. View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Julie Wulf. "Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO . (pdf)" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-056, January 2012. (Revised August 2012.) View Details
• Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Victor Calanog. "The Speed of New Ideas: Trust, Institutions and the Diffusion of New Products. (pdf)" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 07-063, April 2007. View Details
• Elberse, Anita, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Superstars and Underdogs: An Examination of the Long Tail Phenomenon in Video Sales. (pdf)" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 07-015, September 2006. (Featured in HBS Working Knowledge.) View Details

AWARDS & HONORS

• Received the 2012 Robert F. Greenhill Award.
• Received the 2011 Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching.
• Received the 2006 HBS Student Association Faculty Teaching Award.
• Winner of the 2002 Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for best teacher in the Wharton MBA program.
• Winner of the 1997 Raymond Vernon Prize for outstanding article for "Fair Siting Procedures—An Empirical Analysis of Their Importance and Characteristics" (with Bruno S. Frey, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, summer 1996).