--- id: "pisquared:interview/csaszar-felipe" type: "Pi-Squared interview" title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Felipe Csaszar" url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/csaszar-felipe" date: "2026-03-19" people: ["Anita McGahan","Felipe Csaszar"] summary: "Felipe Csaszar is the Alexander M. Nick Professor and chair of the Strategy Area at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. His research..." recording: "https://vimeo.com/1175188739" source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change" licence: "none stated" --- # Anita McGahan in conversation with Felipe Csaszar Felipe Csaszar, Alexander M. Nick Professor, University of Michigan · 19 March 2026 ## About the guest Felipe Csaszar is the Alexander M. Nick Professor and chair of the Strategy Area at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. His research examines how decision structures influence key organizational outcomes, such as innovation, financial performance, and social impact. He focuses on three types of decision structures: 1. managers' cognitive frameworks, 2. organizational decision-making processes, and 3. the emerging role of artificial intelligence in decision-making. Broadly, he is interested in combining formal modeling and empirical approaches to understand how firms can make better strategic decisions. Felipe’s work has been published in top academic journals. He also holds senior editorial posts and has been elected into leadership roles in our Associations. Felipe is also an award-winning educator. Prior to pursuing his PhD, he was head of research at an asset management firm and CEO of an Internet startup. ## Reflections from the interview **Anita** interviews **Felipe Csaszar**, Chair of Strategy at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, covering AI's role in strategy, organizational decision-making, and the future of strategizing. * * * **Can AI Do Strategy?** Felipe opens by discussing his new paper in *Strategy Science*, arguing that trying to teach AI to "do strategy" forces us to be precise about what strategy actually *is* — pushing back against the vague "hand-waving" that often passes for strategic thinking. If you can't specify a concept precisely enough for a machine to implement it, you don't really understand it. **The Role of Humans vs. AI in Strategy** Both agree that AI will excel at the analytical side of strategy — market research, competitor analysis, data synthesis — but that **purpose and aspiration must remain human**. Felipe frames it as: AI can handle *content* (what to do) and *process* (how to implement), but the underlying *utility function* — what an organization truly wants to achieve — must be set by people. He also notes that markets will ultimately determine how much strategic authority gets delegated to AI, as investors will back whichever model performs better. **Organizational Structure and Bounded Rationality** Felipe connects his earlier research on organizational structure (including his 2012 *SMJ* paper on mutual funds) to AI. His core insight: all of strategy and organization theory rests on **bounded rationality** — humans have limits in attention, knowledge, and consistency. AI has *different* bounds (vast knowledge, high consistency) but not *no* bounds, and this will lead to genuinely new organizational structures and decision processes. Silos, for instance, exist partly to concentrate expertise — but AI democratizes access to expertise, potentially reshaping how organizations are designed. **Human Judgment and AI Risk** Anita raises the concern about AI treating everyone identically, with no contextual judgment (e.g., a fire chief knowing a firefighter is going through a difficult personal situation). Felipe's view: outsourcing high-stakes decisions to AI is only acceptable when there is strong evidence AI outperforms humans in that specific domain, with proper guardrails and simulated testing first. Just as we've accepted autopilots and anti-lock brakes, we may eventually accept AI in more consequential roles — but only with rigorous validation. **Advice for Companies Today** Felipe compares the current AI moment to the early internet (1994): the technology exists, but the killer business models haven't been discovered yet. His advice: **run many experiments, involve everyone, and devote significant time to exploration** — this is precisely the moment to do so. **Closing Thought** When asked what keeps him optimistic, Felipe points to the leverage of his work: strategy educators train future CEOs, meaning even small improvements in how strategy is taught ripple into some of the most consequential decisions in the world. ## Related resources - [Felipe’s Michigan website](https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/felipe-csaszar) - [Google Scholar on Felipe](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4ILmDZIAAAAJ&hl=en) - [Felipe’s paper entitled ‘Can AI Do Strategy?’](https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/stsc.2026.intro.v11.n1) - [Felipe’s 2012 paper on how organizational structure shapes outcomes](https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.1969) - [Felipe’s 2016 paper with Dan Levinthal on the importance of manager’s mental representations](https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.2440) ## Recording Video: https://vimeo.com/1175188739 ## Category [Where Do We Go From Here?](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/where-next) * * * Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/csaszar-felipe · Licence: none stated