---
id: "pisquared:interview/karp-rebecca"
type: "Pi-Squared interview"
title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Rebecca Karp"
url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/karp-rebecca"
date: "2026-10-19"
people: ["Anita McGahan","Rebecca Karp"]
summary: "Rebecca Karp is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Becky teaches Strategy in the MBA required curriculum. She is a field researcher and..."
recording: "https://vimeo.com/1237308805"
source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Anita McGahan in conversation with Rebecca Karp

Rebecca Karp, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School · 19 October 2026

## About the guest

Rebecca Karp is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Becky teaches Strategy in the MBA required curriculum. She is a field researcher and ethnographer who examines how companies formulate and execute strategies. In particular, she focuses on the role innovation and product development play in creating competitive advantage. She has looked at healthcare, financial services, video gaming, media and creative industries, and she has studied both established and entrepreneurial companies. Her research has been published in our top journals and won awards at our major Associations. Becky also has experience as a Principal Consultant at Booz and Company, where she served major international companies as well as non-profits such as the Screen Actors Guild and Boston Partners in Education. She was a board member of Symphony NH.

## Reflections from the interview

**Professor Becky Karp **has always loved stories.  Reading stories.  Writing stories.   She became a professor to understand, through field research and ethnography, the stories of great innovators who see the potential for new technologies to revitalize the meaning of what we experience in our interactions with each other.  In this talk, Becky describes her research on what it takes to do this effectively.  She describes, for example, the importance of openness that is integrated with governance that prevents junk from dominating platforms.  She talks about how slowing down AI implementation allows you to get what you really want rather than what you think you might want.   And she describes how whole new organizational models are emerging to make these kinds of innovations possible.

## Related resources

- [Becky’s webpage at Harvard Business School](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=998715)
- [Google Scholar on Becky](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=x_7c8aIAAAAJ&hl=en)
- [Becky’s paper with Siobhan O’Mahoney in the SMJ](https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.3150)
- [Becky’s working paper on AI and organizational learning](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/26-092_9fffbcdb-a895-4886-8278-2b8bee442a7c.pdf)
- [Becky’s AMJ paper on strategic packing of digital innovations](https://journals.aom.org/doi/full/10.5465/amj.2020.0548)

## Recording

Video: https://vimeo.com/1237308805

## Category

[Where Do We Go From Here?](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/where-next)

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Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/karp-rebecca · Licence: none stated