Erin L. Scott

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Erin L. Scott

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Erin L Scott, draws upon her two decades of academic and practical experience to partner with groundbreaking innovators to successfully navigate the entrepreneurial journey from initial idea to commercialization. Her research focuses on Strategy for Startups, has been published in leading journals such as Harvard Business Review, Management Science, Strategy Science, and a new textbook, Entrepreneurship, Choice and Strategy (Gans, Scott, and Stern), available from Norton and booksellers worldwide. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Scott mentors early-stage entrepreneurs and teaches the award-winning Entrepreneurial Strategy course (MBA and EMBA), the popular Entrepreneurial Founding & Teams course (MBA and Undergraduate), and the new Executive Education course Strategy for Startups. Prior to MIT Sloan, Scott was an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore Business School. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Innovation Policy and the Economy Group. A recipient of the Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship, she earned her PhD in strategy from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013. Dr. Scott also holds an MBA-MS and BE in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University, respectively. She previously evaluated and consulted for early-stage ventures in the medical device and biotechnology sectors.

Honors

Scott wins 2021 Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award

Publications

Bayesian Entrepreneurship.

Agrawal, Ajay, Arnoldo Camuffo, Alfonso Gambardella, Joashua Gans, Erin Scott, and Scott Stern (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Forthcoming.

"The Foundations of Bayesian Entrepreneurship."

Agrawal, Ajay, Arnoldo Camuffo, Alfonso Gambardella, Joshua Gans, Erin L. Scott, and Scott Stern. In Bayesian Entrepreneurship, edited by Ajay Agrawal, Alfonso Gambardella, Arnoldo Camuffo, Erin L. Scott, Joshua Gans, and Scott Stern, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Forthcoming.

"Theory-based Differences and the Origins of Heterogeneous Priors in Entrepreneurship."

Gans, Joshua, Erin L Scott, and Scott Stern, Working Paper. October 2025.

Entrepreneurship: Choice and Strategy.

Gans, Joshua, Erin L. Scott, and Scott Stern. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 2024.

"Entrepreneurial Strategy: A Choice-based Approach to Entrepreneurship Education."

Gans, Joshua, Erin L. Scott, and Scott Stern. In Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, edited by Charles Matthews and Susana Santos, 393-400. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.

"The Best Startup ideas have Multiple Paths to Success."

Scott, Erin L. and Scott Stern. Quartz, August 3, 2021.

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Executive Education

Executive Education Course

Strategy for Startups

There are many possible paths to success for good ideas. How can innovators and entrepreneurs weigh alternative options and confidently make choices to position their ventures for competitive advantage? This two-day entrepreneurship course provides a practical and systematic approach to exploring and evaluating the core choices that entrepreneurs need to make as they translate their ideas into a reality.

  • Nov 8-9, 2023
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Executive Education Course

Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services

This business process improvement course introduces a structured approach to design and customer analysis processes that draws on important trends that have become essential to successful innovation in today’s businesses: the digitization of all business processes; the blending of product and service into integrated solutions; considerations around environmental sustainability; and the use of globally-distributed teams.

  • Nov 10-14, 2025
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