Ideas Made to Matter
Triumph of the underdog: How to beat the odds as a startup
Nike, Netflix, and Amazon are global powerhouses, but they all were once the new business on the block. Here’s how they beat the odds as startups.
Aug 31, 2022
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Birger Wernerfelt
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Birger Wernerfelt is the J. C. Penney Professor of Management Science Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Wernerfelt has held teaching positions and has done research in marketing at MIT Sloan, in economics at the University of Copenhagen, and in strategy at Northwestern University and at the University of Michigan. His current research compares alternative ways of trading services.
Wernerfelt holds a BA in philosophy and an MA in economics from the University of Copenhagen and a DBA in managerial economics from Harvard University.
Publications
"Small Talk as a Contracting Device: Trust, Cooperative Norms, and Changing Equilibria."
Cashman, Matthew, Boris Maciejovsky, and Birger Wernerfelt. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. Forthcoming. Download Preprint.
"The Adaptation Cost Theory of the Firm and the Resource-Based View."
Wernerfelt, Birger. In Research Handbook on the Theory of the Firm, edited by Aveed Raha and Josef Windsperger, Edward Elgar Publishing. Forthcoming.
"Stochastic Differential Games and Optimization Problems with Controlled Point Process Arrivals."
Wernerfelt, Birger. Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications Vol. 206, No. 2 (2025): 42. Download Preprint.
"The Origin and Function of Arbitrary Signals: Making False Statements, Having Long Hair, and Smoking Virginia Slims."
Wernerfelt, Birger. PNAS Nexus Vol. 3, No. 9 (2024): 1-5.
"Diversified Firms: Existence and Behaviors."
Wernerfelt, Birger. Journal of Institutional Economics Vol. 18, No. 3 (2022): 345-360. Download PDF. Download Preprint.
"When Does the Underdog Win?"
Wernerfelt, Birger. Strategy Science Vol. 7, No. 1 (2022): 1-9. Download Preprint.
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