BU Institute for Leading in a Dynamic Economy
BUILDE is a Boston University-based research collaborative located within the School of Management. It was created to explore the effects of emerging information and related technologies on competitive markets and organizations.
The Institute is founded on the principle that rigor and relevance in business research need not be removed from "real-world" issues. Rather, through effective collaboration with leadingprivate and nonprofit organizations, cross-disciplinary teams of scholars can bring relevant theory and rigorous method to bear on the most challenging issues facing today's leaders.
We seek to provide concepts, methods, and tools to enable leaders to better understand their environment and to make more informed decisions. We emphasize the importance of effective leadership in creating truly valuable business knowledge, models, and tools for today's knowledge-intensive economy.
Primary Research Areas
- Markets & Competitive Environments
We explore how increased access to vast amounts of information; innovations in products, services, and capabilities; and institutional changes such as deregulation, are affecting traditional notions of market structure and the global competitive environment. Research focuses on how these changes affect the nature of competition and the strategies firms use to gain competitive advantage.
- Risk Management Financing & Decision-Making
We investigate how firms can use their comparative advantage to bear the risk of seeking new opportunities in volatile markets through integrating physical assets and financial instruments in risk management and strategic decision-making.
- Innovation Engine
We focus on how firms create new mechanisms to enhance the speed and scope of innovation, particularly through market-based innovation strategies (investment funds), emerging multi-firm governance structures, and new innovation processes.
- New Capabilities & Organizational Forms
We study how enhanced information and emerging technologies—e.g., the mobile Internet, new software agents—enable organizations to redefine or invent new capabilities and business models. Research focuses on the characteristics of these new capabilities (e.g., dynamic pricing via Internet auctions) and the impact these capabilities have on corporate governance, organizational structure and performance, and leadership.
Research Projects:
Real Vision Laboratory
The Challenge: Increasing complexity of executive and cross-functional management team decision-making in the new dynamic economy.
The Solution: The RVL is applying the creative use of emerging information technology to existing know-how in the areas of executive information systems, group collaboration, expert systems, and multimedia technologies. The goal is to develop new models, visualization metaphors, and information architectures that can significantly enhance the effectiveness of executive decision-making. The research process involves exploring the subtle aspects of individual and group decision-making across time and distance, as well as the complexity of decision-making mechanisms underlying real-world processes.
Key Researcher: John Henderson
Projects:
- XSP
- Supply Chain Management
Global Mobility Innovation Initiative
The Challenge: To develop new business models to take advantage of the opportunities created by third-generation (3G) wireless networks.
The Solution: GMII is bringing together a network of academia and business partners to research how the new mobile economy will affect the way people live and work around the world. An example is the Mobile Patient Project (MPP), which addresses "traffic jams" in ER waiting rooms caused by process variability. The MPP focuses on ways to reduce process variability by exploring how perfect information on patient location and movement can enable the provider to dynamically reallocate resources (both staff and physical facilities) to dramatically improve service quality. The MPP is being funded in part with a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Press Release
Research Director: Nalin Kulatilaka
Projects:
BUILDE Partners
Partnership with private, nonprofit, and academic organizations is a major element of BUILDE's focus. The following organizations provide a variety of benefits, including financial resources, critical expertise access to key personnel, state-of-the-art technology and global reach.
Industry Partners
Academic Partners
BUILDE Contact Information
John Henderson, Faculty Director
Boston University School of Management
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 353-6142
Barbara Finney, Associate Director
Boston University School of Management
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 353-4601
Bringing the excitement of problem solving as a researcher into the classroom is one of the most rewarding parts of my job at the School of Management. 
