Steven Postrel
Biography
Steven Postrel, Ph.D., is Lecturer and Researcher at the Merage School of Management at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his dissertation in industrial organization was chaired by Garth Saloner. His academic career has spanned several institutions, including the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.
Postrel's research centers on the economics of organization and the formal analysis of business strategy. His work on knowledge specialization and integration examines how coordination failures arise across specialized domains and how organizations can prevent them. He has developed a rigorous framework for competitive advantage grounded in the concept of transaction surplus, which provides a technical foundation for positioning analysis and strategy research. His work has appeared in journals including the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, and Marketing Science, and he has contributed a chapter to an Oxford University Press volume on knowledge integration.
Postrel serves on the editorial review board of the Strategic Management Journal and has refereed for outlets including Management Science, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The RAND Journal of Economics, and the National Science Foundation. He has delivered invited talks at institutions including INSEAD, UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In addition to his research, Postrel has developed extensive teaching materials, including original-content video lectures for hybrid courses on strategy in the digital age and on networks, platforms, and ecosystems.
Return to topEducation
- PhD in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988
- A.B. in Economics, Princeton University, 1982
Areas of Expertise
- Economics of Organization and Strategy
- Knowledge Specialization and Bounded Rationality
- Competitive Advantage and Positioning Frameworks
- Game Theory in Business Policy
- Organizational Capability Impediments
- Retail Location and Category Pricing
- Digital Platforms and Ecosystem Dynamics
Recent Publications
- “Transaction Surplus Superiority in Canonical Market Segments: Using the Profit Map to Guide Positioning and Investment Choices Across Price-Rivalry Regimes”, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 1573-1602, 2018.
- “Effective Management of Collective Design Processes”, Managing Knowledge Integration Across Boundaries, Oxford University Press, 2016.
- “Multitasking Teams with Variable Complementarity: Exploring Impediments to Capability”, Academy of Management Review, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 273-296, 2009.
- Edward Fox, John Semple, “Optimal Category Pricing with Endogenous Store Traffic”, Marketing Science, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 709-720, 2009.
- “Islands of Shared Knowledge: Specialization and Mutual Understanding in Problem-Solving Teams”, Organization Science, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 397-425, 2002.
- David Hoopes, “Shared Knowledge, 'Glitches,' and Product Development Performance”, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 20, pp. 837-865, 1999.
- “Review of Games Businesses Play (Ghemawat, 1998)”, Academy of Management Review, 1999.
- Richard Rumelt, “Incentives, Routines, and Self-Command”, Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 397-425, 1992.
- “Burning Their Britches Behind Them: Can Policy Scholars Bank on Game Theory?”, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 12, 1991.
- “Competing Networks and Proprietary Standards: The Case of Quadraphonic Sound”, Journal of Industrial Economics, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 169-185, 1990.
Contact Information
Email: spostrel@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-8154
Address: 3232 School of Business 1
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Last updated on 8/21/2026.