Management Research in the AI Era
Chinese Management Scholars Workshop (CMSW)
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
December 6, 2025
Xun (Brian) Wu
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
In this speech I will explore the fundamental transformation of the firm in the digital and artificial intelligence era. I begin with the paradoxical rise of hyperspecialization and hyperscaling, where digital firms leverage highly scalable resource bundles to achieve massive growth while narrowing their vertical scope to avoid the opportunity costs of integration (Giustiziero, Kretschmer, Somaya, and Wu 2023). This evolution can potentially reach its zenith in the concept of the "One-Person Unicorn," where AI acts as a "cybernetic teammate" to handle peripheral, weak-link tasks, allowing firms to break traditional organizational bottlenecks and achieve "scale without mass" (Garicano, Li, Wu, and Wu 2025). Navigating this transformation, however, requires a deep understanding of resource redeployment, specifically how organizational "pipes" and "prisms" dictate the "new best use" of capacity-constrained resources (Levinthal and Wu 2025). We must also address the changing nature of managerial hierarchy, debating whether human judgment in organization design remains indispensable (Baumann and Wu 2023).
At the decision-making level, I will examine the challenges of learning from “black box” (AI) algorithms, especially how decision-makers weigh their own priors against opaque AI algorithmic recommendations (Ke, Wu, and Zhao 2024). I illustrate these challenges with a massive field experiment on a digital platform, showing that while AI-driven market intelligence helps merchants find underserved niches, their ability to respond is filtered through the prism of their existing complementary assets. (Chen, Fan, Wang, Wu, and Yuan, 2025).
Shifting to competitive dynamics, I will discuss the critical role of disruptive timing, proposing a typology of five distinct disruption types, Perfect, Postponed, Passing, Phased, and Partial (5P’s framework), that expands the traditional understanding of disruption beyond the often-studied “perfect” cases (Chu, Li, Wu, and Wu 2025). Consider the battle between Google and OpenAI. Google invented the transformer technology behind generative AI but waited years to deploy it, while OpenAI raced to market with ChatGPT. Is Google being “disrupted”, or is this a calculated delay? Finally, I will reconceptualize imitation (consider DeepSeek) not as a static weakness of laggards, but as a dynamic, complex strategy in evolutionary markets (Posen, Ross, Wu, Benigni, and Cao 2023).
【References】
Baumann, Oliver, and Brian Wu. 2023. "Managerial Hierarchy in AI-Driven Organizations." Journal of Organization Design 12, no. 1: 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41469-023-00147-9.
Chen, AJ, Lu Fang, Wang, Yitong, Wu, Brian, and Yuan, Zhe, 2025. Empowering Merchant Product Introduction: The Impact of AI-Driven Market Intelligence from a Digital Platform. Working paper.
Chu, Leon Yang, Guang Li, Andy Wu, and Brian Wu. 2025. "Disruptive Timing." Management Science (forthcoming).
Garicano, Luis, Jin Li, Brian Wu, and Yanhui Wu. 2025. "The One-Person Unicorn: Integration as Weak-Link Technology, AI, and Competitive Advantage." Working paper.
Giustiziero, Gianluigi, Tobias Kretschmer, Deepak Somaya, and Brian Wu. 2023. "Hyperspecialization and Hyperscaling: A Resource-Based Theory of the Digital Firm." Strategic Management Journal 44, no. 6: 1391–1424. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3365.
Ke, Shaowei, Brian Wu, and Chen Zhao. 2024. "Learning from a Black Box." Journal of Economic Theory 221 (December): 105886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2024.105886.
Levinthal, Daniel A., and Brian Wu. 2025. "Resource Redeployment and the Pursuit of the New Best Use: Economic Logic and Organizational Challenges." Strategy Science 10, no. 1: 32–47. https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0105.
Posen, Hart E., Jan-Michael Ross, Brian Wu, Stefano Benigni, and Zhi Cao. 2023. "Reconceptualizing Imitation: Implications for Dynamic Capabilities, Innovation, and Competitive Advantage." Academy of Management Annals 17, no. 1: 74–112.https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2021.0044.
Xun (Brian) Wu 吴迅
Xun (Brian) Wu is Robert G. Rodkey Collegiate Professor of Business AdministrationandProfessor of Strategyat the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S. from Tsinghua University in China, M.Sc. from National University of Singapore, and Ph.D. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
His research examines the dynamics of corporate scope and the evolution of industries. His research has been published or is forthcoming in top scholarly journals including Academy of Management Review,Academy of Management Annals,IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics,Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Organization Design,Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Strategic Management Journal. He served as an Associate Editor for Strategic Management Journal(2015-20) andan Associate Editor for Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal(2020-22), as well asa Co-Editor for the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal Special Issue on “Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies” (2017-19)and theJournal of Organization Design Special Issueson “Organizing for Good”(2021-2024). Heis currently serving as a Co-Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Organization Designand an Associate Editor for Management Science, as well asa Co-Editor for the Strategic Management Journal Special Issue on “Resource Allocationand Strategic Management”(2021-2024).
An avid contributor to the community, he has served in a variety of professional association roles. He was appointed to the Research Committee (2010-12) and elected to the Executive Committee (2013-15) of the Business Policy and Strategy (BPS) Division of the Academy of Management (AOM). He was also elected as a Representative-at-Large for the Behavioral Strategy Interest Group and the Corporate Strategy Interest Group (2014-16) of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) and the Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) Division Executive Committee (2015-17) of AOM. He co-organized the Doctoral Consortium of the BPS Division of AOM (2014-16), chaired SMS Conference Theme Tracksin 2019and 2024, and co-organized SMS Special Conference (Hangzhou, China) in 2020. In addition, he worked as a co-organizer, chair, panelist, or discussant for numerous AOM and SMS events. He served as one of the three Management Committee members (2016-18) for Chinese Management Scholars Community (CMSC) (~600 members), and is currently serving on the board of directors (non-voting) of Organizational Design Community (ODC) (~500 members).He served as the Faculty Director for Ross China Initiatives (2015-23), andwas elected to the Executive Committee ofLieberthal-RogelCenter for Chinese Studies at University of Michigan (2023-25).Most recently, heserves as Division Chair ofthe Strategic Management Division(STR Division)(~5,500 members worldwide) of Academy of Management, and asPresident-Electand President,University of Michigan Association of Chinese Professors(~450 members), 2023-26.
He has consulted and conducted executive sessions for companies such as 3M, Amazon, American Industrial Partners, BankMandiriof Indonesia,Cargill,China Development Bank, China Telecom Americas, Denso, Didi, Ford, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Masco, Microsoft, Medtronic, Nexteer, Munich Re, People’s Insurance Company of China, and Saudi Telecom Company. He servedas a strategic advisor for Didi Inc, andon the Academic Committee of Alibaba Group Research Institute.
He has been recognized with the US Small Business Administration Best Student Paper Award, AOM Technology and Innovation Management Division Stephan Schrader Best Conference Paper Award, Academy of Management BPS Division Distinguished Paper Award,SMJ Best Video Abstract Award, SMS CSIGBest Proposal Award for Rigor in Research,Neary PhD Teaching Excellence Award, 3M Nontenured Faculty Award,Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow,Sanford R. Robertson Professorship (school-wide junior faculty award that recognizes career achievement and outstanding performance in research and teaching). His course,Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Development, was one of theTop 10 Most Popular Courses of Full-Time MBA Students at Michigan Ross. He was recognized as one of Poets & Quants' best 40 business school professors under 40 in the world in 2016 and as Ross Researcher of the Year in 2021.
