T J Dermot Dunphy Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration, and Albert H Gordon Professor of Business Administration Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Professor McFarlan earned his AB from Harvard University in 1959 and his MBA and DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1961 and 1965 respectively.  He has had a significant role in introducing materials on Management Information Systems to all major programs at the Harvard Business School since the first course on the subject was offered in 1962.  He has been a long-time teacher in the Advanced Management Program:  International Senior Managers Program; a two-week summer executive program entitled Delivering Information Services; the Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management, and Governing for Non-Profit Excellence: Critical Issues for Board Leadership programs, and teaches in the second-year course entitled Managing in the Information Age.

In 1973, shortly after his appointment to full professor he, along with four other faculty members, was sent to Switzerland to set up the School’s International Senior Management Program.  He returned from Switzerland in 1975 to become Chairman of the Advanced Management Program, a position he held until 1978; and Chairman of all Executive Education Programs from 1977-1980.  He was Senior Associate Dean and Director of Research from 1991-1995, Senior Associate Dean and Director of External Relations from 1995-2000, and Senior Associate Dean and Director of Asia Pacific from 1999-2004.

Professor McFarlan’s book, co-authored with Professor Guoqing Chen, Chinese General Management: Tsinghua-Harvard Text and Cases, will appear in 2009 (available in Mandarin only).  Connecting the Dots, co-authored with Cathleen Benko, appeared in 2003.   Seizing Strategic IT Advantage in China, co-authored with Professor Richard Nolan and Professor Guoqing Chen of Tsinghua University, also appeared in 2003 (available only in Chinese).  In addition, Corporate Information Strategy Management: Text and Cases (seventh edition), co-authored with Professors Lynda M Applegate and Robert D Austin, appeared in 2006.  Creating Business Advantage in the Information Age, co-authored with Lynda M Applegate and Robert D Austin, appeared in 2002.  He is editor of Information Systems Research Challenge, published by the Harvard Business School Press, 1984.  He served a three-year term as Senior Editor of the MIS Quarterly (1986-1988) and is a member of several corporate and non-profit boards.