Eric Van den Steen is the Royal Little Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), where he teaches strategy. Professor Van den Steen's research studies the fundamentals of strategy and competitive advantage, the role of leaders in strategy, and the interaction between strategy and organization more broadly. He has extensively researched the role of fundamental disagreement in organizations, with particular attention to its role in culture and managerial vision, and its effect on mergers and acquisitions.

Professor Van den Steen has taught in several HBS executive education programs, has been course head of the first-year Strategy course at HBS, and has developed the second-year elective Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage.

Prior to joining HBS, Professor Van den Steen worked in consulting at Arthur D. Little and at McKinsey & Company. He also served on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Prof. Van den Steen holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the KULeuven (Belgium), an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a PhD from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.