M. Dalbert Ma

I am a doctoral candidate in Strategy & Entrepreneurship at London Business School. I study how AI is changing the firm: how work is organized, how knowledge and decision rights are allocated - now between humans and machines - and how competitive advantage is created and sustained. I pursue these questions inside frontier AI deployments, from autonomous logistics to knowledge work, combining proprietary operational data with formal modeling.

My job market paper examines how AI coordination creates a structural tradeoff between productivity and resilience within firms. It won three best-paper awards in 2026: the SMS Best Conference PhD Paper Prize, the AOM Robert J. Litschert Best Doctoral Student Paper Award, and the AOM STR Division Best Paper Award. It was also a top-three finalist for the AOM William H. Newman Dissertation Award. I have presented my work at Wharton, MIT, Harvard, Columbia, and Duke.

My work on GenAI and the shifting architecture of knowledge work is forthcoming in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. I have published in California Management Review and Forbes, my research has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Fortune, and my work on the competitive implications of GenAI has informed UK policy. My research has been supported by the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital, Research and Materials Development Funds, and the Noorjehan Pirani PhD Fellowship Award.

My letter writers are Michael G. Jacobides (advisor), Keyvan Vakili,  Kristina McElheran, and Francisco Brahm.

I am on the 2026/2027 academic job market.

Feel free to connect with me over email: dma@london.edu