- IMD Business School
 - IMD Business School
Ralf Boscheck

Professor of Economics and Business Policy

Ralf Boscheck is Professor of Economics and Business Policy. Boscheck teaches strategy, economics, and regulation, as well as country analysis and macroeconomic policy. For 30 years, his research has focused on how to assess competitive advantage, either from having a superior offer or simply an abuse of a dominant position. He is currently working on the Business and The Human Prospect, a project which identifies the regulatory obstacles that effectively prevent companies from profitably addressing the fundamental challenges facing humanity.

He has worked with an extensive list of corporate clients and authorities including ABB, Allianz, Atkins, Aventis, Bayer, Bertelsmann, CLP Group, Chopard, Cisco, Clariant, De Mello, Danisco, DuPont, Eon, Grundfos, Henkel, Hoechst, Holcim, Metso, Nestlé, Nestlé Health Science, Novartis, Norske Shell, Oman Electricity Authority, PwC, Roche, Santander, TXU Europe, Thames Water and WorleyParsons.

Companies should not be taken to task for making a lot of money, provided they create even more value for society – which unfortunately is not always a sure thing.

Boscheck returned to IMD in September 2021 after a three-and-a-half-year leave of absence to serve as Dean of the Business School at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. In that role, he undertook a fundamental reform of the school’s undergraduate program, changed the faculty and research policies, and built up a research-sharing network of 10 Latin American universities.

From 2014 to 2017 he was Dean of the IMD MBA program and launched the Navigating the Future conference at which MBA students gave presentations to an executive audience on trends shaping tomorrow’s business environment. During that period, he was also Director of IMD’s International Consulting Projects.

Earlier, he directed the Managing Corporate Resources (MCR) open program, precursor to the current Advanced Management Program (AMP), and the Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE), IMD’s most senior general management program. He currently teaches on the MBA and Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) programs.

He has written four books, including Market Drive and Governance (Routledge, 2002) and Strategies, Markets and Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and has had more than 40 articles published in refereed academic journals. Syntheses of his academic work have often been republished for a broader audience in various media outlets, and he has written articles for the Financial Times, Handelsblatt, Les Echos and other titles. During his time at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile, he had a monthly column in the business newspaper Diario Financiero. He has also served as a member of the editorial boards of World Competition, Intereconomics, and the International Journal of Energy Sector Management.

Before joining IMD in 1990, Boscheck was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University, research associate at the Swiss Institute for International Economics, and a consultant with The Monitor Company.

Selected publications
Article
Patent trolls: In search of efficient regulatory standards

Current concerns about the growth of patent assertion entities (PAEs) are typically related to their presumed anticompetitive behavior and negative impact on innovation in product and technology ma...

Strategy
1 February 2016
Book
Strategies, markets and governance: Exploring commercial and regulatory agendas

This book addresses governance concerns at firm, industry, country and international levels. How do regulatory authorities deal with new business models, organizational structures and blurring mark...

Corporate Governance Economics
24 May 2008
Book Chapter
Energy futures: Introduction and overview

The Internatinal Institute for Management Development (IMD) organized a research conference entitled "Energy futures" in November 2005. 18 international energy researchers, policymakers and executi...

Economics
15 January 2007
Book
Market drive and governance: Re-examining the rules for economic and commercial contest

The author looks to the various approaches of institutional and constitutional economics to complement traditional market models in shaping policies to govern increasingly complex market conditions...

Economics
27 February 2002
Academic publications
Insight for Executives
Article
Why consumers should plan on paying more for medicine

The problem with protective legislation is that it destroys the whole PBM model. It eliminates efficiency incentives, limits competition among pharmacies and drug suppliers and lessens rivalry amon...

Corporate Governance
10 March 2017
Article
The future of energy in the EU

Energy market rules have to take many things into account. Market integration, competition and regulatory efficiency are central, but these goals have to be reconciled with climate change objective...

Competitiveness Leadership
29 October 2014
Article
Competing in spite of the law

Despite a variety of regulatory backgrounds, some broad OECD trends can be identified in competition law. Narrower market definitions and lower concentration thresholds are being set, higher penalt...

Competitiveness
15 March 1996
Article
Managed trade and regional choice

Corporate and public policy makers need to understand the impact of regionalization on insiders' competitiveness and outsiders' market chances. Recent theories of international competition conclude...

Economics Competitiveness
8 March 1996