Xu (Henry) Han
- Adjunct Associate Professor
- Senior Fellow
Contact Information
- Primary Email:
hanxu@wharton.upenn.edu - Office Phone:
(215) 746-5719
- office Address:
3020 SH-DH 3620 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104
Research Interests: corporate entrepreneurship; business model innovation
Overview
Xu Han (“Henry”) is an Associate Professor of Management at the College of New Jersey and an Adjunct Associate Professor and Senior Fellow in the Management Department at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He earned his Ph.D. in Management (Strategy) from Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.
Henry’s research examines how firms create value and sustain competitive advantage through corporate entrepreneurship and business model innovation. He also studies entrepreneurial team formation, learning, and the commercialization of innovative technologies, with a focus on FinTech and renewable energy. His work has been published in leading academic and practitioner-oriented journals, presented at international conferences, and received the 2024 Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal Best Paper Prize and the Best Empirical Paper Award from the Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division. He serves on the Editorial Board of Management and Organization Review.
Henry teaches a range of strategy and entrepreneurship topics, including business model innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, design thinking, early-stage financing, and digital transformation and disruption, across undergraduate, MBA, and Executive Education programs. He also authors teaching cases on these subjects and has received the Wharton Teaching Excellence Award. In practice, Henry co-founded a venture-backed climate tech company focused on sustainability and deep tech innovation. He also advises startups and established firms on strategy and entrepreneurship challenges.
Research
Xu Han and Martine Haas (2025), Intra-Firm Work Experiences and Corporate Venturing by Employees: The Roles of Job Specialization and Group Functional Diversity, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
Abstract: Research Summary Taking a strategic human capital perspective on corporate venturing by employees, we consider the potential influence of their job and group experiences within the firm. Because building new ventures requires diverse functional knowledge, greater job specialization could create a barrier to undertaking corporate venturing. However, working in more functionally diverse groups within the firm can facilitate venturing—especially for more specialized employees—by enabling them to develop the skills needed to work with others who have such diverse knowledge. We test our hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset from over 16,000 employees in a large corporation. Our findings advance understanding of the micro‐foundations of internal corporate venturing, how bureaucracies shape corporate entrepreneurship, and how employees can build knowledge and skills with strategic value for the firm. Managerial Summary We examine how firms can prepare their employees to undertake corporate venture building activities by shaping their work experiences inside the firm. In a study of employees' work histories within a large corporation, we find that employees who had worked in more functionally diverse groups were more likely to undertake internal corporate venturing. Such experience was particularly important for those who had worked in more specialized jobs, since it could help them collaborate and connect with others with diverse functional knowledge. Our findings suggest that firms hoping to promote strategic growth and increase their competitiveness through corporate venture building consider providing employees with work experiences that help them develop cross‐functional knowledge and skills.
Teaching
All Courses
BDS5991 - Independent Study
The Independent Study is only open to MBDS students.
MGMT1010 - Intro To Management
We all spend much of our lives in organizations. Most of us are born in organizations, educated in organizations, and work in organizations. Organizations emerge because individuals can't (or don't want to) accomplish their goals alone. Management is the art and science of helping individuals achieve their goals together. Managers in an organization determine where their organization is going and how it gets there. More formally, managers formulate strategies and implement those strategies. This course provides a framework for understanding the opportunities and challenges involved in formulating and implementing strategies by taking a "system" view of organizations,which means that we examine multiple aspects of how managers address their environments, strategy, structure, culture, tasks, people, and outputs, and how managerial decisions made in these various domains interrelate. The course will help you to understand and analyze how managers can formulate and implement strategies effectively. It will be particularly valuable if you are interested in management consulting, investment analysis, or entrepreneurship - but it will help you to better understand and be a more effective contributor to any organizations you join, whether they are large, established firms or startups. This course must be taken for a grade.
MGMT2300 - Entrepreneurship
How do you take a good idea and turn it into a successful venture? Whether you plan to become a founder, investor, mentor, partner, or early employee of a startup company, this course will take you through the entire journey of new venture creation and development. MGMT 230 is a project-based survey course designed to provide an overview of the entrepreneurial process and give you practical hands-on experience with new venture development. You and a team will have the chance to ideate, test, and develop a pitch for an early-stage startup by incorporating material from class lectures, simulations, labs, and class discussions. By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding of what it takes to create a successful startup, as well as proven techniques for identifying and testing new market opportunities, acquiring resources, bringing new products and services to market, scaling, and exiting new ventures.
MGMT2640 - Ven Capital & Ent Mgmt
This course focuses on venture capital management issues in the context of a high-growth potential start-up company. The course is motivated by rapid increases in both the supply of and demand for private equity over the past two decades. The topic is addressed from two distinct perspectives: issues that relate to the demand for private equity and venture capital (the entrepreneur's perspective) on the one hand, and issues that relate to the supply of capital (the investor's perspective) on the other. As well, we will address management issues that relate to how the VC and the entrepreneur work together once an investment has been made, compensation issues, and governance issues in the privately held venture capital backed company. Format: Case/discussion format, supplemented by lectures and guest speakers.
MGMT8040 - Venture Cap & Ent Mgmt
This elective half-semester course focuses on venture capital management issues in the context of the typical high-growth potential early stage start-up company. The course is fundamentally pragmatic in its outlook. It will cover seven principal areas relevant to the privately held high-growth start-up which include: commentary on the venture capital industry generally, as well as a discussion of the typical venture fund structure and related venture capital objectives and investment strategies; common organizational issues encountered in the formation of a venture backed start-up, including issues relating to initial capitalization, intellectual property and early stage equity arrangements; valuation methodologies that form the basis of the negotiation between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist in anticipation of a venture investment; the challenges of fundraising, financing strategies and the importance of the business plan and the typical dynamics that play out between VC and entrepreneur. It is recommended students take MGMT 801 before enrolling in this course. typical investment terms found in the term sheet and the dynamics of negotiation between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist; compensation practices in a venture capital backed company; and corporate governance in the context of a privately-held, venture capital-backed start-up company and the typical dynamics that play out between VC and entrepreneur in an insider-led, "down round" financing.
MGMT8920 - Adv Study-Organ Effect
Business success is increasingly driven by a firm's ability to create and capture value through innovation. Thus, the processes used by firms to develop innovations, the choices they make regarding how to commercialize their innovations, the changes they make to their business models to adapt to the dynamic environment, and the strategies they use to position and build a dominate competitive position are important issues facing firms. In MGMT. 892, you will learn to address these issues through an action learning approach. MGMT. 892 is a 1.0-credit course conducted in the spirit of an independent study. By working on consulting projects for leading global companies, you will develop and then apply your knowledge about innovation management and help these firms better understand the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies and markets.
Awards and Honors
- Best Empirical Paper Award, Entrepreneurship (ENT) Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 2017
- Outstanding Reviewer, Business Policy and Strategy (BPS) Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 2017