Natalie Carlson

Natalie Carlson
  • Assistant Professor of Management

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    2015 SH-DH
    3620 Locust Walk
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: Entrepreneurship, AI and Digitization, Emerging Economies, Microenterprises, Informal Economy

Links: CV, Personal Website

Overview

Natalie A. Carlson is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines strategy and entrepreneurship in emerging economies, with a particular focus on microenterprises and the informal economy. Her research has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal and draws on a combination of field experiments and computational methods, with ongoing projects in Colombia, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, and India, conducted in partnership with NGOs, firms, and government agencies.

At Wharton, Prof. Carlson developed and teaches Global Growth of Emerging Firms, a parallel undergraduate and MBA elective on how firms scale and innovate across developing and emerging economies. Her teaching has been recognized with five Wharton Teaching Excellence Awards. She is a founding member of the Management in Emerging Markets Consortium and co-organizer of the Management, Analytics, and Data (M.A.D.) Conference, and serves on the editorial review boards of the Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science.

Prof. Carlson received her Ph.D. in Management from Columbia Business School and holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University.

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Research

  • Natalie Carlson and Vanessa Burbano (2025), The Use of LLMs to Annotate Data in Management Research: Foundational Guidelines and Warnings, Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming).

    Abstract: The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has opened new avenues for integrating artificial intelligence into research, particularly for data annotation and text classification. However, the benefits and risks of using LLMs in research remain poorly understood, such that researchers lack guidance on how best to implement this tool. We address this gap by developing a foundational framework for implementing LLMs for annotation in management research, providing structured guidance on key implementation decisions and best practices. We illustrate the implementation of this framework through an empirical application: classifying sustainability claims in crowdfunding projects to assess the performance relationships of these claims. We demonstrate that while LLMs can match or exceed traditional methods' performance at lower cost, variations in prompt design can significantly affect results and downstream analyses. We thus develop procedures for sensitivity analysis and provide documentation to help researchers implement these robustness checks while maintaining methodological integrity.

  • Dany Bahar, Natalie Carlson, Exequiel Hernandez (Under Review), The Impact of Immigrant Talent on Global Product Strategy.

  • Natalie Carlson (2023), Differentiation in Microenterprises, Strategic Management Journal, 44 (5).

    Abstract: Small unregistered firms contribute to a substantial proportion of global economic activity, particularly in developing regions. In explaining variation in productivity in these types of informal firms, research has focused primarily on the adoption of effective business practices and access to capital, with little focus on fundamental positioning. This article explores the nature of differentiation in microenterprises, introducing a text-based measure of differentiation using state-of-the-art sentence embeddings. Using a combined sample of nearly 10,000 microenterprises across eight developing countries, I examine whether (and which) microenterprises differentiate, whether differentiation is related to performance (and for whom), and whether any existing policy interventions affect differentiation.

  • Prithwiraj Choudhury, Dan Wang, Natalie Carlson, Tarun Khanna (2019), Machine Learning Approaches to Facial and Text Analysis: Discovering CEO Oral Communication Styles, Strategic Management Journal, 40 (11).

  • Natalie Carlson (2017), Simple Acoustic-Prosodic Models of Confidence and Likability are Associated with Long-Term Funding Outcomes for Entrepreneurs, Social Informatics.

    Description: Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Teaching

All Courses

  • INSP4997 - Senior Capstone

    This senior-year research course is designed to facilitate the completion of a thesis or project as part of the Huntsman Program's senior capstone experience. Students in the Huntsman Program should consult with the Huntsman Program advisors for more information.

  • INSP4998 - Senior Thesis

    The senior thesis course is a capstone for seniors in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. Students in the Huntsman Program should consult with the Huntsman Program advisors for more information.

  • INSP4999 - Honors Thesis

    The senior thesis course is a capstone for seniors in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. Students in the Huntsman Program should consult with the Huntsman Program advisors for more information.

  • MGMT1170 - Glob Grwth of Emerg Firm

    Emerging firms are a critical element of economic growth, and a key source of gains in innovation and social welfare. This course is designed to depart from the U.S.-centric conversation on startups - with its outsized focus on Silicon Valley - and train a critical eye on some of the unique innovations emerging from new regional hotspots across the globe, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies. We will discuss the challenges faced by founders in different global contexts, the components of a robust institutional ecosystem, and the ways in which creative solutions may flourish in response to local problems. Along the way, students will gain a virtual view into global startup communities, and personalized insights from firm founders operating around the world - from Bogota to Nairobi to Jakarta. The course will be structured in three primary parts. The first and longest section will discuss the Key Challenges for emerging firm growth across the globe, such as access to talent and resources, political risk, and legal institutions. The second section will highlight particularly active areas of Context-Driven Innovation that are thriving in various regions, such as financial technology, mobile health products, and clean energy. The final section will train Regional Spotlights on different geographic areas in turn, so that we may focus on the challenges and opportunities specific to various parts of the world.

  • MGMT8170 - Global Growth of Emerg

    Emerging firms are a critical element of economic growth, and a key source of gains in innovation and social welfare. This course is designed to depart from the U.S.-centric conversation on startups - with its outsized focus on Silicon Valley - and train a critical eye on some of the unique innovations emerging from new regional hotspots across the globe, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies. We will discuss the challenges faced by founders in different global contexts, the components of a robust institutional ecosystem, and the ways in which creative solutions may flourish in response to local problems. Along the way, students will gain a virtual view into global startup communities, and personalized insights from firm founders operating around the world - from Bogota to Nairobi to Jakarta. The course will be structured in three primary parts. The first and longest section will discuss the Key Challenges for emerging firm growth across the globe, such as access to talent and resources, political risk, and legal institutions. The second section will highlight particularly active areas of Context-Driven Innovation that are thriving in various regions, such as financial technology, mobile health products, and clean energy. The final section will train Regional Spotlights on different geographic areas in turn, so that we may focus on the challenges and opportunities specific to various parts of the world. This course is relevant to both U.S. and non-U.S. students, and it is expected that students will bring their own backgrounds and experiences to contribute to lively class discussions. The course will culminate with a group project done in teams of four, in which groups will give short presentations to the class.

Awards and Honors

  • Outstanding Reviewer Award, Strategic Management Journal, 2025
  • Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2021-2025
  • Finalist, Best Conference Paper Award, Strategic Management Society, 2018
  • Deming Center Doctoral Fellowship, 2018-2019
  • Winner, Best Paper Award, International Conference on Social Informatics, 2017
  • Eugene M. Lang Ph.D. Fellowship, 2017-2019
  • Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship, 2017-2018
  • Finalist, Best Conference Paper Award, Strategic Management Society, 2016
  • Paul and Sandra Montrone Doctoral Fellowship, 2016-2017

Activity

Latest Research

Natalie Carlson and Vanessa Burbano (2025), The Use of LLMs to Annotate Data in Management Research: Foundational Guidelines and Warnings, Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming).
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