Theodore Levitt

German born American economist

Theodore Levitt (March 1, 1925 – June 28, 2006) was a German born American economist and a professor at the Harvard Business School. He was editor of the Harvard Business Review, noted for increasing the Review's circulation and popularizing the term globalization. In 1983, he proposed a definition for corporate purpose: "Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer".

Levitt was born in 1925 in Schlüchtern Vollmerz to a Jewish family. A decade later his family moved to Dayton, Ohio. He served in World War II, received his high school diploma through correspondence school and then earned a bachelor's degree at Antioch College, a college founded by the Christian Connection, and a PhD in economics at the Ohio State University. His first teaching job was at the University of North Dakota. In 1959 he joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Later that year, he became well known after publishing Marketing Myopia in Harvard Business Review where he asks "What business are you in? ", a phrase that demands one account for the significance of the job one does.

Though widely credited with coining the term globalization in an article entitled "Globalization of Markets", which appeared in the May–June 1983 issue of Harvard Business Review, he was not the originator of the term. As a New York Times article notes, the term 'globalization' was in use well before this publication (at least as early as 1944) and had been used by economists as early as 1981. Nonetheless, Levitt can be credited with popularizing the term and bringing to a mainstream business audience.

Theodore Levitt papers at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School.