Professor Burnett joined Kellogg School in 1981 as a visiting assistant professor of marketing. His teaching, research and consulting interests focus on the interface of corporate, business and market strategy.

He has played an active role in developing and popularising the notion that custom or company-specific executive programmes can help bring about organisational change. His research on strategy and marketing has appeared in Research in Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Strategic Planning Management and other publications.

His writings on management education have been published in the Bricker Bulletin, Harvard Business Review and Advances in Strategic Management. He has also served as a McKinsey judge for the Harvard Business Review and supervised numerous case studies.