In 1959 he joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Later that year, he became world renowned 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.
He is widely credited with coining the term globalization through an article entitled "Globalization of Markets", which appeared in the May–June 1983 issue of Harvard Business Review. However, as a NYTimes article notes, the term 'globalization' was in use well before (at least as early as 1944) and had been used by economists as early as 1981. However, Levitt popularized the term and brought it into the mainstream BUSINESS audience. Between 1985 and 1989, he headed the Harvard BUSINESS Review as an editor.
He was the author of The Marketing Imagination, and was a best-selling author whose works have been translated into eleven languages. He was also the author of numerous articles on economic, political, management, and marketing subjects.
He was a four-time winner of the McKinsey Awards competitions for best annual article in the Harvard BUSINESS Review; winner of Academy of Management Award for the outstanding BUSINESS books of 1962 for Innovation in Marketing; winner of John Hancock Award for Excellence in BUSINESS Journalism in 1969; recipient of the Charles Coolidge Parlin Award as "Marketing Man of the Year," 1970; recipient of the George Gallup Award for Marketing Excellence, 1976; recipient of the 1978 Paul D. Converse Award of the American Marketing Association for major contributions to marketing and recipient of the 1989 William M. McFeely Award of the International Management Council for major contributions to management.