Biography

Damon J. Phillips is an adjunct senior research scholar and the former Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise. He received his PhD from Stanford University. Before joining Columbia in 2011, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (from 1998-2011). During the 2010-2011 academic year he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. 

Professor Phillips has expertise in social structural approaches to labor and product markets, entrepreneurship, innovation, organizational strategy and structure, as well as social network theory and analysis. His industry specialties are markets for professional services (law, consulting, investment banking) and culture (music industry). His 2013 acclaimed book, "Shaping Jazz," is an innovative study of the emergence and evolution of the market for recorded jazz. 

In addition to publishing in top journals within management and sociology, Professor Phillips has been on the editorial board of the Administrative Science Quarterly, an Associate Editor with Management Science, and was a Consulting Editor at the American Journal of Sociology. 

Professor Phillips is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Morehouse College with a bachelor's degree in physics. He earned his first master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a second master's degree in sociology from Stanford University. Before pursuing his PhD at Stanford, he worked as an engineer and researcher affiliated with the U.S. Air Force (Lincoln Labs, MA) and was an executive in a family-owned electronics manufacturing business. He enjoys spending time with his two daughters, learning to play instruments, and listening to music. 

Areas of Expertise: The Sociology of Labor Markets and Professional Careers, Social Networks, Managing Innovation, Creativity, and Change Entrepreneurial Management.