Eric Abrahamson
Hughie E. Mills Professor of Business
Management
Bernstein Faculty Leader
Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics
BA, Haverford, 1982; MPhil, New York University, 1987; PhD, 1990
Joined CBS in 1989
Office:
395
Kravis
Phone:
212-854-4432
E-mail:
[email protected]
Fax:
212-316-9355
Curriculum Vitae
Biography
Professor Abrahamson studies the creation, spread, use and rejection of innovative techniques for managing organizations and their employees. He is best known for his work on fads and fashions in management techniques. He is also an expert on the management of organizational change. He has explored the topic of change management in Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), which won a Best Book of the Year award from Strategy and Business.
More recently, Abrahamson has been studying the dynamics of moderately messy system - offices, organizations and even industrial districts - that would function less well were they any less messy or any more orderly. A summary of his scholarly work was published in Research in Organizational Behavior under the title "Disorganizational Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards and Etiology of Messes" (2002). Most recently, Abrahamson has coauthored, with David Freedman, a book that popularizes these ideas about the benefits of moderately messy system: A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, How cluttered closets, jumbled offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place (Little, Brown and Company, 2007).
He lectures and consults on these topics for companies around the world.
Memberships & Affiliations
2002
2001
2000
1999, 3 year term
1999
1998
1998-2000
1997-1999
1996, 3 year term
1995-1996
1993, 3 year term
Teaching
Spring 2022
Power & Influence
(MBA)
Power & Influence
(EMBA)
Spring 2021
Fall 2021
Spring 2020
Fall 2020
Power & Influence
(EMBA)
(PhD) Organization Theory
(PHD)
Spring 2019
Fall 2019
Spring 2018
Power & Influence
(EMBA)
(PhD) Organization Theory
(PHD)
OT Seminar: Innovation Diffusion
(PHD)
Columbia Caseworks cases
Rome & Rybak
(2021)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Ed Heffernan at Alliance Data
(2012)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Donna Dubinsky: Act II
(2008)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Navigating Organizational Politics: The Case of Kristen Peters
(2009)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Todd Jick, James Kitts
Research
Journal articles
The interrelation between supply and demand in the market for management fashions
In Academy of Management Review
(forthcoming)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Ryan Michigan
Sustainable Competitive Disadvantage: Toward a Socio-Economic View of Firm Performance
In Academy of Management Proceedings
(2017)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Shriram Kumar
A More Relevant Approach to Relevance in Management Studies: An Essay on Performativity
In Academy of Management Review
(2016)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, H. Berkowitz, H. Dumez
Clashing Fashions and Institutions: Mid-Life Uncertainty in Diffusing Organizational Techniques
In Academy of Management Proceedings
(2015)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, S. Chang, Y. Choi, Ivana Katic
How to Improve on Statistical Significance: Effect Sizes, CIs, Graphs and Baseline Models
In Academy of Management Proceedings
(2015)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, S. Holloway, Andreas Schwab, William H. Starbuck
The Iron Cage: Ugly, Uncool, and Unfashionable
In Organizational Studies
(2011)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Researchers Should Make Thoughtful Assessments Instead of Null-Hypothesis
In Organizational Science
(2011)
Coauthor(s): Andreas Schwab, Eric Abrahamson, William Starbuck, Fiona Fidler
Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in China
In Management and Organization Review
(2010)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, P. Phan
Necessary Conditions for the Study of Fads and Fashions in Science
In Scandinavian Journal of Management
(2009)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
22 Things I Hate: Mini Rants on Management Research
In Journal of Management Inquiry
(2008)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Employee-Management Techniques: Transient Fads or Trending Fashions?
In Administrative Science Quarterly
(2008)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Micki Eisenman
What to Study in China? Choosing and Crafting Important Research Questions
In Management and Organization Review
(2007)
Coauthor(s): A. Tsui, S. Zhao, Eric Abrahamson
Avoiding Repetitive Change Syndrome
In MIT Sloan Management Review
(2004)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Recombining Resources
In Optimize
(2004)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Brian Keane
Using Creative Recombination to Manage Change
In Employment Relations Today
(2004)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Disorganization Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards an Etiology of Messes
In Research in Organizational Behavior
(2002)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Accounting, Themanummer: managementmodes
In Jaargang
(2001)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, K. Van Keen
Why management scholars must intervene strategically in the management knowledge market
In Human Relations
(2001)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Micki Eisenman
Change Without Pain
In Harvard Business Review
(2000)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Management Fashion: Life Cycle, Triggers, and Collective Learning Processes
In Administrative Science Quarterly
(1999)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Gregory Fairchild
Modeling Reputational and Informational Influences in Threshold Models of Bandwagon Innovation Diffusion
In Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory
(1999)
Coauthor(s): Lori Rosenkopf, Eric Abrahamson
Movements, Bandwagons, and Clones: Industry Evolution and the Entrepreneurial Process
In Journal of Business Venturing
(1997)
Coauthor(s): Murray Low, Eric Abrahamson
Attentional Homogeneity in Industries: The Effect of Discretion
In Journal of Organizational Behavior
(1997)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Donald Hambrick
Social Network Effects on the Extent of Innovation Diffusion: A Computer Simulation
In Organization Science
(1997)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Lori Rosenkopf
The Emergence and Prevalence of Employee Management Rhetorics: The Effect of Long Waves, Labor Unions, and Turnover, 1875 to 1992
In Academy of Management Journal
(1997)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
The Information Content of the President's Letter to Shareholders
In Journal of Business Finance and Accounting
(1996)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Management fashion, academic fashion, and enduring truths
In The Academy of Management Review
(1996)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Management Fashion
In The Academy of Management Review
(1996)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Assessing Managerial Discretion Across Industries: A Multimethod Approach
In Academy of Management Journal
(1995)
Coauthor(s): Donald Hambrick, Eric Abrahamson
Concealment of Negative Organizational Outcomes: An Agency Theory Perspective
In Academy of Management Journal
(1994)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Choelsoon Park
Macrocultures: Determinants and Consequences
In Academy of Management Review
(1994)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Charles Fombrun
Institutional and Competitive Bandwagons: Using Mathematical Modeling as a Tool to Explore Innovation Diffusion
In Academy of Management Review
(1993)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Lori Rosenkopf
Forging the Iron Cage: Interorganizational Networks and the Production of Macro-Culture
In Journal of Management Studies
(1992)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Charles Fombrun
Managerial Fads and Fashions: The Diffusion and Rejection of Innovations
In Academy of Management Review
(1991)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Books
Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout
(2004)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Chapters
The Lifecycle of Management Ideas: Innovation, Diffusion, Institutionalization, Dormancy, and Rebirth
In The Oxford Handbook of Management Ideas
(2019)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Alessandro Piazza
Foreword
In Handbook of Research on Management Ideas and Panaceas: Adaptation and Context
(2016)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Innovation Diffusion
In Encyclopedia of Management Theory
(2013)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
Fads, Fashions and the Fluidity of Knowledge: The Story of Peter Senge's 'The Learning Organization'
In The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management
(2011)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Mikelle Calhoun, William Starbuck
What Lies Behind Organizational Facades and How Organizational Facades Lie: An Untold Story of Organizational Decision Making
In The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making
(2008)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson, Phillipe Beaumard
Web-only articles
Managing Change in a World of Excessive Change: Counterbalancing Creative Destruction and Creative Recombination
In Ivey Business Journal
(2004)
Coauthor(s): Eric Abrahamson
In The Media
A Messy Desk Might Help Neatniks Be More Creative
The NHS Is Suffering from Repetitive Change Injury
Five Habits Which Are Actually Proof You’re a Superior Being
Bright Ideas Can Be Found in the Clutter of a Messy Desk
The Surprising Health Benefits of Clutter
Awards And Honors
2014
Academy of Management, 2008
1997
1997
1996
1994
1990
1987