Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Call for Applications 2025 - Organizations and Their Effectiveness

Fellowship Opportunity

Online application due January 8, 2025. Letter of support due January 10, 2025.

Application portal can be accessed at: https://applycasbs.stanford.edu/summerapplication/

SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

Organizations and Their Effectiveness

July 6 through July 19, 2025

Directors

Robert Gibbons (rgibbons@mit.edu), economics and management, MIT

Woody Powell (woodyp@stanford.edu), education and sociology, Stanford University

Co-leader

Zachary Ugolnik (zugolnik@stanford.edu), Program Director, CASBS

ABOUT THE CASBS SUMMER INSTITUTE

The seventh CASBS summer institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness will occur from July 6 through July 19, 2025, at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences on the Stanford University campus.

LOCATION

The Center is located on a beautiful hillside overlooking the Stanford University campus. Comfortable studies in beautiful surroundings will be provided.

SUPPORT

Admitted applicants will be offered funding that will cover major travel expenses (within the usual university-mandated constraints on travel expenses and specific limits on international travel). Lodging is provided and most meals will be covered. Though not required, any financial contribution from a participant’s home institution would be greatly appreciated.

APPLICATION

The application consists of: (i) an online form providing contact information and the name of the recommendation writer; (ii) a curriculum vitae (for faculty, this should include not only research but also courses taught; for doctoral students, not only research but also courses taken); (iii) a two-page essay explaining how the institute will advance the applicant's research; and (iv) one letter of support, which will be treated confidentially and submitted through our secure application system.

There are four important dates in the application process: (1) the online application (i,ii,iii) is due January 8, 2025; (2) the letter of support (iv) is due January 10, 2025; (3) fellowship awards will be announced by email no later than February 5, 2025; and (4) acceptances would be appreciated by February 27, 2025. 

Once you submit the online application (i,ii,iii), your referee will receive an email to upload the letter of support (iv). Once they submit their letter, you will receive an email confirmation. Please ensure your referee has sufficient time to meet the deadline for the letter of support. 

The application portal can be accessed at: https://applycasbs.stanford.edu/summerapplication/

For logistical inquiries and application questions, please contact casbs-summerinstitute@stanford.edu. For questions regarding the substance of the institute, please contact CASBS Program Director Zachary Ugolnik (zugolnik@stanford.edu). Please note that Stanford University is on winter break from Monday, December 23 through Friday, January 3. We will be back in the office beginning on January 6 and may not have the bandwidth to respond to all inquiries sent over break before the application deadline. We ask that you familiarize yourself with the application as early as possible and plan accordingly. 

TOPICS AND PURPOSE

Organizations are all around us: not just firms, plants, and work groups, but also hospitals, schools, and governments. Furthermore, by construing an “organization” as something that can be first organized and then managed, one can also include certain relationships — not only between firms (such as some hand-in-glove supply relationships, joint ventures, and alliances) but also between a government and a firm (such as public-private partnerships and some regulatory relationships). Indeed, noting that the examples above are all opportunities to collaborate, one can move beyond formal organization charts and formal contracts to include communities, networks, social movements and other less formal institutions as organized activities.

Given such a broad domain, a huge fraction of economic activity, as well as much political and social activity, is undertaken in, with, or by organizations. Put differently, if organizations are how we collaborate, it is important to get them right! For example, the gains from improving production activities and supply chains in low-income countries could be enormous. Also, learning from the “bright spots” among hospitals, schools, and governments, and understanding how these successes might be spread, could be immensely valuable. Finally, although industrial productivity in high-income countries may seem mundane to some, improving the effectiveness of such firms might nonetheless allow substantial improvements in the quality of life—both for the workforces in these firms and for the communities that experience the products and externalities these firms produce.

If organizational effectiveness is so important for innovation and social impact, one might think that academics would be studying the issue actively. To some extent, this is true, but the field is badly fragmented: different disciplines operate mostly in isolation; many professional schools focus on only their own kind of organization (e.g., hospitals, schools, public agencies, businesses). Meanwhile, social-science departments often regard organizational effectiveness as outside their purview; and doctoral training in professional schools sometimes lacks the depth available in social-science departments.

In response to this situation, the first week of the summer institute will include several presentations about how economics and sociology approach the study of organizations (with other disciplines to follow). In addition, to build community, there will be frequent group discussions and projects (“hacks”) on thorny organizational ideas and problems, as well as dinner conversations with scholars and practitioners who have been deeply involved in the worlds of politics, law, journalism and business. In sum, the first week will be a very intensive experience.

The first week will also include a “guest chef”—a senior scholar studying organizations from outside economics and sociology—who will visit for about 24 hours, typically involving both lectures and a hack.

The second week will be in two phases. On Monday and Tuesday, July 14 and 15, the spirit of the first week will continue, with the 2025 full-time participants and the directors present. There will be a second guest chef, representing another discipline or methodology.

Then, on Wednesday, July 16 through Friday, July 18, participants from the fifth and sixth summer institutes (2023 and 2024) will be invited back to CASBS to join in a convocation with the 2025 cohort, concluding with dinner on Friday. Finally, on Saturday, July 19, only the directors and the 2025 full-time participants will be present, with the institute concluding over lunch.

THE DIRECTORS

Gibbons and Powell both have one foot in their respective disciplines and the other in professional schools. Gibbons has appointments in the Sloan School of Management and the Economics Department at MIT, and he regularly teaches organizational economics to PhD students from economics and a variety of disciplines. Powell has an appointment in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, as well as sociology, business, engineering, and communication. He, too, teaches an organization theory seminar that attracts PhD students from more than a half dozen departments and schools. Both Gibbons and Powell have been been CASBS fellows, and each co-directed a previous summer institute at CASBS before starting those on Organizations and Their Effectiveness.

A PODCAST RECORDED AT THE 2023 SUMMER INSTITUTE

https://www.talkingaboutorganizations.com/106-the-study-of-organizations-across-disciplines/

COMMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS IN PAST SUMMER INSTITUTES

Consuelo Amat, Political Science, Johns Hopkins - “I learned an immense amount and enjoyed every moment. My scholarly career now has a strong link to a community of scholars – organizational scholars – that I did not have before.” (2016)

Charles Angelucci, Economics, MIT Sloan - “Allow me to thank you once more for two *fantastic* weeks. I have chosen to be an academic because of these (rare) moments. I feel truly fortunate and am immensely grateful. Many of the readings have made a deep impression on me and I have written down at least a dozen ideas for potential future projects. I have no doubt that I will embark on a few on these projects (two in particular I cannot stop thinking about). I hope one day to be able to give to others what you have given us.” (2018)

Richard Benton, Industrial Relations, University of Illinois – “The informal discussions with participants led me to think about my own work and career differently. Meeting young scholars, at a similar career stage as myself, across disciplines also exposed me to more career opportunities and pathways within academia. The structure of the cross-disciplinary groups worked well – the discussions of what could be borrowed from other disciplines was a great invitation for us to really engage with work outside our home discipline but avoid growing defensive or somehow enforcing disciplinary boundaries.” (2017)

Christof Brandtner, Entrepreneurship, emlyon Business School, France - “Organizations nerd camp was the best two weeks of my academic life thus far.” (2016)

Lindsey Cameron, Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania – “I know very little about economics and political science, so, of course I learned a lot from those sessions. However, the sessions that pushed my thinking along the farthest was re-reading many of the classics on organizational ethnography, especially Donald Roy. These enabled me to see the early linkage between different social science fields (that one paper has threads of economics, sociology, OT and OB in it) that now, 50 years later, have become siloed.” (2019)

Giulia Cappellaro, Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University, Milan - “Besides the what of research, I also learned important aspects of the how to do research. The institute fosters an open dialogue where ideas and concepts are analyzed and reanalyzed through multiple lens over two weeks and this allowed developing a critical and well-rounded understanding beyond single disciplines.” (2018)

Jillian Chown, Organizational Behavior, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern - "The institute encouraged me to think across boundaries and to be less conservative in my research objectives. It also encouraged me to think longer term" (2018)

Raissa Fabregas, Economics, University of Texas at Austin – “In the short-run, the institute helped me set-up a ‘mental scaffolding’ to structure ideas around the interactions that occur within organizations, especially around culture, governance and economic transactions. In the long-run, one of my main takeaways has to do with how I will want to go about my own research. The institute has helped me re-think the importance of asking the ‘right’ questions, even if the answers may lie outside traditional disciplinary boundaries.” (2019)

Alessandra Fenizia, Economics, George Washington University – “[T]he Summer Institute exposed me to high-quality qualitative research and methods. It completely blew my mind. I walked away with a new vocabulary and a deep appreciation for the strengths of qualitative research.” (2023)

Russell Funk, Strategy, University of Minnesota – “The summer institute introduced me to (and got me excited about) current work in organizational economics. Even though I could have accessed relevant materials beforehand, the summer institute gave me the opportunity to do the reading, and most importantly, learn it together with outstanding colleagues and leaders in the field.” (2016)

Claudine Gartenberg, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania – “This institute has definitely made a large impact. First and foremost, the quality of the research was so incredible that it was very inspiring. I have seen so much satisficing over the years to get numbers of publications up or get into conferences or get citations – it is such a breath of fresh air to see such beautiful research that has intellectual value for itself, and that makes you understand the world differently after you read it and really think about it. I want to make sure my research can have similar impact over the long run.” (2017)

Jennifer Hadden, Political Science, Brown University – It is unlikely that I would have encountered this kind of discussion at my institution, where disciplines tend to work in silos.  I appreciated that this interdisciplinary conversation was both substantive and meaningful, but also conducted in a spirit of genuine openness.” (2017)

Mai Hassan, Political Science, MIT - “The ideas/approaches that were both new to me and the most useful for my research are those that focus on the importance of inter-organizational dynamics. Before this fortnight, I hadn’t thought too much about relational contracts within and between organizations, and how relationships are built/sustained, and how they vary. I could probably have learned about this at my home school, but I didn’t know what I should’ve been looking for and I wouldn’t have learned it in the same way.” (2018)

Benjamin Mako Hill, Communication, University of Washington – “The summer institute was absolutely exhilarating. I cannot remember another two-week period of my life that was as intensely generative of new ideas, as disruptive of old ones, or as intellectually transformative. I left inspired to tackle big ideas about organizing in the communities I study.” (2019)

Dan Honig, Public Policy, University College London - “These two weeks felt about as open and collaborative as with any group I’ve ever been exposed to. I take away a sense there are many others engaged in similar efforts to my own, interested in borrowing (and stealing) from across traditional boundaries in pursuit of knowledge and tools for better understanding the world.” (2018)

Winnie Jiang, Organizational Behavior, INSEAD – “The institute has inspired me to take a more long-term perspective for my scholarly career. Interdisciplinary work often takes a long time and involves high risk. But the institute has made me not fearful of such challenges. The institute has also helped me see better how my own research interests and agenda are compatible or incompatible with the existing literatures or frameworks including the very classics, inspiring me to think of my scholarly career as a journey of engaging in deep conversations or debates with other scholars.” (2019)

Arvind Karunakaran, Management Science, Stanford University – “Thanks so much for … your generosity of time and engaging discussions throughout these two weeks. It is inspiring and I have a lot to ruminate based on the discussions/reflections during the workshop as well as the informal conversations with several new friends and colleagues across different fields.” (2023)

Hongyi Li, Economics, University of New South Wales – “I found the mix of activities to be a fantastic combination. The summer institute allowed us to develop a clear sense of each disciplinary approach and its strengths. It then showed how an interdisciplinary approach – combining ideas and techniques from multiple perspectives in tackling difficult organizational problems – may add immense value, especially for applied problems where organization all leaders must put insights into practice. I plan to continue to engage with organizational research from other disciplines in my scholarship – both by “stealing” valuable conceptual insights and by being more open-minded about methodological choices in my own work.” (2017)

Shelley Liu, Political Science, Sanford School, Duke – “The Summer Institute renewed my love for research and learning in a powerful way. It's been quite a while since I've had to the space to sit down and really read and think—to give space and full attention to sets of literatures that I probably would never have come across in a serious way yet is so clearly relevant and applicable to my research.” (2024)

Daniel Lobo, Sociology, UC Berkeley – “Thank you for organizing what was truly a transformative experience … I’m leaving the institute with many questions that will surely inform my research moving forward. … Aside from equipping me with some necessary intellectual tools to be an interdisciplinary organizational scholar, the institute awarded me the confidence to do so by successfully modeling what this could look like.” (2024)

Virginia Minni, Economics, Booth School, University of Chicago – “Our discussions significantly broadened my understanding of complex, multifaceted issues and highlighted the immense gains both from studying many types of organizations - firms, bureaucracies, churches, social movements, schools, and more - and from examining them from multiple different angles.” (2024)

Jennifer Nelson, Education, University of Illinois – “[T]hese past two weeks will be an important turning point in my own career. … Getting the chance to learn again – the time and space to read and discuss ideas for their own sake, through the vehicle of new relationships with likeminded peers – is the Institute’s magic.” (2024)

Paula Onuchic, Economics, London School of Economics – “I really enjoyed the structure that the summer institute imposed on the interactions across fields. It was especially helpful to have shared material that everyone was supposed to read, so we all started the interdisciplinary conversations from the same background material.” (2024)

Samantha Ortiz Casillas, Public Administration, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City – “I feel lucky to have been a part of such a unique experience. The reason why I wanted a career in academia was to have the opportunity to always be learning new things, be intellectually challenged by people I admire and respect, and think deeply about important social issues and how we can make them better. This, I believe, is what you managed to facilitate over those two weeks.” (2023)

Henning Piezunka, Strategy, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania - “The institute was incredibly rich and refreshing. I learned about concepts that were completely new to me, and also saw ideas that I already knew in a new light.” (2018)

Mike Powell, Economics, Kellogg School, Northwestern – “My view of interdisciplinary research has changed a lot as a result of this summer institute. In the past, interdisciplinarity seemed sold as an objective in itself, rather than as a means to achieve an understanding of complex social phenomena by going beyond my own discipline’s boundaries. This experience will make me much more likely to find common ground with other academics who are studying fundamentally similar questions but through different lenses.” (2016)

Andrea Pozas-Loyo, Law, National Autonomous University of Mexico - “ I learned not only new ideas and approaches, but I think I acquired a complete new way of thinking about problems I’ve been working on for years. I found all the visitors and organizational leaders very inspiring and thought provoking. I also deeply appreciated the presence of women leaders.” (2018)

Madeleine Rauch, Strategy, Cambridge Judge School of Business –“The CASBS summer institute were two weeks of unique experience of generative learning, boundary spanning, pushing established and taking for granted assumptions and silos in a safe space of like-minded curious young scholars from very diverse backgrounds and disciplines which made the discussion even more so enriching. Until attending CASBS, I wouldn’t have thought it is possible to connect the work of Jean Tirole to Erving Goffman in a meaningful way.” (2023)

Chris Rea, Sociology, Brown University – “The workshop was absolutely not a space for intellectual boxing matches, to see whose ideas could knock down the competition and better explain this or that about the way the world works. Instead, it was a space for rabid cross-disciplinary stealing, intellectual construction, and collaborative, collective inquiry using lenses from across the social sciences in service of understanding how organizations work, where they come from, and how we might make them work better. I can’t imagine a better way to spend two weeks.” (2017)

Celene Reynolds, Sociology, Indiana University - “It was an incredible experience—the best two weeks of my academic life. I had high expectations going in, but they were exceeded in every respect. The group was exceptional. The vibe was not at all competitive; it was clear that we were all there to learn from one another and to build a community. I loved hearing how people from different disciplines responded to the ideas—this was educational in itself” (2018)

Erica Robles-Anderson, Steinhardt School, New York University - “I think one of the most important aspects of this workshop was settling in to embrace the kind of scholarly career I’m going to have. Bob and Woody, and all the guest chefs are expert border crossers; all have a sparkle in their eye. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to see people really dive into their enthusiasms, work hard, and keep smiling. We think a lot in academia about the field changing ideas, but this felt like getting a moment to absorb the habitus of field changers, folks invested in a way of being as part of the scholarly life.” (2018)

Ben Schneer, Political Science, Harvard Kennedy School – “These two weeks reminded me that ultimately my career should be about exchanging ideas and trying to get people to think about things in a new way. It also reminded me that it can be a social / collaborative endeavor. Especially as someone just starting out, I think it is easy to focus myopically on cranking out work and to lose sight of what the larger goals are. This experience reminds me of those ideals.” (2017)

Aaron Shaw, Communication Studies, Northwestern – “I enjoyed and benefited from every aspect of the summer institute, including the challenging conversations, the generous mentorship of the leaders, the collaborative spirit of the participants, and the extraordinary support of the center staff. As junior faculty, the opportunities I have for sustained engagement with big ideas in a small group of extraordinary interlocutors are limited. I am deeply grateful to have been a part of the institute.” (2016)

Ben Shestakofsky, Sociology, University of Pennsylvania – “[I]t is truly a privilege to have been given this opportunity to read and talk and ask big questions at a remove from the daily routines that make it so hard to do that kind of deep thinking. … But far more important than the content was the community. I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to gather a group of brilliant, generous, and thoroughly hilarious people from across the social sciences.” (2023)

Martin Williams, Organization Studies, University of Michigan – “[T]he Summer Institute taught me how powerful the act of building a purpose-driven community can be and showed me how senior scholars can build that community. I had previously thought of my career in terms of traditional categories like research and teaching, but after CASBS my long-term career goal is to build the community that I want to see exist – of scholars, practitioners, and students.” (2019)

Janet Xu, Organizational Behavior, Stanford Graduate School of Business – “To say that these two weeks have been intellectually generative seems a bit of an understatement. … [P]art of what worked so well was the norms you modeled and the general approach to discussions. It was so refreshing to be in an academic setting where it didn't feel like everyone was trying to give an elevator pitch of their own research. … I'm grateful to be a part of this department that spans multiple disciplines, dozens of countries and universities, and a broad repertoire of metaphors. Thank you for starting it.” (2024)