Eric Abrahamson
- Hughie E. Mills Professor of Business
- Management Division
- Bernstein Faculty Leader
- Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics
- Areas of Expertise
- Leadership & Organizational Behavior
- Contact
- Office: 395 Kravis
- Phone: (212) 8544432
- E-mail: [email protected]
- Links
- Curriculum Vitae
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.
- Education
-
BA, Haverford, 1982; MPhil, New York University, 1987; PhD, 1990
- Joined CBS
- 1989
All Activities
- Case ID
- 240405
“Room at the Top”: A Multi-Student Exercise on Power, Negotiations, and Political Influence in Virtual or Real Organizational Hierarchies
- Case ID
- 220409
Rome & Rybak
When considering employee retention, should managers prioritize revenues and profits over other factors such as cultural fit and approach?
- Case ID
- 100409
Ed Heffernan at Alliance Data
In 2008, in the midst of a financial crisis and a credit freeze, how can a CFO of a private-label credit division convince others to pursue a bold acquisition plan?
- Case ID
- 90409
Jean Spire at Teleswitches Ltd.
What implementation strategy should a junior consult propose for a new information system at a company resistant to change?
- Case ID
- 80413
Donna Dubinsky: Act II
How does Harvard MBA Donna Dubinsky finally find her niche as a serial entrepreneur?
- Case ID
- 90401
Navigating Organizational Politics: The Case of Kristen Peters
When a summer intern in private wealth management at an investment firm receives poor feedback from the training program managers, what steps might she take to improve her performance and raise her stature?