Faculty & Research

Roberto Fernandez

William F. Pounds Professor in Management
Professor of Organization Studies

Biography

Roberto M. Fernandez currently serves as Head of the School's Behavioral and Policy Sciences Area, and as Co-Director of the Economic Sociology Ph.D program at MIT Sloan. His research is focused in the areas of organizations, social networks, and race and gender stratification.

Professor Fernandez has extensive experience doing field research in organizations, including an exhaustive five-year case study of a plant retooling and relocation. His current research focuses on the organizational processes surrounding the hiring of new talent using data collected in 14 organizations. He is the author of over 40 articles and research papers in the published in the top academic journals in his field.

Prior to joining MIT in 2000, he was Professor or Organizational Behavior at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (1994-2000). There he served as the Area Coordinator, in charge of the school's Organizational Behavior faculty. Prior to Stanford, he was Associate Professor of Sociology and Urban Affairs at Northwestern University (1989-1994). His first academic job was as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona (1984-1989).

Professor Fernandez is the chief professor in charge of MIT Sloan's required MBA course on Organizational Processes. His other areas of teaching expertise include the management of innovation, change management, management of human resources, negotiations, networks, and power and politics in organizations.