Hazhir Rahmandad

Faculty

Hazhir Rahmandad

About

Hazhir Rahmandad is the Schussel Family Professor of Management Science and an Associate Professor of System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Hazhir's research shows how complex organizational dynamics can lead to heterogeneity in organizational practices and outcomes. He has analyzed how organizations learn in the presence of delays between taking action and observing the results, and has shown through empirical data and simulations the resulting learning challenges. Hazhir's strategy research has explored the shape of organizational performance landscapes, capability development tradeoffs under competition, and erosion of organizational capabilities through adaptation traps. In another stream of work he has studied public health problems, including obesity and depression dynamics, and comparing different modeling methodologies in application to epidemics, among others. Hazhir also contributes to expanding the dynamic modeling toolbox through advancing parameter estimation and validation methods for dynamic models.

Hazhir has published in diverse journals including Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Strategy Science, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Obesity, and System Dynamics Review, among others. He has been a reviewer for over 30 NIH and NSF panels and over two dozen different journals, and his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and private sector firms.

Hazhir holds a BS in industrial engineering from Sharif University of Technology and a PhD in management with system dynamics concentration from MIT. Before joining MIT Sloan in 2015, Hazhir was an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Honors

Hazhir Rahmandad wins Jay Wright Forrester award

Publications

Featured Publication

"If Higher Pay Is Profitable, Why Is It So Rare? Modeling Competing Strategies in Mass Market Services."

Rahmandad, Hazhir, and Zeynep Ton. Organization Science Vol. 31, No. 5 (2020): 1053-1071. Download Paper. Supplementary Materials.

Featured Publication

"Explaining Heterogeneity in the Organization of Scientific Work."

Rahmandad, Hazhir and Keyvan Vakili. Organization Science Vol. 30, No. 6 (2019): 1125-1145. Download Paper.

"Behavioral Dynamics of COVID-19: Estimating Under-Reporting, Multiple Waves, and Adherence Fatigue Across 92 Nations."

Rahmandad, Hazhir, TY Lim, and John D. Sterman. System Dynamics Review. Forthcoming.

"Delays Impair Learning and Can Drive Convergence to Inefficient Strategies."

Rahmandad, Hazhir, and Michael Shayne Gary. Organization Science. Forthcoming. Supplemental Materials.

"What Makes Dynamic Strategic Problems Difficult? Evidence from an Experimental Study."

Rahmandad, Hazhir, Jerker Denrell, and Dražen Prelec. Strategic Management Journal. Forthcoming.

"Risk-Driven Responses to COVID-19 Eliminate the Tradeoff between Lives and Livelihoods."

Rahmandad, Hazhir and TY Lim, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6397-20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2021.

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Recent Insights

MIT Sloan Experts

Why there is no long-term tradeoff between lives and livelihoods in the pandemic

This counter-intuitive result emerges because countries actually have little choice in how much they must reduce contact levels to control the epidemic.

Mar 9, 2021
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Press

No tradeoff between lives and livelihoods in the COVID-19 pandemic

Two studies by Prof. Hazhir Rahmandad, Prof. John Sterman, and PhD student Tse Yang Lim find that this apparent tradeoff is a false one.

Feb 23, 2021
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