Thomas Kochan

curriculum vitae

Get in Touch

Building E62-334
tkochan@mit.edu
(617) 253-6689
(617) 253-2660
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/iwer

Support Staff

Lisa Barone

(617) 324-7626
lbarone@mit.edu

Title

George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management
Professor, Work and Organization Studies
Co-Director, MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research

About

Academic Groups

Work and Organization Studies

Academic Area

Behavioral and Policy Sciences

Centers & Initiatives

The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Institute for Work and Employment Research

Thomas Kochan is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, a Professor of Work and Employment Research, and the CoDirector of the MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Kochan focuses on the need to update America’s work and employment policies, institutions, and practices to catch up with a changing workforce and economy. His recent work calls attention to the challenges facing working families in meeting their responsibilities at work, at home, and in their communities. Through empirical research, he demonstrates that fundamental changes in the quality of employee and labor-management relations are needed to address America’s critical problems in industries ranging from healthcare to airlines to manufacturing. His most recent book is Shaping the Future of Work (Business Experts Press, 2016).

Kochan holds a BBA in personnel management as well as an MS and a PhD in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin.

Honors

Kochan wins ILERA Academic Excellence Award

Thomas Kochan is the first-ever winner of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association Academic Excellence Award. This award, which will be given every three years, was created to recognize outstanding academic achievements in the field of labor and employment relations. The award selection committee, comprised of distinguished scholars from around the world, selected Kochan in recognition of his lifelong contributions to the field.

Frances Perkins Center Honors Kochan

The Frances Perkins Center has named Tom Kochan as its 2018 Intelligence and Courage Award recipient, recognizing his outstanding work in the areas of social justice and economic security. These are causes to which Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet secretary, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, devoted her career. Perkins was the author of many foundational New Deal labor and economic reforms. The award’s name derives from a 1929 speech when Perkins pledged (as a New York State Industrial Commissioner): “I promise to use what brains I have to meet problems with intelligence and courage.” Frances Perkins Center Board Member Allison Beck wrote: “Tom has dedicated his life’s work to the challenges facing working families. His research, scholarship, and teaching reflect the intelligence and courage with which Tom has always met the problems of our times.”

Tom Kochan receives the 2016 LERA Lifetime Achievement Award

Tom Kochan has received the 2016 LERA (Labor and Employment Relations Association) Lifetime Achievement Award,recognizing Tom’s many years of outstanding contributions to the field of Industrial Relations and Human Resources. The award recipient is selected by the LERA President, who said of Kochan, “He is a brilliant strategist and a treasure in our world of labor and employment relations which includes conflict resolution in the community at large.”

Tom Kochan wins Aspen Institute Faculty Pioneer Award

Tom Kochan awarded honorary degree

Publications

Introduction to Labor Relations.

Kochan, Thomas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Forthcoming.

"Worker Voice in America: Is There a Gap between What Workers Expect and What They Experience?"

Kochan, Thomas A., Duanyi Yang, William T. Kimball, and Erin L. Kelly. Industrial and Labor Relations Review Vol. 72, No. 1 (2019): 3-38. Download Preprint.