I am Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale University School of Management. You can contact me at mj.kim@yale.edu. My Google Scholar page is here, and university page here.
My research addresses when, why, and how social actors (e.g., individuals, firms) coordinate their actions. Even strategic actions among competitors often require some degree of coordination, while cooperative efforts may also fail to align. Without effective coordination, well-intentioned actions may lead to unintended macro-level consequences that ultimately undermine their original goals. I examine these dynamics across a variety of domains—including organizations, entrepreneurship, politics, and cultural markets—to develop and test theories of social interaction and coordination.
For instance, one of my ongoing projects examines how entrepreneurs coordinate with employees to retain them within startups. Another examines how police respond to accountability initiatives, sometimes curbing and other times reinforcing their existing behaviors. Another project explains why moderate voters may support extreme candidates, a pattern increasingly evident in contemporary U.S. politics. My research has appeared in American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Organization Science, Sociological Science, Social Science Research, and Social Psychology Quarterly.
Before joining Yale, I was an assistant professor of management (organizational behavior) at Rice University. I was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and received my doctoral degree from the Economic Sociology program at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Before joining academia, I worked as a consultant for local governments. I completed my undergraduate degree at University of Chicago.