Yale SOM Plans Initiative on Leadership and Organizational Performance

The Yale School of Management is preparing to create a new initiative to develop and disseminate its expertise in leadership and organizational behavior, the school announced.

The Initiative on Leadership and Organizational Performance, which will launch on July 1, 2013, will provide funding for research, sponsor conferences, and create research databases, among other activities intended to increase the visibility and influence of Yale scholars. Its area of focus will include leadership, competitive strategy, workforce management, organizational change and learning, ethics, diversity, global management, entrepreneurship, governance, negotiation, and the relationship between business and society.

The initiative will draw on Yale SOM's distinguished faculty in the field, including James Baron, the William S. Beinecke Professor of Management; Olav Sorenson, the Frederick Frank '54 and Mary C. Tanner Professor of Management; and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for executive programs & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management, as well as faculty members in related fields elsewhere at Yale SOM and Yale University.

The initiative will benefit from the facilities of the new Yale School of Management campus, Edward P. Evans Hall, which will open in January 2014. Evans Hall will include a purpose-built Organizational Behavior Lab and space for conferences and other events.

"My colleagues and I are delighted and enormously grateful to have this support," Baron said. "This initiative will provide resources for some large-scale projects that will bring faculty together from multiple disciplines and multiple areas within SOM, addressing leadership, the management of people and institutions, and their impact on organizational effectiveness. Clearly, these topics are of interest and importance not only to scholars, but to those who create and manage organizations in all sectors and all parts of the world."