Amir Goldberg (right), professor of organizational behavior, in conversation with student researchers. | Photo by Elena Zhukova
Stanford GSB faculty have been experiencing massive shifts in how research is conducted, Dean Levin explains.
In 2018, Stanford GSB Dean Jonathan Levin noted two transformative changes in the social sciences, which were reshaping research and its real-world applications.
The Data Revolution
First, “our ability to measure and record far more human activity than ever before has resulted in vast private and public sector datasets,” Levin says. “These are changing our understanding of inequality and mobility, economic and organizational productivity, social networks, and market behavior.”
For example, after analyzing the anonymized driving histories of more than 1 million Uber drivers, Stanford GSB economists Rebecca Diamond and Paul Oyer discovered that female drivers earn around 7% less than their male counterparts. Amir Goldberg, professor of organizational behavior, developed methods to translate enormous datasets of corporate emails into insights about organizational networks and relationships.
The Social Impact Revolution
Second, “increasingly, Stanford GSB faculty want to translate their research ideas into practical solutions with social impact,” Levin notes. For example, Benoît Monin, in the GSB’s organizational behavior group, worked with the Oakland Police Department to study and address racial disparities, with the aim of improving community relations and promoting equitable policing practices. Nobel Prize-winning economists Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson developed auction methods to enable the United States and other countries to allocate billions of dollars of telecommunication licenses.
These twin revolutions in social science open the door to fundamental advances in discovery and understanding, Levin says. They’ll also accelerate solutions to societal challenges. “As we move into this new era, Stanford GSB faculty are a catalyzing force in developing a deeper understanding of business and social issues — and promoting solutions,” Levin notes.
Read the full, original story for more examples of Stanford GSB faculty members harnessing data and research to solve real-world issues.
