Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld of Brandeis University

In the face of global challenges such as the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), social institutions face a dilemma. Institutions are the stable foundations of society, operating with incremental rates of change to maintain stability. Yet the global challenges all involve rapid rates of change. This talk will focus on climate change, artificial intelligence, and fragile supply chains, each of which are beyond the scope of individual organizations, requiring many forms of institutional action. Multi-stakeholder consortia will be presented as institutional arrangements that can simultaneously ensure stability and agility.

Biography:

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is the Florence G. Heller Chair and Professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He leads research on institutional agility in the 21st Century. Previously he served as a professor and dean of the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and as a faculty member in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. Joel is a past president of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. He is an award-winning author who has co-authored or co-edited twelve books and over one hundred articles, book chapters, and policy papers on new technology, stakeholder alignment, high performance work systems, labor-management partnership, negotiations, conflict resolution, and institutional transformation. Joel holds a Ph.D. in industrial relations from MIT and a B.S. in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.

Address:Brandeis University, , Waltham, Massachusetts, United States, 02453