Shared Capitalism Through Employee Ownership Award

 

Karen Bernhardt-Walther, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, studies how the tasks that a firm expects to solve drive the way the firm organizes. Her work provides a theoretical framework that shows that frequently repeated tasks such as manufacturing require a different organizational form than one-of-a-kind tasks such as innovation.

 

Karen’s work illuminates the tension that can arise when a firm engages in both manufacturing and innovation and has to balance competing organizational needs. Her work also provides a starting point for exploring when and to what extent employee needs and the pursuit of optimal organizational forms may conflict.

 

For the theoretical part of her work, Karen draws on her background in theoretical physics and mathematics. She gained practical insights into the way firms organize in the real world while consulting for McKinsey Germany.

 

 

* The 2010-2011 Shared Capitalism through Employee Ownership Research Award

was co-sponsored by The Foundation for Enterprise Development and the Employee Ownership Foundation. For more information on this award, please click here.