Alan Zhang

I am an Assistant Professor in the Management Division of the Columbia Business School at Columbia University. My research seeks to advance organizational theories of work in an era of unrelenting digital, environmental, and social change.

Using primarily qualitative methodologies (e.g., ethnographic observations, interviews, archival analyses), I study how firms organize the production of goods and services under increasingly unstable conditions, and the implications for workers who manage and coordinate such productions. I focus in particular on novel management strategies, work practices, and industry relationships that are enabling firms to leverage production instabilities, an approach that embraces rather than avoids instability.

My research agenda is important for understanding how organizations pursue socially meaningful goals that require engaging with risky conditions and unruly ecosystems (e.g., including diverse stakeholders and heterogeneous actors beyond humans: machines, A.I., plants, weather).  It is a matter of both urgency and opportunity that organizations be able to incorporate such unpredictable participants in production despite their destabilizing influence.

To date, I have investigated a broad range of production sites where instabilities are not minimized but leveraged (such as to gain authenticity, influence, innovation, or scale). In particular, I’ve explored the production of creative goods (e.g., fine wine), ecosystem services (e.g., agriculture), digital services (e.g., geospatial analytics), and infrastructural provisions (e.g., nationwide 911 system).