Ethan Bernstein

Ethan Bernstein (@ethanbernstein) is an associate professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School. He teaches the second-year MBA course in Managing Human Capital, the Harvard Business School Online course on Developing Yourself as a Leader, and various executive education programs. He previously taught the first-year MBA course in Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD), an MBA immersive field course in Tokyo on Innovation and Leadership through the Fusion of Digital and Analog, and a PhD course on the craft of field research.

In an era when the nature of work is changing, Professor Bernstein studies the impact of workplace transparency—the observability of employee activities, routines, behaviors, output, and/or performance—on productivity, with implications for leadership, collaboration, organization design, and new forms of organizing.

Professor Bernstein’s research has been published in journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Annals, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Harvard Business Review, Research on Organizational Change and Development, and People + Strategy, and it has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR, Inc., Forbes, Fast Company, Businessweek, Esquire, Nikkei Business, Nikkei Shimbun, Le Monde, Maeil Business (Korea), and TEDx Boston, among others. He is a 2014 HBR McKinsey Award Finalist, and his research has won awards including the inaugural J. Richard Hackman Dissertation Award, the Academy of Management’s 2013 Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior award, the Academy of Management’s 2013 Best Publication in Organization and Management Theory award, the Academy of Management's 2014 Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in Organizational Behavior award, the Academy of Management's 2014 Best Paper Based on a Dissertation Award, the INGRoup 2014 Best Paper award, the 2013 Fredric M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award from the International Leadership Association, the HBS Wyss Award, and the Susan G. Cohen Doctoral Research Award.

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Bernstein spent a half-decade at The Boston Consulting Group in Toronto and Tokyo. Tapped by Elizabeth Warren to join the implementation team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he spent nearly two years in executive positions, including Chief Strategy Officer and Deputy Assistant Director of Mortgage Markets, at the newest United States federal agency.

Professor Bernstein earned his doctorate in management at Harvard, where he also received a JD/MBA degree. While a doctoral student, he was a Kauffman Foundation Fellow in Law, Innovation, and Growth, and he remains a member of the New York and Massachusetts Bar Associations. He holds an AB in Economics from Amherst College, which included study at Doshisha University in Kyoto.

Professor Bernstein is a self-declared culinary adventurer and avid cyclist, runner, skier, reader, and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me listener. Originally from Los Angeles, he lives in Newton with his wife, Maly (HBS MBA 2006), and two young sons.

AWARDS & HONORS

• Winner of the 2015 Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in Organizational Behavior Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management for “The Transparency Trap” (Harvard Business Review, 2014).
• Finalist for the 2014 McKinsey Award for the best article in Harvard Business Review for "The Transparency Trap" (October 2014).
• Winner of the 2014 J. Richard Hackman Dissertation Award from INGRoup, the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research. This is the inaugural year of this award being given in Richard Hackman’s name.
• Winner of the 2013 Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior Award from the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division for "The Transparency Paradox: A Role for Privacy in Organizational Learning and Operational Control" (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2012).
• Winner of the 2013 Best Published Paper Award from the Academy of Management Organization and Management Theory Division for "The Transparency Paradox: A Role for Privacy in Organizational Learning and Operational Control" (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2012).
• Winner of the 2014 Best Dissertation-based Paper Award from the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division for "Seeing Too Much: Too Much in Sight, Too Little Insight? An Attention-Driven View of Productivity" (Academy of Management Conference Proceedings, 2014).
• Winner of the 2014 INGRoup Outstanding Conference Paper Award from the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research for "Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces" (Organization Science, 2015) with Jesse Shore and David Lazer.
• Winner of the 2013 Fredric M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award, awarded by the International Leadership Association and the Jepson School for Leadership Studies for demonstrating substantial insights and implications for the study of leadership through Professor Bernstein's dissertation, “Does Privacy Make Groups Productive.”
• Won the 2012 Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
• Won the 2010 Susan G. Cohen Doctoral Research Award in Organization Design, Effectiveness, and Change from the CEO (Center for Effective Organizations at the USC Marshall School of Business) and the Academy of Management's Organization Development and Change Division for his work, "Innovation Boundaries: Deconstructing Autonomy."
• Selected as one of the inaugural Kauffman Foundation Fellows in Law, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (later known as the Kauffman Foundation Fellow in Law, Innovation, and Growth) for 2008-2010.