Isabel Fernandez Mateo

Isabel Fernandez-Mateo is the Adecco Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. A native of Spain, she obtained her PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management and has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Chicago, INSEAD, and the University of New South Wales (Sydney).

She is an expert on how relationships influence career outcomes – particularly in hiring, job transitions, and career advancement. She also studies gender diversity in the executive labor market. In her recent work, she examines the organizational and social barriers that prevent women’s access to positions of leadership.

Professor Fernandez-Mateo’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Management Science, and Organization Science. Her work has been covered by CNN Money, the Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review Online, Fast Company, and Yahoo News, among others. She has won several prestigious academic awards, including the American Sociological Association’s W. Richard Scott Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 2013 and 2020, and the Best Published Paper in 2017 by both the Organization and Management Theory and the Organizational Behavior Divisions of the Academy of Management.

Isabel Fernandez-Mateo is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, and the Strategic Management Society. She is currently Department Editor of Management Science (Organizations Section) and consulting editor for Sociological Science. She has also won the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Academy of Management Review.

At London Business School, Professor Fernandez-Mateo teaches two elective courses, one on “Building your Career Strategy” and another one on "People Analytics." She teaches similar topics in Executive Education, where she focuses on how developing effective social networks contributes to both career advancement and leadership success. Some of her teaching aims particularly at women leaders. She also examines the challenges and opportunities of a data driven approach to people-related issues in organizations.

Research

Academic publications

• Fernandez-Mateo, I. & Kaplan, S. (2018). “Gender and Organization Science.” Introduction to the Virtual Special Issue on Gender and Organizations. Organization Science.
  
• Ody-Brasier, A. & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2017). “When Being in the Minority Pays off: Relationships Among Sellers and Price Setting in the Champagne Industry.” American Sociological Review.
  
• Brands, R. & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2017). “Leaning Out: How Negative Recruitment Experiences Shape Women’s Decisions to Compete for Executive Roles.” Administrative Science Quarterly. [Awards for best OMT Published paper and Outstanding publication in OB from the Academy of Management]
  
• Fernandez-Mateo, I. & Fernandez, R. (2016). “Bending the pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Top Management Jobs.” Management Science.
  
• Fernandez-Mateo, I. & Coh, M. (2015). “Coming with Baggage: Past Rejections and the Evolution of Market Relationships.” Organization Science.
  
• Bidwell, M., Briscoe, F., Fernandez-Mateo, I. and Sterling, A. (2013). “The Employment Relationship and Inequality: How and Why Changes in Employment Practices are Shaping Rewards in Organizations.” The Academy of Management Annals.
  
• Fernandez-Mateo, I. & King, Z. (2011). “Anticipatory Sorting and Gender Segregation in Temporary Employment.” Management Science. [American Sociological Association W. Richard Scott Award; INFORMS-Industry Studies Association Award]
  
• Bidwell, M. & Fernandez-Mateo (2010). “Relationship Duration and Returns to Brokerage in the Staffing Sector.” Organization Science.
  
• Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2009). “Cumulative Gender Disadvantage in Contract Employment.” American Journal of Sociology.
  
• Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2007). “Who Pays the Price of Brokerage? Transferring Constraint through Price-Setting in the Staffing Sector.” American Sociological Review. [American Sociological Association Thompson Award]
  
• Fernandez, R. & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2006) “Networks, Race and Hiring.” American Sociological Review.
  Modified versions reprinted in: Grusky, D. (Ed.). Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective, Third Edition.
  Westview Press, 2008, and Koput, K. & J. Broschak (Eds.). Social Capital in Business. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011.
  

Practitioner oriented pieces and book chapters

• Ody-Brasier, A. & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2017). “A Study of the Champagne Industry Shows that Women have Stronger Networks, and Profit from them.” Harvard Business Review, digital article.

• Brands, R., & Fernandez-Mateo (2017). “Women are Less Likely to Apply for Executive Roles if They’ve Been Rejected Before.” Harvard Business Review, digital article.

• Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2010). “The Permanence of Temporary Workers.” Business Strategy Review.

• Bidwell, M., & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2008). “Three is a Crowd? Understanding Triadic Employment Relationships.” In Cappelli, P. (Ed). Employment Relationships: New Models of White Collar Work. Cambridge University Press.

• Muñoz-Bullón, F., & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2005) “Temporary Workers and Temporary Help Agencies: An Exploration of Labor Market Outcomes.” In Cabrera, A. & Bonache, J. (Eds.). Dirección Estratégica de Personas, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall-Financial Times.

• Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2002). “Career Management.” In Cabrera, A. & Bonache, J. (Eds.). Dirección Estratégica de Personas. Prentice Hall-Financial Times.