Welcome to my Website

I am the Paul Klapper Professor in the College and in the Division of Social Sciences  at the University of Chicago.  My primary home is in the  Political Science Department , but I am also Associated Faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago.  I am also a Visiting Professor in the Institute for Sociology at the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen, Germany and a long time associate and collaborator at the SOFI Institut in Göttingen.

My expertise is in comparative political economy, economic sociology, organization theory, business strategy and business history. The common thread in my work has been an interest in the changing boundaries and interrelationships among manufacturing firms in Europe (especially Germany), North America and Asia. In particular, my focus has been on  the social and political arrangements that govern firm behavior and strategy and that affect (and organize) competitiveness,  innovative capacity, labor relations and working conditions. Theoretically, my work is inspired by American pragmatism and has a qualitative, historical, relational and processual focus.

Presently, I am conducting a number of collaborative research projects focusing on the possibilities for the diffusion and/or development of inclusive, self-optimizing, open ended (experimentalist)  governance practices in a variety of policy areas: off shore oil regulation, manufacturing labor standards and agricultural sustainability.

I work across a number of disciplines and have published material in political science, sociology, managment, business history, economic geography and industrial relations journals. You can learn more about my publications by going to the  Recent Publications and Book Projects sections of this website.