Walter W. Powell
Jacks Family Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Communication, of Sociology and of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business
Graduate School of Education
Bio
Woody Powell is Jacks Family Professor of Education, and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication at Stanford University. He has been faculty co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society since its founding in 2006.. At PACS, he heads the Civic Life of Cities Lab, which studies civil society organizations in the SF Bay Area, Seattle, Shenzhen, Sydney, Taipei, and Vienna. He is the 2019 recipient of the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. He has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, Copenhagen Business School, and Aalto University, and is an international member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and The British Academy. He has served on the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council since 2000. He was an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute from 2001-13 and continues involvement with SFI today. With Bob Gibbons (MIT), he has led the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) summer institute on Organizations and their Effectiveness since 2016.
His interests focus on the processes through which ideas and practices move across organizations, and the role of networks in facilitating or hindering the transfer of ideas.
He is the author or editor of Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing, with Lewis Coser and Charles Kadushin (Basic Books, 1982); Getting into Print: The Decision-Making Process in Scholarly Publishing (U. of Chicago Press, 1985); The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, with Paul DiMaggio (U. of Chicago Press, 1991); Private Action and the Public Good, with Elisabeth Clemens (Yale U. Press, 1997); The Emergence of Organizations and Markets, with John Padgett (Princeton U. Press, 2012), and The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, with Patricia Bromley (Stanford U. Press, 2020). His 1990 article, “Neither Market Nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization,” won the Max Weber award; “Network Dynamics and Field Evolution: The Growth of Inter-Organizational Collaboration in the Life Sciences,” (2005), received the Viviana Zelizer prize. “Technological Change and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology,” with K. Koput and L. Smith-Doerr (1996), was recognized by Administrative Science Quarterly as one of its most influential publications. His 1983 paper with Paul DiMaggio, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” is the most cited article in the history of the American Sociological Review.
Academic Appointments
-
Professor, Graduate School of Education
-
Professor (By courtesy), Sociology
-
Professor (By courtesy), Organizational Behavior
-
Professor (By courtesy), Communication
Administrative Appointments
-
Faculty Co-Director, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (2005 - Present)
-
Professor (by courtesy) of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University (1999 - Present)
Honors & Awards
-
Foreign member, Swedish Royal Academy of Science (2007)
-
Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, Uppsala University (2007)
-
Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, Aalto University
-
Doctor Mercaturae honoris causa in Economics and Business Administration, Copenhagen Business School (2005)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
-
Member, Board of Directors, Social Science Research Council (2000 - Present)
-
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2008 - 2009)
-
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1986 - 1987)
Program Affiliations
-
Public Policy
-
Science, Technology and Society
Professional Education
-
PhD, SUNY-Stony Brook, Sociology (1978)
-
MA, SUNY-Stony Brook, Sociology (1975)
-
BA, Florida State University (1971)
Research Interests
-
Higher Education
-
Leadership and Organization
-
Sociology
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Please go to my webpage for more info on research:
https://woodypowell.com
2024-25 Courses
- Nonprofits, Philanthropy & Society
EDUC 321, PUBLPOL 321, SOC 321 (Win) - Philanthropy and Civil Society
EDUC 374, SOC 374, SUSTAIN 324 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Seminar on Organizational Theory
EDUC 375A, MS&E 389, SOC 363A (Aut) - Workshop: Networks and Organizations
EDUC 361 (Aut, Win, Spr) -
Independent Studies (20)
- Coterminal MA research apprenticeship
SOC 292 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Curricular Practical Training
SOC 392 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Reading
EDUC 480 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Reading
URBANST 197 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Reading in Education
EDUC 180 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Reading in Environment and Resources
ENVRES 398 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Research
EDUC 490 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Research in Education
EDUC 190 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Research in Environment and Resources
ENVRES 399 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Graduate Directed Research
SOC 391 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Graduate Individual Study
SOC 390 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Master's Thesis
EDUC 185 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Practicum
EDUC 470 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Research Internship
SOC 395 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Honors Thesis
URBANST 199 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Thesis
SOC 196 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Supervised Internship
EDUC 380 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Directed Research
SOC 191 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Individual Study
SOC 190 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship
SOC 192 (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Coterminal MA research apprenticeship
-
Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Nonprofits, Philanthropy & Society
EDUC 321, PUBLPOL 321, SOC 321 (Spr) - Philanthropy and Civil Society
EDUC 374, POLISCI 334, SOC 374, SUSTAIN 324 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Workshop: Networks and Organizations
EDUC 361, SOC 361W (Aut, Win, Spr)
2021-22 Courses
- Philanthropy and Civil Society
EDUC 374 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Philanthropy and Civil Society
LAW 7071 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Philanthropy and Civil Society
POLISCI 334, SOC 374 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Workshop: Networks and Organizations
EDUC 361, SOC 361W (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Nonprofits, Philanthropy & Society
Stanford Advisees
-
Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Nick Sherefkin -
Postdoctoral Faculty Sponsor
Tuomas Vesterinen -
Doctoral (Program)
Heitor Santos
All Publications
-
From Iron Cage to Glass House: Repurposing of bureaucratic management and the turn to openness
ORGANIZATION STUDIES
2023
View details for DOI 10.1177/01708406231200727
View details for Web of Science ID 001086750500001
-
The Iron Cage Redux: Looking Back and Forward
ORGANIZATION THEORY
2023; 4 (4)
View details for DOI 10.1177/26317877231221550
View details for Web of Science ID 001315272900001
-
Living Just in Time: Reflections on Arne L. Kalleberg, Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies
CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY-A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS
2021; 50 (2): 108–11
View details for Web of Science ID 000625213600003
- Amphibious Entrepreneurs and the Origins of Invention Oxford Handbook on Entrepreneurship and Collaboration edited by Reuer, J., Matusik, S., Jones, J. Oxford University Press. 2019: 541–567
-
Serve or Conserve: Mission, Strategy, and Multi-Level Nonprofit Change During the Great Recession
VOLUNTAS
2018; 29 (5): 976–93
View details for DOI 10.1007/s11266-017-9948-8
View details for Web of Science ID 000452072600008
-
A sociologist looks at crowds: Innovation or invention?
STRATEGIC ORGANIZATION
2017; 15 (2): 289-297
View details for DOI 10.1177/1476127016644642
View details for Web of Science ID 000401238300009
-
Opening the Black Box: The Microfoundations of Institutions
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism
Sage. 2017; 2nd: 328–55
View details for DOI 10.4135/9781446280669.n13
- Organizational Poisedness and the Transformation of Civic Order in 19th Century New York City Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development edited by Lamoreaux , N., Wallis, J. University of Chicago Press. 2017: 179–230
- Contributory or Disruptive: Do New Forms of Philanthropy Erode Democracy? Philanthropy in Democratic Societies edited by Reich, R., Bernholz, L., Cordelli, C. Univ. of Chicago Press. 2016: 87–122
-
Click and mortar: Organizations on the web
RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: AN ANNUAL SERIES OF ANALYTICAL ESSAYS AND CRITICAL REVIEWS, VOL 36
2016; 36: 101-120
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.riob.2016.07.001
View details for Web of Science ID 000393933900006
-
The Explanation of Social Action. By John Levi Martin. New York: Oxford University Press (Book Review)
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
2013; 119 (3): 891–94
View details for DOI 10.1086/673079
View details for Web of Science ID 000334675000033
-
Amphibious entrepreneurs and the emergence of organizational forms
STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOURNAL
2012; 6 (2): 94-115
View details for DOI 10.1002/sej.1129
View details for Web of Science ID 000304905900002
-
From Smoke and Mirrors to Walking the Talk: Decoupling in the Contemporary World
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT ANNALS
2012; 6: 483-530
View details for DOI 10.1080/19416520.2012.684462
View details for Web of Science ID 000306119700010
- The emergence of organizations and markets Princeton University Press. 2012
- The new institutionalism in organizational analysis University of Chicago Press. 2012
-
The Problem of Emergence
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONS AND MARKETS
2012: 1–29
View details for Web of Science ID 000315724000001
-
Organizational and Institutional Genesis The Emergence of High-Tech Clusters in the Life Sciences
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONS AND MARKETS
2012: 434–65
View details for Web of Science ID 000315724000018
-
Coda Reflections on the Study of Multiple Networks
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONS AND MARKETS
2012: 566–70
View details for Web of Science ID 000315724000023
-
An Open Elite Arbiters, Catalysts, or Gatekeepers in the Dynamics of Industry Evolution?
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONS AND MARKETS
2012: 466–95
View details for Web of Science ID 000315724000019
-
Chance, Necessite, et Naivete Ingredients to Create a New Organizational Form
EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONS AND MARKETS
2012: 379–433
View details for Web of Science ID 000315724000017
-
Decoupling revisited: Common pressures, divergent strategies in the U.S. nonprofit sector
MANAGEMENT
2012; 15 (5): 469–501
View details for DOI 10.3917/mana.155.0469
View details for Web of Science ID 000213834300002
-
COLLECTIVE INVENTION AND INVENTOR NETWORKS
HANDBOOK OF THE ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION, VOL 1
2012; 1: 575–605
View details for DOI 10.1016/S0169-7218(10)01013-0
View details for Web of Science ID 000321960700014
- 17 Networks and Economic Life The handbook of economic sociology 2010: 379
-
Intellectual capital or signal? The effects of scientists on alliance formation in knowledge-intensive industries
RESEARCH POLICY
2009; 38 (8): 1313-1325
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.respol.2009.06.001
View details for Web of Science ID 000270165000010
-
The Rationalization of Charity: The Influences of Professionalism in the Nonprofit Sector
ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
2009; 54 (2): 268-298
View details for Web of Science ID 000268585600003
-
Networks, Propinquity, and Innovation in Knowledge-intensive Industries
ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
2009; 54 (1): 90-122
View details for Web of Science ID 000267226300004
- Plans, takes, and mis-takes Outlines. Critical Practice Studies 2008; 10 (1): 4-21
-
Innovaton and emulation: Lessons from American universities in selling private rights to public knowledge
Conference on Science and the Creation of Value - From Alchemy to Proteomics
SPRINGER. 2007: 121–42
View details for DOI 10.1007/s11024-007-9034-2
View details for Web of Science ID 000247308200003
-
Biotechnology: Its origins, organization, and outputs
RESEARCH POLICY
2007; 36 (4): 433-437
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.respol.2007.04.001
View details for Web of Science ID 000247199700001
-
FROM VULNERABLE TO VENERATED: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF ACADEMIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
SOCIOLOGY OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
2007; 25: 219–59
View details for DOI 10.1016/S0733-558X(06)25007-9
View details for Web of Science ID 000270906000007
- The frontiers of intellectual property: Expanded protection versus new models of open science Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2007; 3: 345-373
-
ROADS TO INSTITUTIONALIZATION: THE REMAKING OF BOUNDARIES BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCIENCE
RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, VOL 27
2006; 27: 305-353
View details for DOI 10.1016/S0191-3085(06)27008-4
View details for Web of Science ID 000261327200008
-
Universities and the production of knowledge - Introduction
HIGHER EDUCATION
2005; 49 (1-2): 1-8
View details for DOI 10.1007/s10734-004-2909-3
View details for Web of Science ID 000227078100001
-
Network dynamics and field evolution: The growth of interorganizational collaboration in the life sciences
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
2005; 110 (4): 1132-1205
View details for Web of Science ID 000229472000010
-
Networks and Economic Life
HANDBOOK OF ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY, SECOND EDITION
2005: 379–402
View details for Web of Science ID 000287573700018
-
Careers and contradictions: Faculty responses to the transformation of knowledge and its uses in the life sciences
SOCIOLOGIE DU TRAVAIL
2004; 46 (3): 347-377
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.soctra.2004.07.001
View details for Web of Science ID 000225125600004
-
The knowledge economy
ANNUAL REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY
2004; 30: 199-220
View details for DOI 10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100037
View details for Web of Science ID 000223503200010
-
Knowledge networks as channels and conduits: The effects of spillovers in the Boston biotechnology community
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
2004; 15 (1): 5-21
View details for DOI 10.1287/orsc.1030.0054
View details for Web of Science ID 000220015600001
-
The expanding role of university patenting in the life sciences: assessing the importance of experience and connectivity
RESEARCH POLICY
2003; 32 (9): 1695-1711
View details for DOI 10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00045-3
View details for Web of Science ID 000186111700011
- Neither market nor hierarchy The sociology of organizations: classic, contemporary, and critical readings 2003; 315: 104-117
-
Europe and the United States: The power of networks
BIOFUTUR
2002: 26-29
View details for Web of Science ID 000175849900002
-
The spatial clustering of science and capital: Accounting for biotech firm-venture capital relationships
REGIONAL STUDIES
2002; 36 (3): 291-305
View details for DOI 10.1080/00343400220122089
View details for Web of Science ID 000175225200007
-
A comparison of US and European university-industry relations in the life sciences
Conference on University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer
INFORMS. 2002: 24–43
View details for Web of Science ID 000173972400003
- The capitalist firm in the 21st century: emerging patterns The 21st Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective 2001
-
The sources of management logics
ADVANCES IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, VOL 17, 2000
2000; 17: 175-179
View details for Web of Science ID 000089165000013
- The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields Economics meets sociology in strategic management Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 2000: 143–166
-
The last word? Not a chance
ADVANCES IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, VOL 17, 2000
2000; 17: 197-199
View details for Web of Science ID 000089165000017
-
Under large pharmaceutical companies' umbrellas
BIOFUTUR
1999; 1999 (194): 46-49
View details for Web of Science ID 000084118800015
- Learning from collaboration: Knowledge and networks in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries California management review 1998; 40 (3): 228-240
- Universities as creators and retailers of intellectual property: Life-sciences research and commercial development To profit or not to profit: The commercial transformation of the nonprofit sector 1998: 169-193
- Private action and the public good Yale University Press. 1998
-
Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in biotechnology
ADMINISTRATIVE, SCI QUARTERLY. 1996: 116–45
View details for DOI 10.2307/2393988
View details for Web of Science ID A1996UM25300005
-
Inter-organizational collaboration in the biotechnology industry
J C B MOHR. 1996: 197–215
View details for Web of Science ID A1996UC50300020
-
Commentary - On the nature of institutional embeddedness: Labels vs explanation
ADVANCES IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
1996; 13: 293–300
View details for Web of Science ID A1996WY33500013
- Inter-organizational collaboration in the biotechnology industry Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 1996: 197-215
- Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in biotechnology Administrative science quarterly 1996: 116-145
-
CAREERS IN PRINT - BOOKS, JOURNALS, AND SCHOLARLY REPUTATIONS
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
1995; 101 (2): 433–94
View details for DOI 10.1086/230730
View details for Web of Science ID A1995RW36500006
-
NEITHER MARKET NOR HIERARCHY - NETWORK FORMS OF ORGANIZATION
RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
1990; 12: 295–336
View details for Web of Science ID A1990CV95500008
-
HYBRID ORGANIZATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS - NEW FORM OR TRANSITIONAL DEVELOPMENT
CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW
1987; 30 (1): 67-87
View details for Web of Science ID A1987L343500006
- Getting into print: The decision-making process in scholarly publishing University of Chicago Press. 1985
-
THE IRON CAGE REVISITED - INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM AND COLLECTIVE RATIONALITY IN ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
1983; 48 (2): 147–60
View details for DOI 10.2307/2095101
View details for Web of Science ID A1983QK63300001
- Books: The culture and commerce of publishing Basic Books New York. 1982