Roderick M. Kramer

Who is Roderick M. Kramer?

Roderick Kramer’s research focuses on a number of topics, including the social psychology of trust and distrust, cooperation, creativity, decision making, leadership, impression management, social identity theory, group processes and decision making, and organizational paranoia. His most recent research has examined the cognitive determinants of judgments of creativity in Hollywood “pitch” meetings, where screenwriters present their ideas to agents and producers.

Roderick Kramer is the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior. Kramer received his BA in experimental psychology and philosophy from California State University Los Angeles in 1977. He received his Master’s in Experimental Psychology from California State University in 1980. He earned his PhD in social psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1985, with minors in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. He was a visiting associate professor at Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University) in 1991. He was a visiting professor at Oxford University and London Business School in 2001. In 2002 and 2004, he was a visiting professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2004-2005, he was a Visiting Senior Scholar at the Hoover Institution. Kramer has been at Stanford since 1985.

Kramer is the author or co-author of more than 100 scholarly articles and essays. His work has appeared in leading academic journals, such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Academy of Management Journal. He has also published in popular journals, such as the Harvard Business Review. He is also the author or co-author of numerous books, including Negotiation in Social Contexts; The Psychology of the Social Self; Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, Power and Influence in Organizations; Psychology of Leadership; Trust and Distrust Within Organizations; Misuses of Power: Causes and Correctives; and Trust and Distrust: Progress and Promise in Theory and Research. In 2004 he won the best publication award from the Academy of Management and the Best Paper of the Year Award from the Academy Management Journal. In 2004, he was also the second place winner of the McKinsey Award for Most Outstanding Article in Management Theory. For the past two years, he has been a member of the selection committee of U. S. News and World Report’s annual issue on America’s Best Leaders. He has been on the editorial boards of leading academic journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. He is a former co-editor of Research in Organizational Behavior.

Kramer teaches or has taught MBA courses on negotiation and conflict management, group processes and group decision making, leadership, creativity, and power and influence. In Executive Education, he has taught in the Negotiations, Advanced Negotiations, Teams and Groups, Corporate Governance Program, the Executive Program for Growing Companies, Executive Program on Change, and the Stanford Executive Program, the School’s flagship six-week program for senior executives. He also teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and consults with a variety of organizations on issues of trust, leadership, group decision making, and creativity.