Brittany M. Bond

Brittany Bond is an organizational theorist and economic sociologist who investigates the importance of status recognition in labor market outcomes. Specifically, she focuses on how personnel management systems, including talent recruitment and performance assessment, shape careers and impact the long-term performance of firms. Professor Bond's research has appeared in journals such as Sociological Science, has been highlighted on the US Census Bureau's Research Matters Blog, and featured on the Wharton Business Radio Show: In the Workplace. In 2020, her dissertation on the importance of symbolic status recognition within performance evaluation processes won both the Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division "Louis R. Pondy Best Dissertation Paper" and the "William H. Neman All-Academy Award for Best Paper Based on a Dissertation" at the Academy of Management.

Before joining Cornell ILR School, Brittany Bond received her PhD from the Economic Sociology Program at MIT Sloan in May 2020. Prior to MIT, she was an economist in Office of the Chief Economist of the US Commerce Department where she worked on detail at the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies using internal Census hiring data in conjunction with national longitudinal linked employer-household data (LEHD) on projects such as the optimization of the 2020 Decennial Census hiring operations.

Brittany Bond received her MS in Public Policy and Management from the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, and her BA in International Economic Relations from American University in Washington DC.

Research Statement 

As an economic sociologist, I study questions concerning the role of status in organizational strategy and labor market competition using the theoretical lenses of organizational behavior, organization theory. In particular, I investigate the unintended productivity consequences of performance management and talent attraction schemes in organizations. To study these processes, I specialize in longitudinal econometric analyses coupled with experimental survey designs and the use of natural experiments observed in the field. In addition, my research demonstrates the influence that social networks have on determining the quality of an organization’s talent pools. Ultimately, I work to advance our theoretical understanding of how professional recognition and social networks shift career trajectories, while informing the strategic design of performance management processes for top-tier professionals especially.