Research Interests:
Social Robustness, Cooperation, Social Hierarchy, Social Influence, Robust Decision-Making
Social Robustness, Cooperation, Social Hierarchy, Social Influence, Robust Decision-Making
My research examines the robustness of social systems in the face of potentially disruptive social forces. Robustness—the persistence of one aspect, or the entirety, of a system in the face of either internal or external perturbations—has received growing attention among the natural and engineering sciences, but has yet to formally permeate the study of organizations. For example, engineering studies examine the security performance of a cloud computing system in the face of hacking, biological studies focus on the antibody response of a human immune system in the face of an autoimmune disorder, and ecological studies analyze the health of fish population in the face of overfishing. Robustness is a unique lens for organizational research because it explicitly examines the persistence of a social system’s performance in the face of perturbations that should disrupt it. Perturbations are factors that create a change in the system’s composition, core relational dynamics, or fundamental assumptions about the environment in which it operates. They can be external to the system (e.g., changes in a legal code that adjust interaction patterns between firms), or internal to the system (e.g., an incentive system unintentionally incentivizes employees’ unethical behavior). As such, robustness can help differentiate between systems that appear to be high-performing because of their continued existence over time and those that are high-performing because they can resist disruptive pressures.
Dissertation
Title: Robust Systems of Cooperation
Dissertation Committee: Wayne Baker, Maxim Sytch, Jim Walsh, Jerry Davis, and Scott Page
Publications and Working Papers
Chambers, C.R. and Baker, W.E. (2020). Robust Systems of Cooperation in the Presence of Rankings: How displaying prosocial contributions can offset the disruptive effects of performance rankings. Organization Science.
Chambers, C.R. Reputation Rankings, Cheaters, and Maintaining Robust Cooperation (Revise and Resubmit, ASQ).
Aceves, P., and Chambers, C.R. Social Influence and Social Evaluation in Online Platforms
Chambers, C.R., Sytch, M., and Aceves, P. Forever Following the Crowd: When a Decrease in Uncertainty Amplifies Social Influence.
Baker, W.E., and Chambers, C.R. Shifting Cooperative Strategies: Micro-Movements through Systems of Cooperation.
Baker, W.E., Chambers, C.R., and Uribe, J. The Ebb and Flow of Systems of Cooperation in Competitive Environments.
Chambers, C.R. Between Two Extremes: Oscillation as a Mechanism for the Maintenance of Conflicting Organizational Identities.
*Runner up for OMT’s Best Student Paper Award 2017
Dissertation
Title: Robust Systems of Cooperation
Dissertation Committee: Wayne Baker, Maxim Sytch, Jim Walsh, Jerry Davis, and Scott Page
Publications and Working Papers
Chambers, C.R. and Baker, W.E. (2020). Robust Systems of Cooperation in the Presence of Rankings: How displaying prosocial contributions can offset the disruptive effects of performance rankings. Organization Science.
Chambers, C.R. Reputation Rankings, Cheaters, and Maintaining Robust Cooperation (Revise and Resubmit, ASQ).
Aceves, P., and Chambers, C.R. Social Influence and Social Evaluation in Online Platforms
Chambers, C.R., Sytch, M., and Aceves, P. Forever Following the Crowd: When a Decrease in Uncertainty Amplifies Social Influence.
Baker, W.E., and Chambers, C.R. Shifting Cooperative Strategies: Micro-Movements through Systems of Cooperation.
Baker, W.E., Chambers, C.R., and Uribe, J. The Ebb and Flow of Systems of Cooperation in Competitive Environments.
Chambers, C.R. Between Two Extremes: Oscillation as a Mechanism for the Maintenance of Conflicting Organizational Identities.
*Runner up for OMT’s Best Student Paper Award 2017