2024 Generative Researcher Award Recipient: Erin Kelly
Erin L. Kelly is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research.
Dr. Kelly’s research has been published in many top sociology, management, and interdisciplinary journals and twice recognized with the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award. Her book with Phyllis Moen, Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It, was published by Princeton University Press in March 2020. Overload received the 2021 Max Weber Award from the American Sociological Association’s Organizations, Occupations, and Work section, and an honorable mention for the 2021 Viviana Zelizer Award for best book in economic sociology. Overload was also named as one of Business Insider’s 10 Books to Read to Learn about the Future of Work.
Dr. Kelly investigates the implications of workplace policies and management practices for firms, workers, and families with a joint focus on equity, wellbeing, and organizational performance. Previous research has examined scheduling and work-family supports, family leaves, harassment policies, and diversity initiatives in a variety of organizations and industries. Dr. Kelly’s early research contributed to our understanding of which diversity policies and programs seem to change organizations and which are primarily “window dressing.”
Nominator Melissa Milkie writes “One stellar contribution of Dr. Kelly’s work is the generative concept of schedule control, dating back from about her time with the Work-Family Health Network. The concept of schedule control includes not only the time of day, but where people work and how much work they do. Moving the idea of flexibility forward to the importance of control for workers’ work and family wellbeing, Dr. Kelly and her collaborators have been pivotal in elevating the concept as a critical topic within the field….Dr. Kelly’s research on work redesign has played a vital role in advancing the discourse on workplace policies and practices, demonstrating through rigorous experimental and multi-method studies that it is indeed feasible to enact meaningful changes to address work-life challenges, reduce overload and burnout, and support overall worker well-being….. Dr. Kelly has a stellar research-for-action or research-to-practice project, which was cited repeatedly within the US Surgeon General’s framework for Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing.”
The WFRN is honored to recognize the profound impact that Dr. Erin Kelly has had on the work-family area of inquiry.