Anita Williams Woolley

Anita Williams Woolley is an Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. She has a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, where she also earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

Her research and teaching interests include collaborative analysis and problem-solving in teams; online collaboration and collective intelligence; and managing multiple team memberships. Her research has been published in Science, PNAS, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, Management Science, Small Group Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, among others. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office, DARPA, and private corporations.

She is a Senior Editor at Organization Science, a Founding Associate Editor of Collective Intelligence, and is a member of the Academy of Management, the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research, and the Association for Psychological Science.

Education

Harvard University

Ph.D., Joint Doctoral Program in Organizational Behavior (2003); M.S., Social Psychology (2001); B.A., Psychology (1995): Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude

Academic Positions

• Associate Dean, Research
  Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business, Pittsburgh, United States1 Jul 2022
• Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory
  Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business, Pittsburgh, United States1 Jul 2022
• Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory
  Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States1 Jan 2015 - 30 Jun 2022
• Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory
  Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States1 Jan 2008 - 1 Jan 2015

Awards and Honors

• Academy of Management - Best Paper Award, Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division (2011)
• Roman Weil Prize for the Best Unpublished Paper on Problem-Solving (2010)
• Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University - Xerox Junior Faculty Chair (2010)
• Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University - Faculty Giving Chair (2009)
• Small Group Research - Finalist, Best Paper of the Year (2008)
• Harvard University - Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (2007)
• Academy of Management Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division "Cognition in the Rough" Workshop - Best Research Proposal (2006)
• Harvard University - Bok Center Certificate of Distinction for Teaching Assistants (2001)
• National Science Foundation - Graduate Research Fellowship (1998)
• Harvard University - Phi Beta Kappa (1995)
• Ford Foundation - Grant for Undergraduate Thesis Research (1994)
• Harvard University - John Harvard Scholarship for Academic Achievement (1994)
• Harvard University - Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Merit Award (1993)
• Army ROTC four-year scholarship (1991)

Publications

• Collective intelligence in teams and organizations
  Collective Intelligence

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Ishani Aggarwal, Thomas Malone) MIT Press, 2015

• Collective intelligence in computer-mediated collaboration emerges in different contexts and cultures

(author(s): David Engel, Anita Woolley, Ishani Aggarwal, Christopher Chabris, Masamichi Takahashi, Keiichi Nemoto, Carolin Kaiser, Young Ji Kim, Thomas Malone) Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015)

• Reading the mind in the eyes or reading between the lines? Theory of Mind predicts collective intelligence equally well online and face-to-face

(author(s): David Engel, Anita Woolley, Lisa Jing, Christopher Chabris, Thomas Malone) PLoS One 9(12), 2014

• Expertise and collective intelligence: when teams are (and are not) more than the sum of their parts
  Team Effectiveness: The Marketing & Management Collection

Henry Stewart Talks, Ltd, 2013

• High-status but low-performing: Effects of group status on information exchange and group outcome.

(author(s): Jin Wook Chang, Rosalind Chow, Anita Woolley) Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 2013

• The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search
  

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Julia Bear, Jin Wook Chang, Arwen DeCostanza) Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 122, 2013; 114-126

• Do you see what I see? The Effect of Members’ Cognitive Styles on Team Processes and Performance
  

(author(s): Ishani Aggarwal, Anita Woolley) Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 122, 2013; 92-99

• Two perspectives on intellectual capital and innovation in teams: Collective intelligence and cognitive diversity.
  Driving the economy through innovation and entrepreneurship

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Ishani Aggarwal) Springer, 2012

• Collective Intelligence in the Organization of Science

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Erica Fuchs) Organization Science 22, 2011; 1359-1367

• Multi-team Membership in Relation to Multi-team Systems
  Multi-team Systems: An Organization Form for Dynamic and Complex Environments

(author(s): Michael O''Leary, Mark Mortensen, Anita Woolley) Psychology Press/ Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2011

• Multiple Team Membership: A Theoretical Model of its Effects on Productivity and Learning for Individuals and Teams

(author(s): Michael O''Leary, Mark Mortensen, Anita Woolley) Academy of Management Review 36, 2011; 461-478

• Playing Offense vs. Defense: The Effects of Strategic Orientation on Team Process in Competitive Environments

Organization Science 22, 2011; 1384-1398

• Responses to Adversarial Situations and the Implications for Collective Intelligence

Journal of Organizational Behavior 32, 2011; 978-983

• The Contribution of Teams to Organizational Learning
  International handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management

(author(s): Katherine Roloff, Anita Woolley, Amy Edmondson) Blackwell, 2011; 249-272

• The Role of Gender in Team Collaboration and Performance

(author(s): Julia Bear, Anita Woolley) Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 36, 2011; 146-153

• What Makes a Team Smarter?
  

(author(s): Anita Woolley, T. Malone) Harvard Business Review, 2011; 32-33

• Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Christopher Chabris, Alexander Pentland, Nada Hashmi, Thomas Malone) Science 330, 2010; 686-688

• Multiple Team Membership: Working Together Effectively Before it All Goes Downhill

(author(s): Anita Woolley, M. O’Leary, M. Mortensen) IESE Insight 6, 2010; 52-58

• Means versus Ends: Implications of Outcome and Process Focus for Team Adaptation and Performance

Organization Science 20, 2009; 500-515

• Offensive versus Defensive Strategic Orientation and Collective Information Processing in Teams

Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 2009

• Organizations
  Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations

Sage Publications, 2009

• Putting First Things First: Task Focus and Team Performance

Journal of Organizational Behavior 30, 2009; 427-452

• Bringing in the Experts: How Team Composition and Work Strategy Jointly Shape Analytic Effectiveness

(author(s): Anita Woolley, M. Gerbasi, C. Chabris, S. Kosslyn, J. Hackman) Small Group Research 39, 2008; 352-371

• Using Brain-based Measures to Compose Teams: How Individual Capabilities and Team Collaboration Strategies Jointly Shape Performance

(author(s): Anita Woolley, J. Hackman, T. Jerde, C. Chabris, S. Bennett, S. Kosslyn) Social Neuroscience 2, 2007; 96-105

• Effects of Intervention Content and Timing on Group Task Performance

Behavioral Science 34, 1998; 30-46

WORKING PAPERS

• Matching contribution to expertise: The effect on group decision making and the role of gender composition

(author(s): Anna Mayo, Anita Woolley, Rosalind Chow)

• Cognitive style composition and creativity: The effect of shared cognition in teams

(author(s): Ishani Aggarwal, Anita Woolley) Organization Science

• Cognitive Versatility: A New Lens for Understanding Team Composition and Diversity

(author(s): Ishani Aggarwal, Marco Molinaro, Anita Woolley)

• Collective intelligence and team performance

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Ishani Aggarwal, Thomas Malone) Current Directions in Psychological Science

• From Crowds to Collaborators: Initiating Effort & Interactions Among Online Creative Workers

(author(s): Kevin Boudreau, Patrick Gaule, Karim Lakhani, Christoph Riedl, Anita Woolley)

• Team focus and team member deviance: The mediating role of action identification

(author(s): Kevin Cruz, Jonathan Pinto, Anita Woolley)

• The Heart and Mind of the Group: The independent contributions of collective intelligence and quality of interpersonal relationships to group learning

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Ishani Aggarwal)

• Multiple Team Membership and Timing of Switches: How the Autonomy to Switch Teams Affects Individual and Team Productivity

(author(s): Anita Woolley, Brandy Aven, Evelyn Zhang, Michael O''Leary, Mark Mortensen)

• The Effects of Team Strategic Orientation on Team Strategy and Information Search in Competitive Environments

(author(s): Anita Woolley, J. Bear, J. Chang, A. DeCostanza) Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 2011

• Manifesting the Value of Cognitive Diversity in Teams: The Critical Role of Emergent Interdependence
  Research on Managing Groups and Teams: Groups and Diversity

(author(s): Anita Woolley, H. Caruso) Elsevier Science Press 9, 2008

• Understanding Outcomes of Organizational Learning Interventions
  International Handbook on Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management

(author(s): A. Edmondson, Anita Woolley) Blackwell, 2003