Damon Phillips

Damon J. Phillips is a Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Wharton, he was the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia University Business School. He received his PhD from Stanford University. Before joining Columbia in 2011, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (from 1998-2011). During the 2010-2011 academic year he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Professor Phillips has expertise in social structural approaches to labor and product markets, entrepreneurship, innovation, organizational change, strategy and structure, as well as social network theory and analysis. His industry specialties are markets for professional services (law, consulting, investment banking) and culture (music industry). His 2013 acclaimed book, “Shaping Jazz,” is an innovative study of the emergence and evolution of the market for recorded jazz. In addition to publishing in top journals within management and sociology, Professor Phillips is an Associate Editor at the Administrative Science Quarterly, a Consulting Editor at Sociological Science, a former Associate Editor with Management Science, and former Consulting Editor at the American Journal of Sociology. Professor Phillips is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Morehouse College majoring in physics. He earned his first master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. He earned a second master’s degree in sociology from Stanford University. Before pursuing his PhD at Stanford, he worked as an engineer and researcher affiliated with the U.S. Air Force (Lincoln Labs, MA) and was an executive in a family-owned electronics manufacturing business. He enjoys spending time with his family, writing, and listening to music.

Areas of Expertise:

• Entrepreneurship; Labor Markets and Professional Careers; Social Networks; Leading and Managing Change; Social Networks.

Awards and Honors

• Distinguished Educator Award, Academy of Management OMT Division, 2021
• Fellow: The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, 2010-2011
• Elected to Economic Sociology Executive Council of the ASA, 2008-2011
• Elected as Representative-at-Large for the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management, 2008-2011