Lakshmi Ramarajan

Lakshmi Ramarajan is the Anna Spangler Nelson and Thomas C. Nelson Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research examines the management and consequences of identities in organizations.

Lakshmi''s research examines how people can work fruitfully across social divides, with a particular emphasis on identities and group boundaries.  Her research addresses two broad questions: 1) How does the work environment shape people’s experiences as members of particular groups and of their multiple identities? 2)  What are the consequences of multiple identities and group differences in organizations? She investigates professional and work identities alongside other identities that are important to people, such as ethnicity, community and family.  She examines consequences such as employee engagement and commitment to work, career success and satisfaction, quality of interpersonal and intergroup relations, and performance. In recent work, using experiments, surveys and interviews, she has examined how individuals’ manage their organizational, cultural and personal identities, and how these identities interact to influence engagement and performance.

Lakshmi earned her B.A. (Honors) in International Relations from Wellesley College, her M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her PhD in Management from The Wharton School of Business. She was awarded the State Farm Foundation Dissertation Proposal Award in 2008. She was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School from 2008 to 2010. 

Prior to her academic career, Lakshmi worked in international development, managing conflict resolution programs in West Africa with a focus on gender and workforce development.  She was also a professional dancer for several years.