ABOUT ME

I am Yongha ("Yon") Kwon, an incoming Assistant Professor of Business at Oberlin College starting in Fall 2025, alongside my better half Minah Park, who will also be joining as an Assistant Professor.

RESEARCH

My research explores organizational design as a managerial lever to facilitate organizational learning. It highlights how formally designed interaction patterns evolve through social dynamics among individuals. Acknowledging their choices regarding with whom and how to interact, I challenge taken-for-granted notions of organizational design in the creation, recombination, and diffusion of knowledge. For example:

• The benefits of flat hierarchies in a knowledge-based economy may have been overstated, considering how social dynamics can erode these advantages over time. 

• Tightly integrated organizational designs are often criticized for aggravating consensus around immature ideas (e.g., group thinking). However, these designs can enhance organizational learning when individuals prioritize sharing their knowledge with less competent colleagues rather than merely adopting superior performers' knowledge.

• Homophily between individuals, typically perceived as a barrier to combining diverse ideas, can sometimes promote the creation of novel insights in organizational settings where formal interactions are enforced to a certain degree.

• Imitation strategy helps organizational learning not only by introducing novel external knowledge but also by creating coordination challenges among managers that can enhance the potential for novel recombination of internal knowledge.

See my Vita for an overview.

Keywords

• Organizational design; organizational learning; social dynamics

TEACHING

I am interested in the positive education movement, reflecting on how to create inclusive, enjoyable, and meaningful learning environments. I value active and open communication with students inside and outside of the classroom. I employ class exercises to deliver important yet often taken-for-granted ideas and principles about management.

Syllabus

• Strategic Management

OTHER INTERESTS

I occasionally go for runs to keep my mind sharp and make room for more ice cream. I also enjoy spending time with Minah and our 2-year-old daughter, Nuri.