ABOUT ME

I am Yongha ("Yon") Kwon, an Assistant Professor of Business at Oberlin College, with my better half and colleague Minah Park.

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.

Key Words

• Organizational design; organizational learning; social dynamics

TEACHING

Guided by the principles of positive education, I strive to create inclusive, engaging, and meaningful learning environments that support students' academic and personal growth. I employ experiential exercises to help students discover and internalize important but often overlooked principles of management.

Classroom Exercises

• Gathering of Squirrels (A negotiation simulation for Business Ethics)

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.