Ned Smith was a Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology, core faculty member of the Northwestern Institute for Complexity (NICO), and faculty associate at the Northwestern Institute for Policy Research. Prior to joining Northwestern, Ned was the NBD Bancorp Assistant Professor of Strategy at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2010 (specializing in sociology and economics) and BAs in Political Science and Chinese literature & language from Yale University in 2003.
Ned had three main areas of research. First, he studied the effects of social structure on the behavior and decision-making of individuals and organizations. His research in this area has been financially supported by the Kauffman Foundation. Related articles on investor decision-making ("Identities as lenses") and market responses to new executive appointments ("Better in the Shadows") have received the two primary Best Paper Awards given by the Academy of Management. Second, Ned worked to connect research on cognitive processes and network theories of social capital to better understand how people utilize (and squander) the resources available to them in their social networks. This research analyzes how people mentally construct their social worlds, i.e., their social networks, according to various cognitive and situational factors. Third, Ned researched collective intelligence and the "wisdom of crowds." Using empirical data from financial markets and large-scale experiments, Ned and his collaborators are seeking to understand the conditions--for instance, structure and decision-making rules--under which a crowd will outperform the individuals (even expert indivduals) making up the crowd.
Ned has published his research in leading management and sociology journals including the American Journal of Sociology, the Annual Review of Sociology, Administrative Science Quarterly, The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Management Science, Organization Science, Social Networks, Strategic Management Journal, Social Science Research, Industrial and Corporate Change, and Research in Organizational Sciences. He was a senior editor at Organization Science and was a member of the editorial board at Administrative Science Quarterly.
Ned taught MBA and executive-level courses on strategy, organizational design, strategic alliances, and change management, as well as doctoral-level courses on quantitative research methods. Ned's teaching has been recognized at Northwestern via his selection as both a Searle Teaching Fellow and ASCEND Fellow. For his doctoral-level teaching, Ned received the 2019 Kellogg Research Mentorship Award. His MBA and executive courses are consistently among the highest evaluated courses at Kellogg. His online course, "Strategic Change Management" has enrolled more than 500 leaders and executives from around the world. Ned was passionate about supporting the non-profit sector, especially in the areas of cancer research and youth support for families affected by cancer.
