Erin Kelly

About

Erin Kelly is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. Her research investigates the implications of workplace policies and management practices for firms, workers, and families, with a joint focus on equity, wellbeing, and organizational performance. Kelly’s work has been published in top sociology, management, and interdisciplinary journals, and she has received recognition with awards such as the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award and the Max Weber Award. She authored the book 'Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It,' published by Princeton University Press in March 2020, which received notable awards and recognition. Her research explores topics including workplace scheduling, diversity policies, work redesign, and worker voice, with ongoing projects examining work conditions in e-commerce warehouses and low- to moderate-wage jobs. Kelly holds a PhD from Princeton University and a BA from Rice University, and she previously taught at the University of Minnesota.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Business
• Economics
• Public relations
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Computer Security
• Social Science

Selected publications

• Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It

  2020 · 200 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Why too much work and too little time is hurting workers and companies-and how a proven workplace redesign can benefit employees and the bottom lineToday's ways of working are not working-even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creat…

• How Do Employer Practices Affect Economic Mobility?

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2023-07-21 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  How can employers facilitate economic mobility for workers, particularly workers of color or those without a college degree? The authors integrate a fragmented literature to assess how employers’ practices affect enhanced economic security and mobility. This article first identifies three pathways linking employers’ practices to mobility: improving material job quality, increasing access to better jobs for historically marginalized workers, and promoting sustainability of employment. The authors…

  PublisherDOI

• Fixing the overload problem at work

  CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2020-06-01 · 5 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Review of Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It

  Social Forces · 2021-01-04 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Review of Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It Princeton University Press, 2020, 336 pages. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179179/overload Erin L Kelly, Erin L Kelly Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Phyllis Moen Phyllis Moen Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 99, Issue 4, June 2021, Page e23, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa150 Published: 28 January 2021…

  PublisherDOI

• Commentary on New Theories in Employment Relations

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2021-04-07 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  ILR Review invited leading scholars to present short comments on paired articles in the preceding Special Issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. They identify key contributions, suggest extensions, and offer broader thoughts on the direction of future theory in employment relations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Flexible Work and Well-Being Center at the University of Minnesota

  NIH · $6.7M · 2005–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Phyllis Moen

  University of Minnesota

  194 shared

• Jeremy W. Bray

  116 shared

• Ryan Olson

  101 shared

• Michael J. Mills

  University of Massachusetts Lowell

  101 shared

• Brad Wipfli

  Portland State University

  101 shared

• Carolina Barbosa

  RTI International

  100 shared

• William N. Dowd

  RTI International

  100 shared

• Leslie B. Hammer

  Oregon Health & Science University

  84 shared

Labs

• MIT Sloan Work and Organization StudiesPI

Awards & honors

• 2024 Ellen Galinsky Generative Researcher Award from the Wor…
• 2021 Max Weber Book Award for Distinguished Scholarship from…
• 2015 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Famil…

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