Emilio J. Castilla

Emilio J. Castilla is currently the co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research. He joined MIT in 2005, after being a faculty member in the Management Department of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in Sociology from Stanford University.

Castilla studies how social and organizational processes (for example, social networks, hiring and recruiting efforts, performance-reward systems, and managerial roles) influence key employment outcomes for individuals and organizations over time. He formulates and answers his research questions in a variety of research settings, making use of field company studies and experimental research methodologies. Recently, given the widely popular goals of promoting meritocracy and creating opportunity inside institutions, his work has focused on the role that merit and merit-based organizational practices play in shaping employees’ careers in today’s workplaces.

Castilla’s work has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, ILR Review, American Journal of Sociology, and American Sociological Review. And he has taught in various degree programs at MIT Sloan, the Wharton School, and a number of other international universities. His teaching interests include Strategic Human Resource Management, Leading Effective Organizations, Strategies for People Analytics, and Managing a Diverse Workforce. In addition to teaching full-time MBA and executive courses, he has taught several PhD-level seminars.