Alan Benson

Associate Professor

Alan Benson is Associate Professor in the Work and Organizations Group at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. He is also on the graduate faculty of the Department of Applied Economics and the Minnesota Population Center, Senior Editor at Organization Science, and Associate Editor in the Organizations department of Management Science, where he typically handle papers involving the experimental or econometric analyses of people and organizations.

Professor Benson's research is in personnel economics: the economic analysis of human resources. His studies primarily involve working with companies to analyze hiring, promotions, and incentives using interviews, applied theory, and econometric methods. He also collaborates with organizational researchers outside economics, particularly with economic sociologists. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Labor Economics, Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, American Sociological Review, Demography, the ILR Review, and Industrial Relations, and covered by the NY Times, WSJ, NPR, the Economist, Financial Times, and other outlets.

He received his PhD in 2013 from the MIT Sloan School of Management and his BS from Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He teaches Masters of HR Compensation and Benefits, MBA Negotiations, and PhD Economics of HR. He also assembled the Coursera MOOC, Managing Employee Compensation.

Relevant Research

  • Manchester, C. F., Benson, A., & Shaver, J. M. (2023). Dual careers and the willingness to consider employment in startup ventures. Strategic Management Journal, 44(9), 2175–2194. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3481

  • Ranganathan, A., & Benson, A. (2020). A numbers game: Quantification of Work, Auto-Gamification, and Worker productivity. American Sociological Review, 85(4), 573–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420936665

Interest

  • Economics of human resources

  • Compensation

  • Incentives