Jennifer Merluzzi
Professor Jennifer Merluzzi specializes in research on the early careers of professional managers and labor market inequality. She conducts studies on the role of individual identity in influencing and affecting labor market outcomes, such as promotions, job offers or compensation. Her research appears in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Social Science Research, with recent coverage in FastCompany and Harvard Business Review. Professor Merluzzi's current projects include investigating referral-based hiring and promotion outcomes of minorities, examining promotion outcomes across gender and marital status, and, using social network analysis to understand gendered work conflict in organizations.
Professor Merluzzi also brings rich real-world experience to her work at Tulane. Prior to academia, her professional background includes roles in general management, where she ran a regional call-center and managed supply chain operations at McMaster-Carr Industrial Supply Company, as well as worked in management consulting both at Keane Consulting Group and as an independent consultant.
She graduated with honors from Tulane University's Newcomb College with a BA in English and Sociology, has an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University and, received her Ph.D. from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in economic sociology.
"My research is heavily influenced by my doctoral studies at the University of Chicago on social capital (Burt 2000)," Merluzzi says. "The social capital analogy of those who benefit from narrowing in, closing their contacts around them vs. those who are advantaged from boundary-spanning and moving across diverse contacts and sources of information became a strong imprint for my subsequent interests and research questions on inequality and identity in the context of professional careers. I always think it’s far more interesting and impactful to identify and observe counter-intuitive findings and try to make sense out of them in my research."
Merluzzi, J. and Sterling, A. “Lasting Effects? Hiring through Referrals and the Post-Entry
Career Outcomes of Women and Minorities.” Forthcoming at Industrial Labor Relations Review, 2016.
Burt, R.S. and Merluzzi, J., “Path dependent network advantage: The serial closure hypothesis.”
Forthcoming at Academy of Management Discoveries, December 2016; Available online
at: http://amd.aom.org/content/early/2016/03/11/amd.2015.0108.abstract.
Merluzzi, J. and Torres, N. 2016. “Generalists get better job offers than specialists.” Harvard
Business Review, 94: 32-33.
Merluzzi, J. & Phillips, D.J. 2015. “The specialist discount: Negative returns for MBAs with
focused profiles in investment banking.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(1): 87-124.
- Top 20 Most Read articles in Administrative Science Quarterly online in Oct 2015, Jan to
March 2016; Top 50 March to July 2016
- Featured in U.S. News & World Report (8/1/16); New York Times (9/11/16)
Enjoy lunch at Domilise’s, they have the best shrimp poboys in town!
Professor Jennifer Merluzzi specializes in research on the early careers of professional managers and labor market inequality. She conducts studies on the role of individual identity in influencing and affecting labor market outcomes, such as promotions, job offers or compensation. Her research appears in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Social Science Research, with recent coverage in FastCompany and Harvard Business Review. Professor Merluzzi's current projects include investigating referral-based hiring and promotion outcomes of minorities, examining promotion outcomes across gender and marital status, and, using social network analysis to understand gendered work conflict in organizations.
Professor Merluzzi also brings rich real-world experience to her work at Tulane. Prior to academia, her professional background includes roles in general management, where she ran a regional call-center and managed supply chain operations at McMaster-Carr Industrial Supply Company, as well as worked in management consulting both at Keane Consulting Group and as an independent consultant.
She graduated with honors from Tulane University's Newcomb College with a BA in English and Sociology, has an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University and, received her Ph.D. from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in economic sociology.
"My research is heavily influenced by my doctoral studies at the University of Chicago on social capital (Burt 2000)," Merluzzi says. "The social capital analogy of those who benefit from narrowing in, closing their contacts around them vs. those who are advantaged from boundary-spanning and moving across diverse contacts and sources of information became a strong imprint for my subsequent interests and research questions on inequality and identity in the context of professional careers. I always think it’s far more interesting and impactful to identify and observe counter-intuitive findings and try to make sense out of them in my research."
Careers, Gender, Inequality, Social Networks
Merluzzi, J. and Sterling, A. “Lasting Effects? Hiring through Referrals and the Post-Entry
Career Outcomes of Women and Minorities.” Forthcoming at Industrial Labor Relations Review, 2016.
Burt, R.S. and Merluzzi, J., “Path dependent network advantage: The serial closure hypothesis.”
Forthcoming at Academy of Management Discoveries, December 2016; Available online
at: http://amd.aom.org/content/early/2016/03/11/amd.2015.0108.abstract.
Merluzzi, J. and Torres, N. 2016. “Generalists get better job offers than specialists.” Harvard
Business Review, 94: 32-33.
Merluzzi, J. & Phillips, D.J. 2015. “The specialist discount: Negative returns for MBAs with
focused profiles in investment banking.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(1): 87-124.
- Top 20 Most Read articles in Administrative Science Quarterly online in Oct 2015, Jan to
March 2016; Top 50 March to July 2016
- Featured in U.S. News & World Report (8/1/16); New York Times (9/11/16)
I have a new research project (with Ming Leung, UC-Berkeley and Koji Chavez, Washington University at St. Louis) on gender and hiring in high tech in California labor market. I also am working on a research project (with Margaret Ormiston, GW) on gender and leadership.
Enjoy lunch at Domilise’s, they have the best shrimp poboys in town!
