Areas of Expertise (8)
Dynamic Leadership
Organizational Flexibility
Leading Multi-cultural Knowledge Workers
Orchestrating Geo-distributed Teams
Impact of Technology on Organizational Design
Organizational Innovation for Globalization
Enterprise Adaptation & Flexibility
Transformational Change
About
Homa Bahrami is an international educator, advisor, board member, and author, specializing in organizational flexibility, team alignment, and dynamic leadership in global, knowledge-based industries. She is a senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley and a faculty director at the Haas Center for Executive Education, and has served on the Board of the Haas Center for Teaching Excellence.
She is the co-author of a major textbook (with Harold Leavitt, Stanford University), ”Managerial Psychology: Managing Behavior in Organizations," published by the University of Chicago Press, and translated into many languages. Her latest book, “Super-Flexibility for Knowledge Enterprises,” (second edition published by Springer and co-authored with Stuart Evans, Carnegie Mellon) focuses on practical approaches for strategizing, organizing, and leading knowledge workers based on their collective experience and field research in Silicon Valley during the past 30 years.
Bahrami has served on the boards of directors of three public technology companies and has been a member of all three board committees: audit, compensation, and governance. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and is active in executive education and executive development in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
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Education (3)
Aston University: PhD, Organizational Behavior
Aston University: MSc, Industrial Administration
Hull University: BA with Honors, Sociology & Social Administration
Links (3)
Selected External Service & Affiliations (8)
- Member of the Board of Directors, Fabrinet (2012-present)
- Member of the Board of Directors, FEI Inc. (2012-2016)
- Member of the Board of Directors, FormFactor, Inc.
- Director, Pedagogy, Inc.
- Advisory Director, Securitas Capital
- Member, Advisory Board: Institute for Growth & Innovation, Icarian, Kadiri, Green Border, Mercer Tech
- Member, Advisory Board: HEAL, UCSF
- Advisor and executive educator for global and high tech companies in the US and Europe
Positions Held (1)
At Haas since 1986
1995 – present, Senior Lecturer, Haas School of Business 2006 – present, Faculty Director, Berkeley Executive Education, Haas School of Business 2009 – 2014, Advisory Board, Center for Teaching Excellence, Haas School of Business 2003-2004 & 2017 Guest Professor, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland 1999-2000, Guest Professor, University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany 1986 – 1995, Lecturer, Haas School of Business 1984 – 1988, Research Associate, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University 1982 – 1984, Postdoctoral Fellow & Visiting Scholar, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Media Appearances (7)
How to Lead When the Pace of Change Feels Relentless
From Day One online
2021-11-05
Every employee has faced distinct challenges and gained insights from navigating the pandemic. The key for leaders is to tap into those personalized insights to help inform company decisions—a bottom-up approach, says Senior Lecturer Homa Bahrami. She suggests tapping into employees’ sentiments and collective experiences by asking what worked, and what didn’t, as they’ve navigated their own personal transitions.
Pandemic keeps disrupting Sonoma County employers’ on-site work plans
North Bay Business Journal online
2021-08-13
Senior Lecturer Homa Bahrami is not surprised companies in Sonoma County are delaying going back to the office or rolling back to predominantly remote work. They’re just following the lead of “bellwether” companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple. For workplace planning, the pandemic has caused a “one step forward, two steps back” approach, she said.
How to re-invent yourself and your career during the 'great resignation', experts weigh-in
ABC15 Arizona online
2021-07-27
Post-pandemic, the "normal" workplace is no more. “This is not just a short-term issue,” said Senior Lecturer Homa Bahrami. “In the long term we’ll see more fluidity in the way the workforce will operate.”
In post-pandemic workplace reshuffle, some in Sonoma County switch career paths
The Press Democrat online
2021-06-25
Companies and workers are continuing to rethink what they’re doing, and reflecting on the future of work. "I don’t think post-pandemic we’ll go back to what it was like in late 2019 or early 2020,” said Homa Bahrami, a member of the Haas professional faculty. “I think there’s a fundamental shift in society. I don’t see the workforce of the future being like it was pre-pandemic.”
How SF companies can defend against hackers as workforce returns to the office
The San Francisco Examiner online
2021-06-14
Employee mindsets are essential when thinking about their resilience to cyber attacks, the author writes. Senior Lecturer Homa Bahrami said “Younger people are more interested in getting back and interacting with their co-workers while those with young families want more flexibility,” she said. “Everyone is in a different place and faces different circumstances.”
What the Air Force Can Teach American Business
Fortune online
2016-07-03
"Not only does this system demonstrate the value of assigning people to a task based on their experience and expertise, it also offers younger officers crucial management and leadership skills via experiential learning. 'This is a great opportunity to develop future leaders on the job,' said Dr. Homa Bahrami, senior lecturer at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business..."
The pandemic is driving disruption, innovation and ‘a new reality’ at work
Berkeley News online
2021-07-06
In an interview, Senior Lecturer Homa Bahrami says post-pandemic changes in the workplace are going to be massive and will affect everything from job-seeking and recruitment to physical workplaces to management styles. “We have to think about the best and worst experiences of the past 16 months and re-imagine how work can be done going forward,” she said. “We’re witnessing a volcanic eruption.”
Selected Papers & Publications (18)
Flexibility at Genentech: Developing Versatile Domain Experts and Deploying Flexible Resources at One U.S. Medical Affairs Unit
Berkeley Haas Case Series
Homa Bahrami and Stuart Evans
2016
People Operations at Mozilla Corporation: Scaling a Peer-to-Peer Global Community
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami
2013
Super-Flexibility for Real-Time Adaptation: Perspectives from Silicon Valley
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami and Stuart Evans
2011
Super-Flexibility for Knowledge Enterprises: A Toolkit for Dynamic Adaptation
Springer
Homa Bahrami
2010
Nurturing Learning Partnerships
Learning Journeys Re-Visited
Homa Bahrami
2009
Leading Global Knowledge Workers
Global Talent: An Anthology of Human Capital Strategies for Today’s Borderless Enterprise
Homa Bahrami
2008
Leading High Tech Knowledge Workers
PKU Business Review (Beijing University)
Homa Bahrami
2006
Organizing for Strategic Flexibility
The Leadership Frontiers, Financial Times
Homa Bahrami
2002
Nodal Organizational Designs in Silicon Valley
Business Engineering
Homa Bahrami, Stuart Evans
2000
Flexible Recycling & High Technology Entrepreneurship
Understanding Silicon Valley
Noma Bahrami
2000
Nurturing Learning Partnerships
Learning Journeys
Homa Bahrami
2000
Flexible Re-Cycling and High-Technology Entrepreneurship
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami, Stuart Evans
1995
The Emerging Flexible Organization: Perspectives from Silicon Valley
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami
1992
Emerging Organizational Regimes in High Technology Firms: The Bi‐modal Form
Human Resource Management
Homa Bahrami and Stuart Evans
1989
Strategy Making in High-Technology Firms: The Empiricist Mode
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami and Stuart Evans
1989
Stratocracy in High-Technology Firms
California Management Review
Homa Bahrami and Stuart Evans
1987
Strategic Management in High-Technology Firms: An Exploratory Study
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Home Bahrami
1983
Teaching (8)
International Business: Organizational Innovation for Global Companies
EWMBA 258A
Accelerating Change Readiness and Agility
EWMBA 258
Creating Effective Organizations
XMBA 205
Statoil Project Executive Program
Berkeley Executive Education
New Manager Boot Camp for Scientists and Engineers
Berkeley Executive Education
Top Tech Program
Berkeley Executive Education
The CIO Institute
Berkeley Executive Education
Product Management Program
Berkeley Executive Education
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