Sameer Srivastava 
Associate Professor | Ewald T. Grether Chair in Business Administration and Public Policy | Co-Director, Computational Culture Lab | Co-Director, Berkeley Culture Initiative | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES
Pioneering the use of computational methods to study culture and cognition
Spotlight
Areas of Expertise (6)
Culture and Cognition
Organizational Sociology
Organizational Theory
Network Analysis
Economic Sociology
Research Design and Methods
About
Sameer B. Srivastava is the Ewald T. Grether Chair in Business Administration and Public Policy at Berkeley Haas. He is also affiliated with UC Berkeley Sociology.
His research unpacks the complex interrelationships among the culture of social groups, the cognition of individuals within these groups, and the connections that people forge within and across groups. Much of his work is set in organizational contexts, where he uses computational methods to examine how culture, cognition, and networks independently and jointly relate to career outcomes. His work has been published in scholarly journals such as American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and Organization Science. It has been covered in media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Forbes. He teaches a popular MBA elective course, Power and Politics in Organizations, and co-directs the Berkeley-Stanford Computational Culture Lab.
Srivastava has also served as a partner at the global management consultancy Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte). He holds AB, AM, MBA, and PhD degrees from Harvard University.
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Education (4)
Harvard University: PhD, Organizational Behavior/Sociology
Harvard University: AM, Sociology
Harvard Business School: MBA
Harvard College: AB Magna Cum Laude, Economics
Links (6)
Honors & Awards (6)
Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellowship, Haas School of Business
Recognition for faculty members “with a record of accomplishment and a very bright future” 2015
“Club 6” Member, Haas School of Business
Recognition for teaching excellence 2012-present
Best Paper Award, Wharton People Analytics Conference
2015 & 2016
Best Paper Award, Kellogg Computational Social Science Summit
2015
Schwabacher Fellowship, Haas School of Business
2014
State Farm Companies Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Award
2011
Selected External Service & Affiliations (6)
- 2020 - Present, American Journal of Sociology, Consulting Editor
- 2019 - Present, Organization Science, Senior Editor
- 2019 - Present, Administrative Science Quarterly, Methods Advisory Panel
- 2015 - Present, Administrative Science Quarterly, Editorial Board
- 2018 - 2021, American Sociological Review, Editorial Board
- 2017 - 2019, Academy of Management Review, Editorial Board
Positions Held (1)
At Haas since 2012
2018 - present, Associate Professor (with tenure), Haas School of Business 2016 - present, Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values 2016 - present, Faculty Affiliate, Department of Sociology 2020 - present, Faculty Affiliate, Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) 2012 – 2018, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business 1993 – 1997; 1999-2007, Partner, Monitor Group, a global management consultancy
Media Appearances (15)
Workplace Equality Improves When Women Mentor Men
Forbes online
2021-02-18
We're in a strange place with regards to the pandemic, with many teams working remotely, the author writes. Research by Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values, found that mentoring tended to work best for women when it's conducted face-to-face rather than online.
Artificial Intelligence, Cultural Diversity, and a Giant “Bag of Words”
Stanford Business Insights online
2020-11-20
A team of researchers including Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values, used machine learning to analyze what employees say on Glassdoor and make conclusions about company culture. The team found that companies that are in disagreement about culture are less efficient, while companies that embrace a diverse culture are more innovative.
It’s Time to Get Rid of Employee Surveys
The Wall Street online
2020-08-01
Some companies create chat rooms and monitor them closely to learn what employees think about policies and practices. Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava along with Amir Goldberg at Stanford have done groundbreaking work assessing and measuring the culture of organizations by studying the language employees use in their electronic communications, such as emails, Slack messages and Glassdoor reviews.
Want women to succeed in the workplace? Help them find a mentor
Tampa Bay Times online
2020-04-03
Mentorship is especially important for women, who benefit more than men do if their mentor has a high status, according to research by Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values and co-director of the Computational Culture Lab.
Three crucial strategies for effective mentoring
Associations Now online
2020-03-19
Mentoring matters, and for young women it matters even more. A study by Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values and co-director of the Computational Culture Lab, found that women gained more social capital from affiliation with a high-status mentor than their male counterparts did.
Are you a 'cultural fit' for your job? Machines can now tell
BBC online
2020-02-28
Algorithms can sift through applicants to indicate who would be a good workplace fit—which has its advantages, but isn’t without pitfalls. For one thing, it doesn't take into consideration an employee's ability to adapt, which is often what organizations should really be looking for, said Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values and co-director of the Computational Culture Lab.
Mentoring gets a reboot as more women professionals break into top leadership: Mentoring Monday
Cleveland.com online
2020-02-19
Studies show women who have a mentor get more promotions, achieve higher pay, and report being happier with their jobs. A 2015 study by Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values and co-director of the Computational Culture Lab, found that women gained more social capital than men did from a connection with a high-status mentor.
The New Analytics of Culture
Harvard Business Review online
2020-02-01
New methods for assessing and measuring organizational culture allow researchers to measure how culture actually influences employees' thoughts and behavior at work, writes Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values and Co-Director of the Computational Culture Lab. Srivastava uses big-data processing to mine the ubiquitous “digital traces” of culture in electronic communications, such as emails, Slack messages, and Glassdoor reviews.
Be Wary of Future of Work Predictions
Thrive Global online
2019-10-02
In 2010 I founded an enterprise software platform called WorkMarket to enable companies to manage their on-demand labor. At the time on-demand labor accounted for about 25% of the labor force. The general consensus among labor “experts” was that by 2020, 50% of the labor force would be on-demand labor. Given what we do at WorkMarket, this was a very beneficial forecast!
Diversity Doesn't Have To Come With Productivity Trade-Offs
Forbes online
2019-05-13
Research by Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values, suggests that organizations can have both a multiplicity of ideas as well as cultural alignment on organizational values. A company that checks all of the diversity boxes can see about two new additional product announcements over 10 years, which means the benefits of diversity are clear if not immediate.
Why people stay with the same company for decades
Financial Times online
2019-04-29
A new piece of research from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford business school, has looked into what helps people fit into companies and what makes them stay.
Why mentoring matters, and how to get started
New York Times online
2018-09-26
While mentoring benefits all participants, it is especially important for young women. Work by Sameer Srivastava found that women gained more social capital from affiliation with a high-status mentor than their male counterparts did.
The high costs of staff turnover
Economist online
2018-09-22
Work by Sameer Srivastava found that new employees who are slow to learn corporate lingo are more likely to get fired, and that employees who veer away from the culture in their messages are more likely to quit for another job.
Three Ways to Build Resilience Against Gender Bias
INSEAD Knowledge online
2018-04-12
Sameer Srivastava, Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values, and his co-authors hypothesized that a social belonging intervention might help women in tech feel less like outsiders, and therefore be better able to create a central place for themselves within the workplace. However, their research found that the intervention made no significant difference on women’s measured outcomes, either positive or negative.
Top MBAs Share Their Favorite Classes
Poets and Quants online
2017-06-24
"Moore’s classmate, Hady Barry, experienced a similar bombshell during her Power and Politics course taught by Sameer Srivastava. Before business school, Barry had avoided workplace politics, considering it a dirty practice. After completing the course, she came away with a more nuanced view of how to play the game. “The reality is that no one is immune to the power plays within an organization,” she admits. “This class taught me to approach politics in the workplace with less negativity. I now know which sources I can derive power from and how to use it to advance my career.”
Working Papers (10)
Doing Organizational Identity: Earnings Surprises and the Performative Atypicality Premium
Paul Gouvard, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Mutual Receptiveness to Opposing Views Bridges Ideological Divides in Network Formation
Brian P. Reschke, Julia A. Minson, Hannah Riley Bowles, Mathijs de Vaan, and Sameer B. Srivastava
A Language-Based Method for Assessing Symbolic Boundary Maintenance between Social Groups
Bhatt, Anjali, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Quantifying Vision through Language Demonstrates that Visionary Ideas Come from the Periphery
Paul Vicinanza, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Two-Sided Cultural Fit: The Differing Behavioral Consequences of Cultural Congruence Based on Values Versus Perceptions
Richard Lu, Jennifer A. Chatman, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Dampening the Echo: Receptiveness to Opposing Views, Majority-Minority Distance, and Network Homogeneity
Brian P. Reschke, Julia A. Minson, Hannah Riley Bowles, Mathijs de Vaan, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Situated Cultural Fit: Value Congruence, Perceptual Accuracy, and the Interpersonal Transmission of Culture
Richard Lu, Jennifer A. Chatman, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Expressly Different: Discursive Diversity and Team Performance
Katharina Lix, Amir Goldberg, Sameer B. Srivastava, and Melissa A. Valentine
The Limits of Brief Social Psychological Interventions: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Sanaz Mobasseri, Sameer B. Srivastava, and Laura J. Kray
Distinguishing Round from Square Pegs: Predicting Hiring Based on Pre-Hire Language Use
Sarah K. Stein, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
Selected Papers & Publications (11)
Aligning Differences: Discursive Diversity and Team Performance
Management ScienceKatharina Lix, Amir Goldberg, Sameer B. Srivastava, and Melissa A. Valentine
Forthcoming
Social Learning in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Community Establishments’ Closure Decisions Follow Those of Nearby Chain Establishments
Management ScienceMathijs de Vaan, Saqib Mumtaz, Abhishek Nagaraj, and Sameer B. Srivastava
2021
Duality in Diversity: How Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Cultural Heterogeneity Relate to Firm Performance
Administrative Science QuarterlyMatthew Corritore, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava
2020
Enculturation Trajectories: Language, Cultural Adaptation, and Individual Outcomes in Organizations
Management ScienceSameer B. Srivastava, Amir Goldberg, V Govind Manian, and Christopher Potts
2018
Alignment at Work: Using Language to Distinguish the Internalization and Self-Regulation Components of Cultural Fit in Organizations
Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational LinguisticsGabriel Doyle, Amir Goldberg, Sameer B. Srivastava, and Michael C. Frank
2017
Fitting In or Standing Out? The Tradeoffs of Structural and Cultural Embeddedness
American Sociological ReviewAmir Goldberg, Sameer B. Srivastava, V. Govind Manian, William Monroe, and Christopher Potts
2016
An Intra-Organizational Ecology of Individual Attainment
Organization ScienceChristopher C. Liu, Sameer B. Srivastava, and Toby E. Stuart
2015
Agents of Change or Cogs in the Machine? Reexamining the Influence of Female Managers on the Gender Wage Gap
American Journal of SociologySameer B. Srivastava, and Eliot Sherman
2015
Pulling Closer and Moving Apart: Interaction, Identity, and Influence in the U.S. Senate
American Sociological ReviewChristopher C. Liu and Sameer B. Srivastava
2015
Intraorganizational Network Dynamics in Times of Ambiguity
Organization ScienceSameer B. Srivastava
2015
Culture, Cognition, and Collaborative Networks in Organizations
American Sociological ReviewSameer B. Srivastava and Mahzarin R. Banaji
2011
Teaching (3)
MBA Teaching: Power and Politics in Organizations
FTMBA, EWMBA, and EMBA programs
PhD Teaching: Research in Macro-Organizational Behavior
PhD Seminar
Executive Education Teaching
Faculty Director, Technology Leadership Program Co-Faculty Director, Chief Technology Officer Program Co-Faculty Director, Digital Transformation Program Faculty Member, Chief Executive Officer Program; AI/Machine Learning Program; Strategy in Competitive Markets Program; Women's Executive Leadership Program; Berkeley Executive Leadership Program; Boot Camp for Experienced Managers; Berkeley-Nanyang Advanced Management Program
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