Duanyi Yang

Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Global Labor and Work at the Cornell University ILR School. 

My research examines how workers can exercise meaningful voice in an era of restructuring employment relationships, growing organizational concentration, and weakening systems of worker representation. More broadly, I study how organizations and institutions can transform worker voice into better jobs, healthier workplaces, and more equitable labor market outcomes. My research centers on three questions: 

• Do workers have meaningful influence over the conditions of their work, and how large is the gap between the influence they want and the influence they actually have?

• What leads workers to speak up about problems at work, and what leads them to remain silent?

• When employers introduce policies and interventions intended to improve working conditions, when do workers actually benefit, and when are the changes merely symbolic or unequally distributed?

I combine surveys, administrative data, field experiments, and interviews to study these questions across diverse organizational and institutional contexts.

I received my PhD from the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2020. My research has been recognized with the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association, which honors research addressing industrial relations and employment problems of international significance.

Contact: dy338@cornell.edu · 362 Ives Hall, Faculty Wing, Ithaca, NY 14853