Matthew Lee
Associate Professor of Public Policy & Management
Harvard Kennedy School
My research focuses on the tensions experienced by organizations that simultaneously pursue multiple objectives, and the forms of hybrid organizing by which organizations can address these tensions. My research is published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Academy of Management Annals.
My teaching at HKS focuses on the organizational strategies of mission-driven public and private sector organizations. Previously, I was a professor at New York University and at INSEAD, based in Singapore, and was recognized by Poets & Quants as part of their “40 under 40” best professors. Earlier in my career, I worked at the Bridgespan Group, a management consultancy serving social sector organizations.
This page is primarily an online C.V. and not regularly updated. Please feel free to get in touch by email: (matthew_lee [at] hks.harvard.edu). Thanks for visiting.
Links: Full C.V. | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | Publons
Published and forthcoming research
(* equal authorship | † graduate student co-author)Adbi, A., Lee, M., Singh, J. "Community Influence on Microfinance Loan Defaults under Crisis Conditions: Evidence from Indian Demonetization." Forthcoming, Strategic Management Journal.
Lee, M., Battilana, J. 2020. “How the zebra got its stripes: Imprinting of individuals and hybrid social ventures.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 69: Organizational Hybridity, 139-165.
Lee, M., Adbi, A.†, and Singh, J. 2020. “Hybrid organizations, categorical cognition, and outcome efficiency in impact investing decisions.” Strategic Management Journal, 41(1): 86-107.
Lee, M.*, Ramus, T.*, and Vaccaro, A. 2018. “From protest to product: Strategic frame brokerage in a commercial social movement organization.” Academy of Management Journal, 61(6): 2130-58.
Lee, M. and Marquis, C. 2018. “Large corporations, social capital, and community philanthropy.” Advances in Strategic Management, 38: 197-226.
Lee, M.* and Huang, L.* 2018. “Gender bias, social impact framing, and evaluation of entrepreneurial ventures.” Organization Science, 29(1): 1-16.
Dimitriadis, S.†, Lee, M., Ramarajan, L., and Battilana, J. 2017. “Blurring the boundaries between the social and commercial sectors: The interplay of gender and local communities in the commercialization of social ventures.” Organization Science, 28(5): 819-839.
Almandoz, J., Lee, M., and Marquis, C. 2017. “Different shades of green: The impact of complex and uncertain environments on the strategies of innovative hybrid organizations.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 50: 31-67.
Lee, M. and Jay, J. 2015. “Strategic responses to hybrid social ventures.” California Management Review, 57(3): 126-148.
Battilana, J.* and Lee, M.* 2014. “Advancing research on hybrid organizing – Insights from the study of social enterprises.” Academy of Management Annals, 8(1): 397-441.
Lee, M., Battilana, J., and Wang, T. 2014. “Building an infrastructure for empirical research on social enterprise: Challenges and opportunities.” In J. Short (ed.), Research Methodology in Strategy and Management, 9: Research Methods in Social Entrepreneurship, 241-264. Emerald.
Marquis, C. and Lee, M. 2013. “Who is governing whom? Senior managers, governance and the structure of generosity in large U.S. firms.” Strategic Management Journal, 34(4): 483-497.
Battilana, J., Lee, M., Walker, J., and Dorsey, C. 2012. “In search of the hybrid ideal.” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2012.
Under peer review and invited revisions
“Commercialization of mission-oriented organizations as a structural hybridization process.” (with Tommaso Ramus, Antonino Vaccaro, and Pietro Versari).
"Collective behavior at the base of the pyramid: Evidence from a liquidity shock in microfinance.” (with Arzi Adbi and Jasjit Singh)
Working papers
“In search of structure: Toward a compensatory control theory of institutional cognition.” (with Jennifer Whitson)
“Mission and markets? The organizational viability of hybrid social ventures.”