PAUL LEONARDI

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biographical information

Paul Leonardi (Ph.D. Stanford University) is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, and (by courtesy) Management and Organizations at Northwestern University where he holds the Breed Junior Chair in Design.

Dr. Leonardi's teaching and research focus on issues pertaining to the design and implementation of new technologies, global product development, and the management of engineering work.  In each of these areas he explores how information technologies and organizations can be simultaneously designed to enhance one another. His work on these topics cuts across the fields of Organization Studies, Communication Studies, and Technology Studies and has been published in leading journals in these fields, such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Communication Theory, Human Communication Research, MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, and Science, Technology & Human Values.

Trained as an ethnographer, Dr. Leonardi spends time observing people in the course of their normal work. These detailed observations generate insights that help managers to design technologies and organizations that better meet the needs of their workforce. His recent field studies have included: (1) IT technicians adopting knowledge management tools; (2) the development, implementation, and use of computer simulation technologies for crashworthiness analysis; and (3) new technological and organizational innovations for offshoring automotive engineering work.

His research on these topics has been funded by the National Science Foundation and has received awards from the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association.