Christopher T. Stanton

Christopher Stanton is Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. He teaches the EC course Managing the Future of Work.  He is also affiliated with The Center for Economic Policy Research and The National Bureau of Economic Research. 

An applied economist, Professor Stanton directs his research at how technology is changing the management and location of work.  The same technological trends that enable the fragmentation of work and the rise of the gig economy also improve the measurement of work outcomes inside firms.  Professor Stanton seeks to understand the resulting managerial and policy implications of these trends.   His work has been published in The Review of Economic Studies, Management Science, and the Journal of Labor Economics, and it has been cited by media outlets including The Economist, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, among others.

Before joining HBS, Professor Stanton was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Utah and an Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy at the London School of Economics. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration from Stanford University and B.A. and M.A. degrees from Emory University.  

Journal Articles

• Sandvik, Jason, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert, and Christopher Stanton. "Employee Responses to Compensation Changes: Evidence from a Sales Firm." Management Science (forthcoming). View Details
• Dafny, Leemore S., Yin Wei Soon, Zoë Cullen, and Christopher T. Stanton. "How Has COVID-19 Affected Health Insurance Offered by Small Businesses in the U.S.? Early Evidence from a Survey." NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery (forthcoming). (Pre-published online August 14, 2020. Commentary.) View Details
• Bartik, Alexander, Marianne Bertrand, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Outcomes and Expectations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 30 (July 28, 2020). View Details
• Sandvik, Jason, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert, and Christopher Stanton. "Workplace Knowledge Flows." Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 3 (August 2020): 1635–1680. View Details
• Lazear, Edward P., Kathryn L. Shaw, and Christopher Stanton. "Who Gets Hired? The Importance of Competition Among Applicants." Journal of Labor Economics 36, no. S1 (January 2018): S133–S181. View Details
• Chaudoin, Stephen, Zachary Peskowitz, and Christopher Stanton. "Beyond Zeroes and Ones: The Intensity and Dynamics of Civil Conflict." Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 1 (January 2017): 56–83. View Details
• Lazear, Edward P., Kathryn L. Shaw, and Christopher Stanton. "The Value of Bosses." Journal of Labor Economics 33, no. 4 (October 2015): 823–861. View Details
• Lazear, Edward P., Kathryn L. Shaw, and Christopher Stanton. "Making Do with Less: Working Harder During Recessions." Journal of Labor Economics 34, no. S1 (January 2016): S333–S360. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Catherine Thomas. "Landing the First Job: The Value of Intermediaries in Online Hiring." Review of Economic Studies 83, no. 2 (April 2016): 810–854. View Details
• Ghani, Ejaz, William R. Kerr, and Christopher Stanton. "Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India." Management Science 60, no. 7 (July 2014): 1677–1697. View Details

Book Chapters

• Horton, John, William R. Kerr, and Christopher Stanton. "Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows." Chap. 3 in High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences, edited by Gordon H. Hanson, William R. Kerr, and Sarah Turner, 71–108. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2018. View Details

Working Papers

• Bartik, Alexander, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, Christopher Stanton, and Adi Sunderam. "The Targeting and Impact of Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Small Businesses." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-021, August 2020. View Details
• Bartik, Alexander, Zoë Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "What Jobs Are Being Done at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis? Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-138, June 2020. View Details
• Balla-Elliott, Dylan, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "Business Reopening Decisions and Demand Forecasts During the COVID-19 Pandemic." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 27362, June 2020. (Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-132, June 2020.) View Details
• Ewens, Michael, Ramana Nanda, and Christopher Stanton. "The Evolution of CEO Compensation in Venture Capital Backed Startups." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-119, May 2020. (Revised July 2020.) View Details
• Stanton, Christopher T., and Catherine Thomas. "Missing Trade in Tasks: Employer Outsourcing in the Gig Economy." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-096, March 2018. (Revised April 2019.) View Details
• Horton, John, William R. Kerr, and Christopher Stanton. "Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-096, May 2017. View Details
• Dillon, Eleanor W., and Christopher T. Stanton. "Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-022, September 2016. (Revised March 2018.) View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials

• Kominers, Scott Duke, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, and George Gonzalez. "Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19." Harvard Business School Case 821-014, August 2020. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, William R. Kerr, James Palano, and Kendall Smith. "Catalant's Operating System for the Future of Work." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 820-105, June 2020. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, William R. Kerr, James Palano, and Kendall Smith. "Catalant's Operating System for the Future of Work." Harvard Business School Case 820-093, February 2020. (Revised August 2020.) View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, Shikhar Ghosh, William R. Kerr, Sarah Gulick, and James Palano. "Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 820-101, February 2020. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, Karim R. Lakhani, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Jin Hyun Paik, and Nina Cohodes. "Freelancer, Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 820-075, January 2020. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, Richard Saouma, and Olivia Hull. "Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Learning (A)." Harvard Business School Case 819-072, April 2019. (Revised December 2019.) View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization." Harvard Business School Case 817-038, September 2016. (Revised September 2017.) View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 818-100, January 2018. (Revised April 2018.) View Details
• Ghosh, Shikhar, and Christopher Stanton. "Dinesh Moorjani and Hatch Labs." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 818-106, March 2018. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Hatch Startup Equity Valuation Exercise (Student Version)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 818-704, March 2018. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Hatch Startup Equity Valuation exercise for Instructor Use." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 818-705, March 2018. View Details
• Ghosh, Shikhar, Christopher Stanton, Allison Ciechanover, and Jeff Huizinga. "Dinesh Moorjani and Hatch Labs." Harvard Business School Case 818-026, September 2017. (Revised February 2018.) View Details
• Krieger, Joshua Lev, Christopher Stanton, and James Barnett. "Forecasting ClimaCell." Harvard Business School Case 820-044, December 2019. View Details
• Ghosh, Shikhar, Christopher Stanton, and Sanchali Pal. "Valuing Employee Equity at Early Stage Ventures." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-167, June 2019. View Details
• Stanton, Christopher, and Tom Nicholas. "The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 818-107, March 2018. View Details
• Nicholas, Tom, Christopher T. Stanton, and Matthew Preble. "The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike." Harvard Business School Case 817-005, February 2017. (Revised May 2018.) View Details
• Nicholas, Tom, Christopher Stanton, and Matthew Preble. "Edwin Land: The Art and Science of Innovation." Harvard Business School Case 817-107, March 2017. (Revised May 2018.) View Details
• Leschly, Stig, Mark Roberge, and Christopher T. Stanton. "The Entrepreneurial Manager, Module 3: Operating the Business Model." Harvard Business School Module Note 819-109, March 2019. View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Stanton’s research is focused on new possibilities around non-traditional work—through entrepreneurship, freelancing, or the gig economy. A related strand of work examines spillovers inside firms, which may be difficult to capture outside of traditional employment relationships.

Teaching

Managing the Future of Work (MBA Education—Elective Curriculum)

Managing the Future of Work Course Overview

The nature and scope of work is rapidly changing, creating massive business and political challenges. HBS launched a major initiative in 2017 on Managing the Future of Work to define these workplace issues and highlight their implications for business leaders.

This EC course brings the initiative’s major ideas to life for contemplation and debate. The course covers the perspectives of business, policy, and workforce development institutions in advanced economies. The material is comprehensive in nature and significant in scope, with a modest edge given to implications for business leadership in larger corporations (i.e., what opportunities might be available for firms like Apple or Siemens, and what should they do?). The course also featured emerging business concepts and applications embedded in start-up companies.

The course focuses on actions business leaders can take. Embedded in the approach is the assumption that tackling these complex workplace issues will require new competencies for business leaders, including working in close collaboration with policy leaders, educators, and labor leaders.

This course is a great fit for students who want to position themselves for careers in the future of work landscape. These roles could be as a startup founder for a company related to the future of work, as a business executive guiding a larger firm through its required transformation, as a leader within policy and labor groups interacting with firms, or as an educator playing an important role in workforce training and reskilling.

The class will have three core modules with two in-class exercises:

• Module 1: Future of Work Drivers and Scenarios. The first module considers the major technological and demographic trends that are reshaping the workplace. We explore the impact on the workplace of automation/digitization, artificial intelligence, robotics, and augmented reality/virtual reality. We also consider the aging and shrinking workforces in many advanced economies. Comprehensive frameworks connect the macro picture of change under way for businesses and society with the micro actions being undertaken by leaders in companies.
• Exercise 1: Our first exercise explores what the future scenarios for work could look like and helps develop understanding/empathy for how the condition of workers and the workplace could look under different scenarios. Students select a track that most closely resembles their jobs forecast and will work on how to share this with the class at large.
• Module 2a: New Labor Models for the Future of Work. The second module evaluates how the labor models used by firms and workers is changing because of these technology and demographic drivers. We consider the development and future of the gig/contractor economy, new workplace arrangements towards the increasing care responsibilities born by employees (young children, aging/elderly parents, etc.), fair chance employment practices, and the ways that companies are boosting their talent supply chain.
• Module 2b: New Policy and Education Models for Future of Work. The second module continues with a perspective that extends beyond the individual firm to consider potential policy and education sector models for the future of work. We consider national policies like Universal Basic Income and regional interventions that enhance local capacities. We also consider apprenticeship models, competency based education, and related education/reskilling innovations seeking to build “durable” skills and career pathways for workers.
• Exercise 2: Our second exercise explores public and private sector responses to this new workplace environment. Students select a track that most closely resembles their career interest and will work on a potential response from either a business opportunity perspective or a policy perspective.
• Taking Action: Our class wraps up with exploring how you can take action now for managing the future of work. A final exam applies the course lessons and frameworks.

 

The class is co-taught by Chris Stanton and Bill Kerr. Class sessions include case studies, primers that lay out the core issues on topics, and playbook reports designed for business and policy leaders. We also mix in multimedia content (podcasts, videos, etc) where best suited. Class guests are frequent.

Course grades are based equally on class participation/exercises and a final exam.

Related Link: http://prod.hbs.edu/coursecatalog/1677.html

Awards & Honors

Winner of the 2019 Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Rigour and Relevance in the Study of Management from London Business School.

Additional Information

• Curriculum Vitae
• Digital Initiative

Areas of Interest

• compensation
• digital economy
• distributed innovation
• entrepreneurship
• small company management
Additional Topics
• electronic markets
• experimentation
• human resource management
• information technology
• performance measurement
• venture capital

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