Kathleen Sutcliffe is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Business at the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Carey Business School and

School of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, MB ...

and the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor Emerita of Business Administration at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Ross School of Business The Stephen M. Ross School of Business, also known as Michigan Ross, is the business school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1924, the school is ranked among the best business schools i ...

. She studies high-reliability organizations and group decision making in order to understand how organizations and their members cope with uncertainty and unexpected events, with a focus on reliability, resilience, and safety in health care.Brooks, Kell
"Johns Hopkins appoints three new Bloomberg Distinguished Professors"
''JHU Hub'', Baltimore, 11 June 2014. Retrieved on 11 May 2015.

Biography

Kathleen Sutcliffe received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the

, a Bachelor of Science degree from the

University of Alaska The University of Alaska System is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was created in 1917 and comprises three separately accredited universities on 19 campuses. The system serves nearly 30,000 full- and part-time stud ...

, and a Master of Nursing from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. Prior to doctoral studies, she was the Director of Health and Social Services for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association and also served as a program manager for the State of Alaska. She also worked as a laborer on the construction of the Alaska pipeline and as a deckhand on a crab fishing boat in the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a cha ...

. She earned her PhD in management with a focus on organizational behavior and theory from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Sutcliffe joined the faculty of the

as an assistant professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management in 1994. She became an associate professor in 2001, promoted to professor of management and organizations in 2005. In 2006, she was named the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration and was presented with the Researcher of the Year Award from the

’s

for research excellence. She served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research from 2006 to 2010. In June 2014, Sutcliffe was named a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at

for her accomplishments as an interdisciplinary researcher and excellence in teaching.Anderson, Nick
" Bloomberg pledges $350 million to Johns Hopkins University "
''The Washington Post'', Washington, D.C., 23 January 2013. Retrieved on 12 March 2015. The Bloomberg Distinguished Professorship program was established in 2013 by a gift from

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...

. Sutcliffe holds joint appointments in the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She is a member of the

Academy of Management The Academy of Management is a professional association for scholars of management and organizations that was established in 1936. It publishes several academic journals, organizes conferences, and provides others forums for management professors ...

and the Strategic Management Society.

Research

Kathleen Sutcliffe is a management and organization theorist who is expert in the areas of organizing under

uncertainty Uncertainty refers to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable or ...

and

ambiguity Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement ...

, sensemaking, and team dynamics. Together with

Karl E. Weick Karl Edward Weick (born October 31, 1936) is an American organizational theorist who introduced the concepts of "loose coupling", " mindfulness", and "sensemaking" into organizational studies. He is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Profe ...

and David Obstfeld at the

, she is responsible for re-conceptualizing and reinvigorating research inquiry into the micro-foundations of high reliability (high performance under risk and dynamic conditions). Their work highlights that for organizations in many industries, the ability to perform reliably in real time (the ability to contingently respond to changes in context) results from ongoing patterns of action that fuels capabilities to more quickly sense and manage complex, ill-structured contingencies. Sutcliffe and Timothy Vogus of

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

empirically validated the well-established theoretical construct of high reliability organizing and demonstrated its importance for

healthcare Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

. Sutcliffe has applied this line of thinking to the adaptability of organizations to unexpected change, and the role of top management in facilitating or preventing change. In the domain of patient safety, Sutcliffe has applied this construct to how healthcare teams can become alert and aware of unfolding untoward situations as they evolve and more effectively cope. She is currently investigating organizational safety and risk in oil exploration and production, wildland firefighting, and in healthcare. Sutcliffe has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses on a variety of topics including behavioral theory in management, management and organizational behavior, the management of change, and sensemaking in organizations. She has also led executive education courses for the

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

Leadership Program and the

A.T. Kearney Kearney is a global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Kearney has consistently earned top places among global management consulting firm rankings, such as Vault's Consulting 50 and ''Consulting'' magazine' ...

MBA Essentials Program. At Johns Hopkins, Sutcliffe is teaching graduate health care management courses and workshops in patient safety culture and participating in the interdisciplinary Individualized Health Initiative. In addition, Sutcliffe is an active consultant on matters related to safety organizing and safety culture for a variety of entities, including governmental agencies such the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

and Fire Department of New York, non-governmental organizations such as the

Mayo Clinic The Mayo Clinic () is a nonprofit American academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 4,500 physicians and scientists, along with another 58,400 administrative and allied health staff, ...

and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and private multinational companies such as

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

, and

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

. She has provided keynote addresses and training workshops around the world to leadership teams and to industry and professional groups such as Bombardier's annual Safety Standdown, the European Society for Anesthesiology, and the Swiss Nuclear Regulatory Committee.

Awards

* 2018 Distinguished PhD Alumnus Award, McCombs School of Business * 2018 Elected Fellow of the Academy of Management * 2016 Awarded Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency Fellowship * 2015 Awarded the MOC Distinguished Scholar Award, Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management

Publications

Kathleen Sutcliffe has published in all of the top tier journals in management and health services research. She has been cited more than 15,000 times in the academic literature and is nationally recognized for her work in patient safety. She regularly translates her research to executive audiences in such journals as the ''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massach ...

'' and the '' California Management Review'', which is published by the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. In 2012, Sutcliffe was appointed by the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, E ...

to a research panel charged with studying and providing recommendations related to workforce resilience to the Department of Homeland Security. The findings were released in a book titled ''A Ready and Resilient Workforce for the Department of Homeland Security: Protecting America's Front Line''.

Books

* 2001, ''Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity''. with co-author

, Jossey-Bass. * 2002, ''Medical Error: What Do We Know? What Do We Do?''. with Marilynn M. Rosenthal * 2007, ''Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty''. with co-author

, Jossey-Bass. * 2013, ''A Ready and Resilient Workforce for the Department of Homeland Security: Protecting America’s Front Line''. with the Committee on the Department of Homeland Security Workforce Resilience, The National Academies Press. * 2019, ''Still Not Safe: Patient Safety and the Middle-Managing of American Medicine.'' with co-author Robert Wears

Highly cited articles

* 1994, with Sim B Sitkin, Roger G Schroeder, ''Distinguishing control from learning in total quality management: a contingency perspective'', in: ''

Academy of Management Review The ''Academy of Management Review'' (AMR) is a peer-reviewed academic journal on management. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal's 2021 impact factor is 13.865, ranking it 3rd out of 226 journals in the categories "Manageme ...

''. Vol 19. nº 3; 537–564. *1998, with Akbar Zaheer, ''Uncertainty in the transaction environment: An empirical test'', in: ''Strategic Management Journal''. Vol. 19, nº 1, 1-23. * 2002, with J. Stuart Bunderson, ''Comparing alternative conceptualizations of functional diversity in management teams: Process and performance effects'', in: ''

Academy of Management Journal The ''Academy of Management Journal'' (''AMJ'') a is peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of management. It is published by the Academy of Management and was established in 1958 as the ''Journal of the Academy of Management'', obtai ...

''. Vol. 45, nº 5, 875–893. *2003, with J. Stuart Bunderson, ''Management team learning orientation and business unit performance'', in ''

Journal of Applied Psychology The ''Journal of Applied Psychology'' is a monthly, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. The journal emphasizes the publication of original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understandin ...

''. Vol, 88, nº 3, 552–560. * 2004, with Elizabeth L. Lewton and Marilynn M. Rosenthal, ''Communication Failures: An Insidious Contributor to Medical Mishaps'', in'': Academic Medicine. Vol. 79, nº 2, 186-194.'' * 2005, with Karl E. Weick and David Obstfeld, ''Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking'', in: '' Organization Science''. Vol. 16, nº 4; 409–421. * 2005, with Gretchen Spreitzer, Jane Dutton, Scott Sonenshein, Adam M Grant, ''A socially embedded model of thriving at work'', in: ''Organization science''. Vol 16, nº 5; 537–549. *2006, with Karl E. Weick, ''Mindfulness and the Quality of Organizational Attention'', in: ''Organization Science''. Vol. 17, nº 4; 514–524. * 2008, with Karl E Weick, David Obstfeld, ''Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness'', in: ''Crisis Management''. Vol. 3, nº 1; 81–123. *2013, with Scott Sonenshein, Jane E. Dutton, Adam M. Grant, and Gretchen M. Spreitzer, ‘’Growing at Work: Employees' Interpretations of Progressive Self-Change in Organizations’’, in: ''Organization Science''. Vol. 24, nº 2; 552–570. * 2014, with Timothy J. Vogus, Naomi B. Rothman, and

, ''The affective foundations of high-reliability organizing'', in: '' Journal of Organizational Behavior''. Vol. 35, nº 4; 592–596.

References

External links

Webpage at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutcliffe, Kathleen Johns Hopkins University faculty University of Michigan faculty University of Michigan alumni McCombs School of Business alumni University of Alaska Anchorage alumni University of Washington School of Nursing alumni American organizational theorists Living people 1950 births