Thomas A. Kochan (born September 28, 1947) is a professor of industrial relations, work and employment. He is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

, where he has been a faculty member since 1980. He is author of the books ''Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families' Agenda for America'' and ''Shaping the Future of Work''. In 2010, Kochan led the formation of the Employment Policy Research Network (EPRN), an online

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

on the subject of employment, a project of the

Labor and Employment Relations Association Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

, supported by the

Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to: People with the name Rockefeller f ...

and

Russell Sage Russell Risley Sage (August 4, 1816 – July 22, 1906) was an American financier, railroad executive and Whig politician from New York. As a frequent partner of Jay Gould in various transactions, he amassed a fortune. Olivia Slocum Sage, his s ...

foundations. The EPRN web site launched in January 2011 with 100 researchers from 35 universities, including

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

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 univ ...

, Columbia,

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, Illinois,

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. He served as chair of the

faculty from 2009 to 2011. He came to MIT in 1980 as a professor of industrial relations. From 1988 to 1991 he served as head of the behavioral and policy sciences area in the

Sloan School The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, a ...

. He has served as a third-party mediator, fact finder, and arbitrator and as a consultant to a variety of government and private sector organizations and labor-management groups. He was a consultant for one year to the

Secretary of Labor The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the United States Department of Labor, controls the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all ot ...

in the Department of Labor's Office of Policy Evaluation and Research. Kochan focuses on the need to update America's work and employment policies, institutions, and practices to catch up with a changing workforce and economy. Through empirical research, he demonstrates that fundamental changes in the quality of work and employment relations are needed to address America's critical problems in industries ranging from

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 ...

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

s to

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

Education

* B.B.A.,

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, 1969 * M.S., Industrial Relations, University of Wisconsin, 1971 * Ph.D., Industrial Relations, University of Wisconsin, 1973

Notable awards

* 1988 Recipient of the George Terry Scholarly Book Award from the Academy of Management for The Transformation of American Industrial Relations. * 1992–1995 President, International Industrial Relations Research Association. (

US Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploym ...

) * 1993 Appointed to Commission for the Future of Worker-Management Relations. * 1996 Heneman Career Achievement Award,

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 ...

* 1997 Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. * 1999 President of the

Industrial Relations Research Association Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

* 2009 Elected to

National Academy of Arbitrators The National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) honorary and professional organization of labor arbitrators in the United States and Canada that was founded in 1947. Its avowed purpose was “to foster the highest standar ...

* 2009 Guest Editor in Chief, Special Research Forum of the

Journal on Management Research and Public Policy * 2010 Inaugural Fellow of the

* 2010 Academy of Management's Scholar-Practitioner Award * 2012 PhD Dissertation Award of the Labor & Employment Relations Assn. “named” in Kochan's honor * 2014 Honorary Doctor's Degree from

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...

* 2015

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...

Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award

Notable publications

* Working in America: Labor Market Institutions for the New Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. (With Paul Osterman, Richard Locke and Michael Piore). * Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families’ Agenda for America, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, September 2005. * “Who Should Close the Middle Skills Gap?” Harvard Business Review, December, 2012 (with David Finegold and Paul Osterman) * “The American Jobs Crisis and its Implication for the Future of Employment Policy: A Call for a New Jobs Compact,” ILR Review, 66 (2) April, 2013. (Lead article). * Shaping the Future of Work. Business Experts Press. Publication date, December, 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kochan, Thomas Anton 1947 births Living people MIT Sloan School of Management faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni