Draft:Michael William Morris

Michael William Morris

Michael William Morris is a professor at Columbia University. He teaches primarily at its Graduate School of Business, where he founded its Leadership Lab. Additionally, Morris is associated with the Psychology Department and the Committee on Global Thought.

Early life and education

Morris was born in New York City in 1964 to a family with origins in western Ireland. They later moved “upstate” to the Catskill mountains, near the site of the Woodstock festival. The swirl of subcultures there piqued interests in cultural worldviews. He and his partners at the local public high school were surprise winners of the state debate championships.  

Morris started college at University of Rochester to focus on distance running. After a term at the London School of Economics, he transferred to Brown University and completed degrees in English literature and in cognitive science.

Morris worked as a computer graphics programmer for a year and then pursued graduate education in psychology. He chose the University of Michigan, to join a coalescing community of researchers interested in culture and cognition. He conducted experiments on causal judgment with cognitive psychologist Edward E. Smith and investigated influences of professional and national cultures with social psychologist Richard E. Nisbett. As a student, he took part in exchange trips to universities in Eastern Europe and launched collaborative projects with visiting researchers from East Asia.

Academic career

Morris began his teaching career at Stanford University, hired by the Organizational Behavior area of the Graduate School of Business. Thanks to mentoring from behavioral science colleagues like Rod Kramer, Joanne Martin, James March, Jeffery Pfeffer, and Itamar Simonson as well Psychology Department colleagues such as Hazel Markus, Lee Ross, Claude Steele, and Amos Tversky, he received tenure and promotion. He took leaves in 1995 at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and again in 2000 at The University of Hong Kong to enable intensive collaborations with local social scientists such as Kwok Leung and Chi-yue Chiu and Ying-yi Hong.

In 2001, Morris moved to Columbia University as a full professor and in 2006 earned the Chavkin-Chang Chair of Leadership. During the years since, he has benefited from extended stays for teaching and research at Haas School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, Harvard Business School, London Business School, Pompeu Fabra University, Institut Jean Nicod, University of Tokyo, Seoul National University, Peking University, INSEAD as well as from shorter visits to universities, foundations, and corporations around the world.  

Morris currently serves as a consulting editor at Journal of International Business and at Management and Organization Review, which focuses on Chinese societal contexts. Previously, he served as an associate editor at Psychological Review, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Trust Research, and other journals.

Morris has authored over 200 scientific papers in top journals of psychology, behavioral science, organizational behavior, and consumer behavior, some of which have been cited thousands of times. His contributions have been recognized with international awards from societies for social psychology, judgment and decision making, management, marketing, intergroup relations, Asian psychology, diversity and gender studies, international business, socially responsible research, and cultural psychology.

In addition to his academic papers, Morris has written popular articles for Forbes, HBR, HuffingtonPost, Ideas@Work and other forums to translate research insights. He is often interviewed in the media on relevant topics. Morris’s debut trade book, Tribal, is scheduled for release on October 2^nd, 2024.

Awards

• 2023, Outstanding Contribution to Cultural Psychology Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
• 2021 Responsible Research in Management Award, Academy of Management Fellows.
• 2005 Misumi Award for Best Contribution to Asian Social Psychology, Asian Association of Social Psychology.
• 2001, Otto Klineberg Intercultural & International Relations Award, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
• 1999, Ascendant Scholar Award, Western Academy of Management.
• 1996, Hillel Einhorn Award to the best paper by a young investigator, Society for Judgment and Decision Making.
• 1993, Outstanding Dissertation Award, Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

Books

• 2024, Morris, Michael. Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, Penguin. ISBN 9780735218093.
• 2022, Morris appears in the videobook of Cialdini’s classic Influence, LIT.

Teaching

At Columbia Business School, Morris co-designed and delivered the core organizational behavior class, LEAD, at the start of the MBA curriculum. He also teaches Managerial Negotiations, Global Negotiations, and Negotiation Strategies in the executive education program. In 2014, Morris launched “The Leader’s Voice,” a skills-based class covering the expanding set of communication modes expected of managers, from charismatic storytelling to developmental counseling. This elective has become one of the most frequently offered at the school. This work has been recognized with Columbia Business School’s Innovation in the Classroom award. He was a finalist for the negotiation class in 2006 and the winner in 2018 for the communication class.

Consulting

Morris works with corporations and government agencies around the world facing culture-related challenges. He provides consultation on cultural considerations to presidential and congressional campaigns. He is a sought-after commentator at forums and policy discussions.

Personal life

Michael Morris is married to Tatjana Gall. They live in New York City.