Expertise

Learning, decision making and strategy.
Adaptive behaviour and randomness.
Behavioural foundations of strategy.
Experiential learning and risk taking.
Selective sampling and industry evolution.

Overview

A native of Sweden, Jerker Denrell studied philosophy, management, and economics at Lund University and mathematics at Stockholm University. He received his PhD from Stockholm School of Economics in 1998. From 1998 to 2003, he was Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Business at Stockholm School of Economics. From 2003 to 2009 he was Assistant and then Associate Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Research interests

Jerker Denrell’s research focuses on learning, decision making, and strategy. Much of his work explores the complications of adaptation in ambiguous environments.

One set of papers has examined the difficulties of learning about the determinants of performance in competitive environments. In papers published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, and Organization Science Jerker has explored how randomness and sample biases can lead to flawed assessments of the determinants of performance and industry evolution.

Another set of papers has examined how the process of learning from experience can systematically bias the sample of information and experiences individuals and firms have access to. In papers published in Psychological Review and Science he has illustrated how learning from such biased samples can generate in-group bias, discrimination, risk aversion, and conformity. 

Journal articles:

Le Mens, G. and Denrell, J.  (2011). “Rational Learning and Information Sampling: On the ‘Naivety’ Assumption in Sampling Explanations of Judgment Biases." Psychological Review, 118 (2): 379-392.

Denrell, J. and G. Le Mens (2011). “Seeking Positive Experiences Can Produce Illusory Correlations”. Cognition, 119: 313-324.

Denrell, J. and C. Fang  (2010). “Predicting the Next Big Thing:
Success as a Signal of Poor Judgment.” Management Science, 56 (10):
1653-1667.

Denrell, J. and Z. Shapira (2009). “Performance Sampling and Bimodal Duration Dependence.” Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 33: 66-91.

Denrell, J. (2008). Indirect Social Influence. Science, 321 (July 4): 47-48.

Denrell, J. and B. Kovacs (2008). “Selective Sampling of Empirical Settings in Organizational Studies.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 53 (March): 109-144.

Denrell, J. (2008). “Organizational Risk Taking: Adaptation versus Variable Risk Preferences.” Industrial and Corporate Change, 17 (3): 427-466.

Denrell, J. and G. Le Mens (2007). “Interdependent Sampling and Social Influence.” Psychological Review, 114 (2): 398-422.

Andersen, T, J. Denrell, and R. Bettis (2007). “Strategic Responsiveness and Bowman’s Risk-Return Paradox.” Strategic Management Journal, 28(4), 407-429.

Denrell, J. (2007). “Adaptive Learning and Risk Taking.” Psychological Review, 114 (1): 177-187.

Denrell, J. (2005). “Why Most People Disapprove of Me: Experience Sampling in Impression Formation”. Psychological Review, 112 (4), 951-978.

Denrell, J. (2005). “Selection Bias and the Perils of Benchmarking”. Harvard Business Review, April, 2005, 114-119.

Denrell, J. (2005). “Should We Be Impressed with High Performance?” Journal of Management Inquiry, 14 (3), 292-298.

Denrell, J. (2004). “The Performance of Performance,” Journal of Management and Governance, 8 (4), 345-349.

Denrell, J, Arvidsson, N., and U. Zander (2004). “Managing Knowledge in the Dark: An Empirical Examination of the Reliability of Competency Evaluations.” Management Science, 50 (11), 1491-1503.

Denrell, J., C. Fang, and D. Levinthal (2004).“From T-Mazes to Labyrinths: Learning from Model-Based Feedback.” Management Science, 50 (10), 1366-1378.

Denrell, J. (2004). “Random Walks and Sustained Competitive Advantage.” Management Science 50 (7): 922-934.

Denrell, J., C. Fang, and S. Winter (2003). “The Economics of Strategic Opportunity.” Strategic Management Journal, 24 (10): 977-990.

Denrell, J. (2003). “Vicarious Learning, Under-Sampling of Failure, and the Myths of Management,” Organization Science, 14 (3): 227-243.

Denrell, J. and J. G. March (2001). “Adaptation as Information Restriction: The Hot Stove Effect,” Organization Science, 12 (5): 523-538.

Denrell, J. (2000). “Radical Organization Theory: An Incomplete Contract Approach to Power and Organizational Design,” Rationality and Society, 12: 39-61.

Book chapters:

Denrell, J. and G. Le Mens (2011). Social Judgments from Adaptive Samples Social Judgment and Decision Making, J. Krueger, (Ed.).
Psychology Press, forthcoming.

Denrell, J. (2008). “Superstitious behavior as a byproduct of intelligent adaptation” Ch. 14 (pp. 271-286) in The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making. Edited by William Starbuck and Gerald Hodkinson. Oxford University Press.