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number of these seemingly separate issues fused role model for being a business professor. Importantly,
together into a surprisingly integrated manuscript. I learned from Bob that you don’t have to be anti-busi-
Question: What management scholars were influential in ness to be a business professor. You really can consult
your early work? with organizations and it can benefit both your teach-
Kerr: When I went to Ohio State University, Ralph Stogdill ing and research. Bob also engrained in me the per-
was still there and he became a wonderful mentor to spective that if you pick the right consulting
me. Ralph helped me with the day-to-day politics at opportunities, you won’t be able to tell your research
Ohio State University. On hindsight, the politics weren’t from your consulting except sometimes you get paid
that bad at Ohio State University, it was just that a uni- for it and sometimes you don’t.
versity (at least then) was a much flatter organization In regard to the “Folly” article, obviously B. F. Skinner
than I had previously experienced. Ralph Stogdill was a (1953) got “there” before me. I never claimed other-
very calming force in helping me see the forest for the wise. I remember reading Skinner saying he would
trees. Regarding research, Ralph told me something scream at his rats “Why don’t you behave?” after they
that I have always remembered. He said, “If you ever wouldn’t do what he wanted or expected. Skinner
want to say something true about an organization, never probably would turn over in his grave if he thought
study more than one.” What he meant was that you will people were reading my article without having read his
not find a lot of similarities across organizations. Each work. Obviously, Skinner did the work, but I was able
one has a culture. Each one is different in any number to help bottle it in the right package for business appli-
of ways. Sure you will find some general truths, but cations. “Blaming the rat” was a great learning lesson.
Ralph cautioned me not to become disillusioned with What the “Folly” is really about is that it is not always
the inconsistencies across organizations. the employees’ fault; management is responsible for
Norman Maier was someone who was also extremely all too many employee dysfunctionalities.
influential on me. When I met him, I was initially I worked a lot with Ed Lawler. I guess you could say that
impressed with his attempts to understand how people I hired Ed when he came to USC a number of years
solve problems. I found his work on the role of frustra- ago. Ed and I did a number of management consulting
tion as a reaction to problems very fascinating. For projects over the years. As with Bob House, Skinner,
Maier, the successful practice of human relations and Maier, I learned a great deal from Ed about rewards
involved the use of “warmth” and “sincerity.” For and especially the nonfinancial incentives.
Maier (1955), it was clear that people were not only Finally, along with Norman Maier, I guess you could say
interested in the “how to” but also in the “why” to James Thompson was one of my heroes. His classic
problem-solving. work, Organizations in Action (1967), and in particular
I didn’t know March and Simon very well, but their work his work on the three types of interdependence, was
(March & Simon, 1958) was very influential on my seminal to my intellectual development on the topic of
development. I was also very impressed with Cyert reward systems. The least complex is pooled interde-
and March’s (1963) classic, A Behavioral Theory of pendence, where you add the separate inputs. Using an
the Firm. There was a consistency with Maier in the example from sports, bowling and golf teams come
desire to know how humans solve problems. The fact readily to mind. You are still a team but you can mea-
that machines can be programmed to learn and that a sure individual performance, you can reward individu-
chess playing machine can be programmed to never als. In a sense, you don’t require teamwork. Sequential
make the same mistake twice was very fascinating to interdependence is like a relay swimming or track team.
me. I was immediately intrigued with the possibility You can still treat the constituent parts as independent,
that a machine could become a better chess player than by measuring and rewarding the hand-offs, or you can
the actual programmer!! Later, when I became the measure and reward the performance of the entire team.
Chief Learning Officer for General Electric under Jack Finally, the most complex form is reciprocal interde-
Welch, one of my preeminent goals was to answer the pendence. This involves situations in which the outputs
question: How can management best create an envi- of each individual (or part) become the inputs for the
ronment where employees learn from their mistakes, other individual (or part). Football, basketball, hockey,
so that we minimize the possibility of making the same and soccer teams are examples of reciprocal interde-
mistake again. The obvious influence of Maier on my pendence. Thompson’s work on contingency models
development is readily apparent. was instrumental in crafting my work on leadership
As with Ralph Stogdill, Bob House impressed me tremen- styles and reward systems. Thompson alerted me to the
dously with his love of learning. Along with publish- fact that we run into problems rewarding individual
ing with him on various leadership issues (c.f. House performance in situations, like team sports, that are
et al., 1971; House & Kerr, 1973), Bob was my true predicated on reciprocal interdependence. We continue