Jerry Davis

Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Sociology

University of Michigan Ross School of Business and University of Michigan

Jerry Davis received his PhD from Stanford and taught at Northwestern and Columbia before moving to the University of Michigan, where he is Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Sociology. He has published widely in management, sociology, and finance. His books include Social Movements and Organization Theory (2005); Organizations and Organizing (2007); Managed by the Markets: How Finance Reshaped America (2009); Changing your Company from the Inside Out: A Guide for Social Intrapreneurs (2015); The Vanishing American Corporation (2016); and Taming Corporate Power in the 21st Century (2022).

Davis’s research is broadly concerned with the effects of finance on society, changes in the corporate economy, and new forms of organization. Recent writings examine how ideas about corporate social responsibility have evolved to meet changes in the structures and geographic footprint of multinational corporations; whether ”shareholder capitalism”; is still a viable model for economic development; how income inequality in an economy is related to corporate size and structure; why theories about organizations do (or do not) progress; how architecture shapes social networks and innovation in organizations; why stock markets spread to some countries and not others; and whether there exist viable organizational alternatives to shareholder-owned corporations in the United States.

You can find out more at https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/jerrydavis/home

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Kresge Hall, 3rd Floor West
Suite 3510
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

© 2026 Frederick A. & Barbara M. Erb Institute. All rights reserved.

700 East University
Kresge Hall, 3rd Floor West
Suite 3510
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

© 2026 Frederick A. & Barbara M. Erb Institute. All rights reserved.

700 East University
Kresge Hall, 3rd Floor West
Suite 3510
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

© 2026 Frederick A. & Barbara M. Erb Institute. All rights reserved.