Wouter Dessein

Wouter Dessein is the Eli Ginzberg Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. His research examines how organizations allocate decisions, share information, and coordinate specialized work. He also studies firm strategy and teaches the economics of strategic behavior.

With Tano Santos, Dessein wrote the 2006 paper Adaptive Organizations. Their model explores a trade-off: giving people room to respond to local information can make coordination harder, while prearranged plans can coordinate work with less ongoing communication. It offers a way to think about organizational design, not a measurement of delays in any particular workplace.