University of Pittsburgh

Faculty

Barry M. Mitnick

Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Public and International Affairs

Office: 261 Mervis Hall
Phone: 412-648-1555
E-mail: mitnick@katz.pitt.edu

Degrees

BS in Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1968)
MA in Physics, Columbia University (1970)
MA in Political Science, University of Pennsylvania (1973)
PhD in Political Science, University of Pennsylvania (1974)

Courses Recently Taught

Barry Mitnick teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in business ethics, public affairs, organization theory, and government regulation. Recent courses include:

BUSENV 0060: Managerial Ethics and Stakeholder Management (CBA core course)
BSEO 2402: Managing Public Affairs and Regulation (MBA elective)
BSEO 2540: Government Regulation (MBA elective)
BENV 3032: Managing Environments (PhD core course)
BENV 3031: Government Regulation (PhD core course)

Interest Groups

Strategy, Environment, and Organizations

Profile

Barry Mitnick's research interests center on the means by which organizational performance fails and produces results that from both individual ethical and societal points of view are unacceptable. In his work on reputation with John Mahon, Mitnick seeks to understand the ways in which social perceptions of that performance are enacted, modified, and assigned value.

One of his major research contributions is the origin of the theory of agency, a theoretical approach that has now spread across the social sciences and that has had applications in virtually every business school discipline. The theory of agency seeks to understand failures of control and direction. For example, unintended and undesirable behaviors in organizations can occur because of perceptions that it does not pay to correct them; the costs of correction exceed the benefits. In actuality, however, from the wider viewpoint of society, intervention can indeed be rational. The institutional theory of agency seeks to understand how such failures occur and how they may be prevented. Mitnick independently originated the theory of agency in 1973 and published the first non-proceedings article on agency in a social science journal in 1975.

A recent series of papers has focused on the theory of testaments, which examines some central aspects of the social processes that bind people together in organizations. In general, successful joint action or incorporation in organizational action requires that credible testaments, i.e., statements that produce belief that organizational performance will occur as it is claimed to occur, must accompany the credible commitments that provide rational support for such action.

Another recent series of papers, coauthored with John F. Mahon, examines both the behavioral and the normative underpinnings of the management of reputation by firms, including the normative concept of reputational "bliss," i.e., reputational optimality.

Mitnick has written in such related areas as failures in implementation in public organizations; norms of fiduciary behavior, i.e., norms of acting on behalf of others; incentive failures in organizations in general and in such settings as nuclear power plants; and the nature of the public interest.

Mitnick also has a significant research stream on government regulation and on corporate political activity. His 1980 book The Political Economy of Regulation: Creating, Designing, and Removing Regulatory Forms (Columbia University Press) is considered one of the basic treatises on the area (its definition of regulation is sometimes labeled "classic" by scholars in the area), was translated into Spanish, and is still frequently cited. Reviews of his 1993 book on corporate political activity described it as an essential resource on this topic.

Mitnick is an active researcher in the general area of corporate social performance and business ethics. His December 2002 article on the measurement of corporate social performance in Business & Society won the best article award sponsored by the International Association for Business and Society and the California Management Review. This annual award is the highest research award in his field. Mitnick is one of the founders of the International Association for Business and Society and has had many professional leadership activities in academic management societies. In 2007, he was elected to the leadership track of the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management, the leading academic organization in his field, and will become program chair and division chair in the next few years.

Mitnick's public service activities have been especially diverse and extensive. He is pleased to have been able to facilitate the creation of several programs in public school settings, the creation of a Down syndrome center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and the creation of Down Syndrome Quarterly, the leading journal in this field in the United States, and to have contributed to a variety of other public educational activities.

Research Interest Areas

Governmental Regulation/Public Affairs/Social Policy, Organizational Studies, Strategic Planning and Policy, Implementation of Systems and Models, Behavioral Science, Evaluation Research, and Values and Ethical Analysis

Books

Corporate Political Agency: The Construction of Competition in Public Affairs, editor (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1993). Author of five of the eleven chapters.

The Political Economy of Regulation: Creating, Designing, and Removing Regulatory Forms (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980).  Paperback edition, 1982.  Spanish language edition, 1989 (Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico).

Recent Publications

“The Concept of Reputational Bliss,” with John F. Mahon, Journal of Business Ethics, 72, No. 4 (June 2007), 323-333; published online November 2006.

“Agency, Theory of,” “Fiduciary Norm,” “Interstate Commerce Commission,” “Iron Triangles,” “Market Bubbles,” “Market Failure,” “Public Interest,” and, with Kathleen Getz: “Regulation and Regulatory Agencies,” in Robert Kolb, ed., Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society (Sage Publications, in press).  (All articles were double-reviewed.)

Column on "Recommended Reading: Business Ethics Resources" [online title], The Wall Street Journal (October 17, 2005), in "The Journal Report: Corporate Governance," p. R2; full version in Wall Street Journal Online.

"Positive Agency," in Robert Giacalone, Craig Dunn, and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, eds., Positive Psychology in Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Publishing, in press, 2005).

"Commitment, Revelation, and the Testaments of Belief: The Metrics of Measurement of Corporate Social Performance," Business & Society, 39, No. 4 (December 2000), 419–465.

"Credible Testaments, Property, and the Role of Government," in Warren J. Samuels and Nicholas Mercuro, eds., The Fundamental Interrelationships between Government and Property, vol. 4 of The Economics of Legal Relationships (Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 1999), 165–176.

"Making Incentive Systems Work: Incentive Regulation in the Nuclear Power Industry," with Kiran Verma and Alfred A. Marcus, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 9, No. 3 (July 1999), 395–436.

"Agency Theory," in The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics, P. Werhane and R.E. Freeman, eds. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 12–15. Second edition in press (revised), 2005. [Review article on theory of agency]

“Reputation Shifting,” with John F. Mahon, paper presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Business and Society, Sonoma Valley, CA (March 31-April 3). In Proceedings of IABS, 2005.

"The Uses of Political Markets," paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pa., August 28–31. In Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, 2003. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

"Aggregating Reputation: The Role and Use of Reputation-Sets," with John F. Mahon, paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Business and Society, Rotterdam, Netherlands (June). In Proceedings of IABS, 2003.

"The Credible State," paper presented at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 31–September 3. In Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, 2000.

Recent Working Papers

"Virtual Optima: Reputational Optimality and the Ethics of Systems," with John F. Mahon, paper presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, New Orleans, La. (August).

"Moral Tethers," paper presented in the Social Issues in Management Division, 2000 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Toronto, Canada (August 6–9).

"Credibility and the Theory of Testaments," paper presented in an interactive paper (poster) session of the Social Issues in Management Division, 1999 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, Ill. (August 8–11).

Awards and Honors

Best Article Award of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS) for a high-quality empirical or conceptual paper published in a refereed journal during 2000 that advances thinking and/or research in the business and society field. Sponsored by the California Management Review. Award of $500, announced at the 2002 Annual Conference of IABS, Victoria, BC. This is the highest annual research award in the field.

Leavey Foundation Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education for course materials on Managing Regulation (1982). Award of $7,500.

Finalist, with Robert W. Backoff, Second Annual International Prize Competition for the Most Original New Contribution to the Field of Organizational Analysis and Design, TIMS College on Organization, TIMS/ORSA Joint National Meeting, April 24–27, 1983. One of nine finalists.

Selected as one of the top 10 of 126 reviewers, Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division, 2002 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management; one of the top six of 93 reviewers, SIM Division, 2001 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management; one of the top 10 reviewers, 1998 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management; selected in best reviewer group, 2000.

External Service and Assignments

Elected to Chair sequence, Social Issues in Management Division, Academy of Management, 2007 (PDW Chair; Program Chair; Division Chair).

Faculty Advisory Board, Center for West European Studies, European Union Center, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, beginning September 2003.

Editorial Board, Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society, Robert Kolb, Editor-in-Chief (Sage Publications, in press).

Editorial Board, Academy of Management Review, August 1984 to October 1987 (through volume 12).

Editorial Board, American Journal of Political Science, July 1980 (vol. 24) through 1985 (vol. 29).

Book Review Editor, Down Syndrome Quarterly, 1995–2002.

Book Review Editor, Down Syndrome: Papers and Abstracts for Professionals, 1986–94.

Research Fellow, The Brookings Institution, September 1973 to August 1974.

Founding Member, International Association for Business and Society Executive Board, 1989–92.

Public Sector Division, Academy of Management, Liaison to the American Political Science Association and Ex Officio Member of Public Sector Division Executive Committee, 1995–98.

Cochair, Doctoral Consortium, Public Sector Division, 1994 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Dallas, Texas.

Cochair, SIM Division Faculty Development Workshop, 1991 and 1992 Annual Meetings of the Academy of Management.

Chair, SIM Division Research Workshop, 1983 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management; Chair, Research Committee, SIM Division (1982–83).

Cochair, SIM Division Research Workshop, 1982 and 1984 Annual Meetings of the Academy of Management; Cochair, Research Committee, SIM Division (1983–84).

Member, Governance Committee, SIM Division, Academy of Management (elected to two-year term, August 1983–July 1985).

Member, Best Paper Award Committee, SIM Division, Academy of Management, 1984–85.

Member, Nominations Committee, Public Sector Division, Academy of Management (elected, 1984–85).

Member, Research Committee, SIM Division, Academy of Management, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1987–88.

Community Service: Numerous activities in the areas of Down syndrome, historical preservation, public education, and amateur astronomy. Mitnick has frequently testified before and/or submitted comments to local and state governmental agencies and is often interviewed in the media in such contexts as business ethics and government regulation.