Curtis Chan, PhD, MA, BA

Contact

Associate Professor, Alberta School of Business - Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management

Email: curtis.chan@ualberta.ca
Phone: (780) 492-0164
Address: 3-30L Business Building
11203 Saskatchewan Drive NW

Edmonton AB

T6G 2R6

Overview

Area of Study / Keywords

Occupations and professions Qualitative research Control and worker autonomy Diversity and equity

About

Curtis K. Chan is an Associate Professor in the Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Management department at the University of Alberta's School of Business.

His research explores how people navigate challenges and opportunities in the workplace. In particular, he focuses on how occupational members—expert professionals trained in a specialized line of work—experience and engage with control and diversity when they work in organizations. To build new theory in this area, he conducts inductive, qualitative field research. He has studied airport security screeners, university career advisers in business schools, Instacart gig-workers, consultants, and teachers, with award-winning papers published in top-tier academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Academy of Management Annals. He also has written work appearing in the Harvard Business Review. Curtis serves on the Editorial Review Boards for Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science.

As a teacher, he has taught organizational behavior and theory and has received “Teaching Star” distinctions. He was named one of the Poets&Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Professors.

He was previously an Assistant Professor at Boston College's Carroll School of Management. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard Business School and Harvard University, also earning a master’s degree in Sociology from Harvard University. His bachelor’s degree is also from Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Research

Occupational members are a “group of people who consider themselves to be engaged in the same sort of work… [and] who share a set of values, norms and perspectives” (Van Maanen & Barley, 1984: 294-295). When people are trained as members of an occupation (e.g., security screening, teaching, consulting), they adopt ideas and practices regarding what work to do, how to perform it, and why it matters—becoming expert professionals specialized in a particular line of work. Their specialization makes them essential to organizations, which employ a range of different specialists working together towards collective goals.

Yet in these organizations, occupational members contend with control—efforts by managers, clients, and the public to influence their behavior. While necessary for aligning occupational members’ behaviors with organizational, client, or societal goals, these control efforts can threaten their sense of autonomy. Inside their organizations, managers try to enact managerial control, aligning their actions with organizational goals. Outside their organizations, external parties seek to gain client and societal control, steering how they work towards the aims of clients or the general public. Control stands as a central issue for management scholars, increasingly complex with the emergence of new technologies and evolving discursive means of control (e.g., buzzwords, narratives). Professor Chan studies how occupational members respond to these control efforts and the resulting consequences.

Furthermore, occupational members navigate diversity—the degree and variety of differences (e.g., in members’ demographic and other social identities, values, or practices) within the occupation. When an occupation’s diversity—or lack thereof—is left unrecognized and unmanaged, it can lead to problems. Particularly where there is a stark demographic minority, a lack of such diversity in an occupation can lead to the emergence of workplace inequality. Conversely, when occupational members and organizations make effective efforts to manage diversity in an occupation, however, it can enrich occupations and organizations by fostering inclusion. Professor Chan's research examines the processes and consequences of occupational members’ experiences of and engagements with diversity in organizations.

The ways that occupational members experience and engage with control and diversity in organizations entail complex social processes. These processes are subtle, discernable only through contextualized observation and insight into insider perspectives, and sensitive, relying on trust to fully uncover. Thus, to build new theory on these intricate dynamics, Professor Chan conducts inductive, qualitative field research. He immerses himself ethnographically in occupations and organizations, building trust over time and observing contextualized practices firsthand. He also conducts interviews to build rapport and capture the subjective experiences of occupational members. While time-intensive, his method’s insights into contextualized processes and people’s insider perspectives transcend assumptions embedded in prior research, enabling the discovery of novel cognitive, behavioral, and social mechanisms.

Research Awards

2024 Finalist for Best Submission with Practical Implications for Organizations, Academy of Management, Managerial & Organizational Cognition Division

2022 Administrative Science Quarterly Award for Scholarly Contribution

2021 Outreach Award, Academy of Management, Organizations and the Natural Environment and Social Issues in Management Divisions

2017 Academy of Management Annals Volume 10 Best Paper Award

2016 Saroj Parasuraman Award for Outstanding Diversity Publication, Academy of Management, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Division

2016 Wyss Award for Dissertation Excellence, Harvard Business School

2014 Best Student Paper Award, Academy of Management, Organization & Management Theory Division

2008 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for Undergraduate Thesis Excellence, Harvard College

Teaching

Professor Chan’s teaching philosophy is grounded in four core principles: engagement, relevance, enthusiasm and care, and challenge. He makes his courses engaging and informative by incorporating activities, exercises, simulations, and practical applications, and by debriefing these experiences to deepen conceptual understanding. He strives to make course ideas relevant and applicable by connecting concepts to relatable events, drawing on students’ experiences, and providing the background they need to analyze real-world cases—an approach informed by his work as a management consultant and field researcher. He brings enthusiasm and care to the classroom, showing genuine passion for organizational behavior and a sincere investment in students’ well-being, growth, and inclusion. While fostering a supportive environment, he also challenges students with complex material, high expectations, and careful feedback, encouraging them to continuously improve their skills and knowledge.

Teaching Awards

2024-2022 Teaching Star, Boston College Carroll School of Management

2020 Poets & Quants Top 50 Best Undergraduate Business School Professors

Courses

SEM 301 - Behavior in Organizations

Provides an understanding of the behavior of individuals in organizations. Draws from psychology, sociology, organization theory and covers topics such as personality, motivation, leadership, communication, conflict, and group dynamics. Prerequisite: Not open to students in the Faculty of Business. Open only to students from other faculties where the course is a requirement. Not to be taken by students with credit in SEM 200, 201 or 310.

Winter Term 2026

Browse more courses taught by Curtis Chan

Featured Publications

Balancing Professional Autonomy and Managerial Goals Amid Broad Technology Adoption Pressures: Intraprofessional Segmentation at a Finnish School

Tomi Koljonen and Curtis K. Chan

Academy of Management Journal. 2024 January; 67 (3):798-828 10.5465/amj.2022.1093

The Role of Discernment and Modulation in Enacting Occupational Values: How Career Advising Professionals Navigate Tensions with Clients

Curtis K. Chan and Luke N. Hedden

Academy of Management Journal. 2023 February; 66 (1):276-305 10.5465/amj.2020.1014

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