Saerom (Ronnie) Lee

• Saerom Lee and Reuben Hurst (Work In Progress), When Autonomy Backfires: Adverse Selection in Startup Recruitment. Abstract

  To compete with established firms for talent, startups often highlight their distinctive organizational attributes in recruitment efforts. Using a large-scale dataset of job postings, we first document that autonomy is a particularly prominent attribute: startups, much more so than established firms, increasingly emphasize this organizational design feature, especially when targeting more educated job seekers. To assess the efficacy of this strategy, we conduct a pre-registered field experiment in partnership with an actual startup. The results reveal a counterintuitive effect: explicitly emphasizing autonomy deters more educated candidates while attracting less educated ones. A follow-up survey experiment suggests that this pattern is consistent with education-contingent differences in how the same recruitment message is interpreted. More educated individuals are more likely to construe autonomy-oriented language in startup recruitment as “too much of a good thing,” inferring excessive autonomy and structural deficiencies in managerial supervision and conflict-resolution procedures—organizational features they consider necessary for productivity and success. Our findings demonstrate that, although autonomy is a core attribute that distinguishes entrepreneurial ventures from established firms, its explicit emphasis can backfire, undermining efforts to attract the human capital critical to entrepreneurial success.

• J. Daniel Kim and Saerom Lee, Research: When Should Startups Scale? in Harvard Business Review (Online),. Abstract

  Silicon Valley often touts rapid scaling as the best strategy for achieving startup success. However, new research reveals that scaling early, particularly within the first 12 months, significantly raises the risk of startup failure, especially for two-sided platforms. The key takeaway for entrepreneurs: Be cautious with early scaling and prioritize a culture of experimentation. Taking a “slow-and-steady” approach to scaling may provide a more sustainable path to long-term success.

• Reuben Hurst, Saerom Lee, Justin Frake, Research: Flat Hierarchies Can Discourage Women Applicants in Harvard Business Review (Online),. Abstract

  Many firms struggle to attract a diverse talent pool, particularly women. To stand out, companies often tout flatter organizational structures in their recruitment materials, assuming these unique features will appeal to a more diverse group of prospective employees. However, new research uncovers a surprising finding: highlighting a flatter hierarchy may, instead, diminish women’s representation in the applicant pool. Additional findings suggest that women tend to perceive flatter organizations as more difficult to fit into, burdening them with a heavier workload, and offering fewer career advancement opportunities. This research indicates that companies should carefully consider how they present their organizational structure to job seekers to avoid unintentionally discouraging women from applying.

• Reuben Hurst and Saerom Lee (Under Review), Sociopolitical Stance-taking and Labor Market Sorting: Evidence from Experiments. Abstract

  We investigate whether corporate sociopolitical stance-taking drives political sorting. In a pre-registered field experiment with an actual employer, we surprisingly find that a progressive stance does not cause widespread sorting among Democrats and Republicans. Instead, it elicits a concentrated, asymmetric response: a sharp negative effect limited to strong Republicans. A supplementary survey suggests that this distinctly repellent effect may arise from this group’s intense ideological misalignment and negative inferences about the political composition of the workplace. These findings suggest that, rather than reshaping the broad applicant pool, sociopolitical stances function as a “filter,” selectively deterring the subset of candidates most likely to bring their politics into the workplace. We discuss how this filtering effect may complement organizational objectives while potentially deepening societal polarization.

• J. Daniel Kim and Saerom Lee (Under Review), Target Startup’s Organizational Structure and Acquirer’s Integration-Separation Decision. Abstract

  To reap the benefits of startup acquisition, acquirers strategically choose whether to integrate or separate their targets. This study examines how this post-acquisition organization design choice between integration and separation depends on the target startup’s pre-acquisition organizational structure. Leveraging employee-employer-matched data to construct a novel measure of post-acquisition separation based on employee mobility patterns, we find that acquirers are more likely to separate more structurally complex target startups. Additional analyses are consistent with the view that, as the target firm’s structural complexity can increase the disruptive costs of integrating the two firms but reduce coordination costs when kept separate, post-acquisition separation becomes more suitable. Our results shed light on an important organizational antecedent that shapes the relative appeal of integration versus separation in startup acquisitions.

• Jaeho Choi and Saerom Lee (Under Review), Span of Control as a Dynamic Strategic Lever for Early-stage Firm Growth. Abstract

  The literature on organization design has traditionally viewed the span of control as a static constraint on scalability. This study revisits this perspective by developing a computational model that formalizes how the span of control dynamically shapes early-stage firm growth through two fundamental trade-offs inherent in organizational information processing: (1) between individual-level and organizational-level bottlenecks (arising from cognitive constraint on attention) and (2) between commission and omission errors (arising from cognitive constraint on evaluation). We find that, when either cognitive constraint—and its associated trade-off—operates in isolation, the widest span of control may maximize growth. However, when both constraints are present, an intermediate span of control emerges as optimal. Crucially, this optimum progressively decreases as firms grow over time, reflecting a fundamental shift in growth constraints from a scarcity of ideas to a scarcity of time. This gradual narrowing proves particularly beneficial when firms operate in highly uncertain or more munificent environments or when their employees are more capable of generating or screening ideas. Overall, these findings reconceptualize the span of control as a dynamic strategic instrument for navigating evolving information-processing trade-offs and accelerating firm growth.

• Saerom Lee and J. Daniel Kim (2024), When Do Startups Scale? Large-scale Evidence from Job Postings, Strategic Management Journal, 45 (9), pp. 1633-1669. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3596 Abstract

  Scaling at the right time is a crucial challenge for startups. Conceptualizing “scaling” as the entrepreneurial process of acquiring and committing resources to implement the core business idea and expand the customer base, this study examines how scaling early may decrease imitation risk at the expense of increasing commitment risk. As startups typically hire managers and sales personnel when they begin to scale, we propose that this timing can be empirically measured by when startups first post these jobs. Leveraging a dataset of job postings, we find that early scalers are more likely to fail, but no evidence of a countervailing benefit in terms of successful exit. Additional analyses suggest that the commitment risk in scaling early outweighs the benefit of reducing imitation risk.

• Reuben Hurst, Saerom Lee, Justin Frake (2024), The effect of flatter hierarchy on applicant pool gender diversity: Evidence from experiments, Strategic Management Journal, 45 (8), pp. 1446-1484. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3590 Abstract

  This article investigates how job seekers’ perceptions of an employer’s formal hierarchy affect the size and gender composition of its applicant pool. Building on the literature on gendered organizations and organizational design, we develop opposing perspectives on these relationships. To arbitrate between these perspectives, we first conduct a field experiment in partnership with a hiring firm. We find that featuring a flatter hierarchy in recruiting materials does not significantly affect the size of the applicant pool, but significantly decreases women’s representation within it. Our follow-up survey experiment identifies several potential mechanisms (e.g., perceptions of career progression, informality, workload, and fit). Our findings imply that firms’ growing tendency to adopt flatter hierarchies could inadvertently undermine efforts to attract a greater proportion of women applicants.

• Saerom Lee and Britta Glennon (Under Review), The Effect of Immigration Policy on Founding Location Choice: Evidence from Canada’s Start-up Visa Program. Abstract

  To spur entrepreneurship and economic growth, an increasing number of countries have introduced immigration policies that provide visas to skilled entrepreneurs. This paper investigates whether these policies influence the founding location choice of immigrant founders, by leveraging the introduction of Canada’s Start-up Visa Program in 2013. We demonstrate that this immigration policy increased the likelihood that U.S.-based immigrants have a start-up in Canada by 69%. Our results show that Asian immigrants (who have a higher representation in Canada than in the U.S.) are disproportionately more likely to migrate to Canada to start their businesses, whereas Hispanic immigrants (who have a smaller representation in Canada than in the U.S.) are less inclined to do so. We also find that this propensity varies with the size of co-ethnic immigrant communities in the origin location. Overall, our study unveils the importance of immigration policies in determining founding location choice and has important implications for countries competing for global talent.

• Saerom Lee (2022), The Myth of the Flat Start-up: Reconsidering the Organizational Structure of Start-ups, Strategic Management Journal, 43 (1), pp. 58-92. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3333 Abstract

  There has been an ongoing debate over whether start-ups should be “flat” with minimal hierarchical layers. To reconcile this debate, this paper distinguishes between creative and commercial success (i.e., product novelty vs. profitability), and examines how these outcomes are variously influenced by a start-up’s hierarchy. This study suggests that while a flatter hierarchy can improve ideation and creative success, it can result in haphazard execution and commercial failure by overwhelming managers with the burden of direction and causing subordinates to drift into power struggles and aimless idea explorations. I find empirical support for this trade-off using a large sample of game development start-ups. These findings offer one resolution to the debate by sorting out the conditions under which hierarchy can be conducive or detrimental to start-ups.

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Past Courses

• INSP4999 - Honors Thesis

  The senior thesis course is a capstone for seniors in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. Students in the Huntsman Program should consult with the Huntsman Program advisors for more information.

• MGMT2230 - Business Strategy

  This course introduces concepts and analytical techniques for creating sustainable advantage in challenging competitive environments. Students examine strategic decisions faced by managers responsible for the performance of a firm or business unit, who must diagnose the basis for current results, identify internal and external changes likely to threaten the firm’s position or create opportunities, and formulate and implement strategies to compete successfully. Through readings, case-based discussions, and theory, the course develops students’ ability to analyze competitive environments, evaluate the strengths and limitations of firms, and make strategic choices at both the business and corporate levels. Special emphasis is placed on first-order forces shaping competition, including advances in artificial intelligence, platform-based business models, and rapid innovation in science- and technology-intensive industries. A solid understanding of strategy is essential not only for top managers, but also for external consultants, financial analysts, and capital allocators responsible for valuing and growing firms.

• MGMT6120 - Managing Emerg Entrprse

  This course is about managing during the early stages of an enterprise, when the firm faces the strategic challenge of being a new entrant in the market and the organizational challenge of needing to scale rapidly. The enterprises of interest in this course have moved past the purely entrepreneurial phase and need to systematically formalize strategies and organizational processes to reach maturity and stability, but they still lack the resources of a mature firm. The class is organized around three distinct but related topics that managers of emerging firms must consider: strategy, human and social capital, and global strategy.

• MGMT9260 - Sem Strat & Org Des

  This half-semester course examines one of the foundational questions in strategy: the role of organizational structure in both supporting and shaping strategy. As Winston Churchill famously said: "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." This course examines this proposition from two traditions, the "institutional economics" and "information processing" schools of organizational design. We will examine foundational works from both schools, such as Coase, Williamson, Simon, March, and others, and then proceed to recent work in the area. Some of the questions that we will explore in the class are: why do firms exist? What determines their boundaries? What determines formal and informal structures within firms? How does the strategic context shape the answers to these questions? How might the nature of the firm and its boundaries relate to innovation, human capital, and knowledge creation? The aim of this class is to provide students with a grounding in the fundamental questions and contributions in this area, and to spark ideas for research in their own graduate work.

• Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2023
• Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2022
• Strategic Management Society Conference Strategic Human Capital Interest Group Best Paper Award, 2022
• Finalist, Strategic Management Society Conference Responsible Research Paper Prize, 2022
• Finalist, Academy of Management TIM Division Dissertation Award, 2022
• Strategy Science Conference Best Paper Award, 2022
• Runner-up, Industry Studies Association Dissertation Award, 2022
• Academy of Management OMT Division Best Paper Award, 2022
• Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2021
• Winner, INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition, 2019
• Strategic Management Society Best Conference Ph.D. Paper Award, 2019
• Michigan Ross E. G. Flamholtz Award for Academic Excellence, 2018
• Michigan Ross T. W. Leabo Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence, 2018
• Michigan Ross W. A. Spivey/Valerie and W. Hall Award for Academic and Research Excellence, 2018
• Michigan Ross Emeritus Award for the Best Second-year Paper, 2017

Knowledge @ Wharton

• AI’s Real Impact on Jobs and Productivity, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/15/2026
• Career Growth, Job Mobility, and the Modern Workforce, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/13/2026
• How Advanced Analytics Are Changing Professional Hockey, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/13/2026
• AI’s Supply Chain Problem, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/12/2026
• Lasting Loyalty: Why ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ Wins, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/12/2026
• Why Leadership Changes Often Backfire, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/12/2026
• Rethinking Urban Tax Policy Through Land Value Taxation, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/08/2026
• Judgment Is the New Bottleneck, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/07/2026
• Balancing Performance and Prediction in Modern Golf Rankings, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/06/2026
• How Economic Strain and AI Are Reshaping Family Roles, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/06/2026