Business school's Brad Morrison honored for work in system dynamics

Associate Professor Brad Morrison(left) accepts Forrester Award from Jack Homer, chair of the award committee.

Brandeis International Business School Associate Professor Brad Morrison and his collaborators were honored by the System Dynamics Society with the Jay W. Forrester Award last month in recognition of their work on action-oriented problem solving.

It is the most prestigious award in the field of system dynamics.

The team’s journal article, “The dynamics of action-oriented problem solving: linking interpretation and choice,” was published in the Academy of Management Review in 2009. At the award ceremony in July, Morrison accepted the honor on behalf of his co-authors, Jenny Rudolph of Harvard Medical School and John Carroll of MIT.

“The paper makes a major contribution to the literature on decision-making and sense-making,” said Jack Homer, chair of the Forrester Award Committee. “It presents a compact and elegant simulation model based, in part, on a unique clinical case study, and provides generalizable insights about the decision-making styles and conditions that can lead to failure or success.”

Homer described the article as having direct applications in many organizational contexts, including combat and intelligence operations, plant operations, competitive strategy, and workplace dynamics.

“It was a shock and a surprise to receive this honor,” Morrison said. “I am humbled to be in the company of some of the preeminent scholars in my field.”

Bruce Magid, the dean of the business school and the Martin and Ahuva Gross Chair in Financial Markets and Institutions, said: “We are extremely proud of Brad Morrison for his impressive achievement with this award. He has quickly become a valuable contributor to our program and an important thought leader both at Brandeis and in the wider world of international business education.”

Also this summer, Morrison was promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure.