Justin Frake
Assistant Professor of Strategy | University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
I use natual experiments and field experiments to examine how individual stakeholder perceptions, preferences, and behaviors shape organizational performance in unforeseen ways. Substantively, my work focuses on strategic human capital, misconduct, and causal inference. It spans diverse contexts—from craft beer and inventor mobility to restaurants, retail, law enforcement, corporate boards, and lobbying—and shows that even well‐intended strategies can fail or backfire due to unexpected perceptions and responses from stakeholders. My research has been published in Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Marketing Science. I currently teach Strategy 502 (MBA Core - Corporate Strategy) and Strategy 898 (PhD - Causal Inference).
Research Focus Areas
Human Capital
This stream explores how organizations create and capture value through strategic human capital management.
View Human Capital PapersMisconduct
This stream examines the drivers of organizational misconduct, with a focus on understanding why misconduct persists in organizations.
View Misconduct PapersCausal Inference
This stream applies, advances, and promotes causal inference techniques in strategy and management research, with a focus on partial identification and collider bias.
View Methods Papers