Anita McGahan in conversation with Trevor Young-Hyman
July 6, 2026
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About the Guest
Trevor Young-Hyman
Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Sociology, University of Pittsburgh
Trevor Young-Hyman is Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Sociology in the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Wharton School...
Trevor Young-Hyman is Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Sociology in the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the recipient of the Horvat-Vanek Prize, the Bill Nobles Fellowship, the Louis O. Kelso Fellowship, and was a William J. Fulbright Fellow. His research examines how formal and informal organizational structures impact organizational performance and worker welfare. In particular, recent work examines decentralized organizations, multi-stakeholder governance, worker ownership, and high purpose organizations. He has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, among other academic outlets. Trevor has also worked with governmental and non-profit organizations in multi-stakeholder collaborations, developing data collection processes and providing program evaluation. He led data collection and analysis for the Pittsburgh Citywide Taskforce on Employee Ownership, a multi-stakeholder initiative to increase business owner awareness about and catalyze business conversions to employee ownership.
Reflections from the Interview
Professor Trevor Young-Hyman is a sociologist and professor of business administration who studies democracy within and about hierarchies. He is deeply interested in how the sharing of power across a field of stakeholders can benefit organizations despite the short-term coordination and power-sharing consequences. What he finds in his empirical studies is that organizations overcome the costs over time by learning and adapting, and that residual costs are offset by the benefits of stakeholder investments in the firm. In the end,...
Professor Trevor Young-Hyman is a sociologist and professor of business administration who studies democracy within and about hierarchies.He is deeply interested in how the sharing of power across a field of stakeholders can benefit organizations despite the short-term coordination and power-sharing consequences.What he finds in his empirical studies is that organizations overcome the costs over time by learning and adapting, and that residual costs are offset by the benefits of stakeholder investments in the firm.In the end, decentralizing is not so fragile.Your stakeholders learn and interact in ways that support distributed decisions that are remarkably value-creating.
