About Katherine K. Chen
Katherine K. Chen’s research specialty is the study of organizations; her other research interests include work and occupations, economic sociology, urban community, and cultural sociology. Her latest research project, a multi-year ethnographic study, examined the growing organization behind the annual Burning Man event.
Her book, Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event, shows how an enabling organization can support members’ efforts without succumbing to either under-organizing’s insufficient structure and coordination or over-organizing’s excessive structure and coercive control.
Dr. Chen received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Harvard University and an A.M. in Sociology and an A.B. in Human Biology from Stanford University.
She is assistant professor in sociology at The City College of New York and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York.
Education
A.B. and A.M. Stanford University; M.A. and Ph.D. Harvard University
Courses Regularly Taught
Work and Family (FIQWS),
Contemporary Issues in the Workplace,
Organizations and Collective Action (Sociology of Organizations)
Research Interests
Organizations
Work and Occupations
Economic Sociology
Urban Community
Cultural Sociology
Publications
Selected forthcoming and pending publication
“Merging Consumption and Production in the Burning Man Art World.” Revise and resubmit.
Selected publications
Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 2009.
“Differentiating Organizational Boundaries.” (with Siobhán O’Mahony)Research in the Sociology of Organizations 26: 183-220. 2009.
"Authenticity at Burning Man."Contexts 8(3): 65-67. 2009.
“Bureaucracy” and “Oligarchy.”
Pp. 99-101 and 637-638 inEncyclopedia of Social Problems. Ed. Vince Parrillo. NJ: Sage. 2008.
“Incendiary Incentives: How the Burning Man Organization Motivates and Manages Volunteers.” Pp. 109-128 in AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Man. Eds. Lee Gilmore and Mark Van Proyen. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2005.
