Max H. Bazerman


Max Hal Bazerman is an author and academic who specializes in business psychology. He is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Bazerman holds a doctorate degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in Industrial Administration and two honorary Doctorate degrees from Harvard and University of London.
Bazerman is also a founding partner of Think! Inc, a forum of knowledge that offers ideas from top experts around the world, in their respective fields.

Education

Career

Since 2000, Bazerman has been the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He has been with the school since 1998 as visiting scholar. From 1985-2000 he held different positions at Kellogg School of Management varying from professor, chairperson and/or director.

Notable work

Bazerman works in the area of business psychology. He and his colleagues have worked on the psychology of accounting fraud, such as how to prevent fraud that occurred at companies such as Enron. He has also done research on ethics, and why people will do unethical things. He has been quoted as an expert numerous times in the New York Times to publications in major trade journals and at educational institutions.

Whistleblower

Bazerman was hired as a remedy witness on the civil action case involving Philip Morris and United States Department of Justice. He was hired by the US Department of Justice to make recommendations about the penalties against the company and its senior executives under the assumption that the court had found Philip Morris guilty. Bazerman was paid $800 an hour, which he decided he would donate to an irrevocable charitable trust in efforts to negate any bias since he was employed by the Justice Department.
Bazerman recommended removing Philip Morris' senior management, creating court appointed monitors, having research done by private companies also monitored by the court, eliminating incentive and compensation for selling tobacco products to children, and changing promotion policies to deter misconduct. Bazerman also recommended that managers should be educated on ways to handle biases in decision.
Bazerman was scheduled to testify on May 4, 2005. On April 30, Bazerman says that he was approached by a Justice Department attorney who asked him to change his testimony. If Bazerman didn't comply, he would be removed from the case. Bazerman refused and testified as planned.
Bazerman says that even though he knew something was wrong, he didn't take action immediately. It wasn't until June 17, he read a story in the New York Times about Mathew Myers, president of Tobacco Free Kids, who has also testified on the same case. Myers claimed that Robert McCullum, a top Department of Justice official, tried to persuade Myers to change his testimony.
Bazerman then made his own accusation. Since then, he has been critical about why he didn't notice the unethical interference sooner. He then began to focus on why some people notice right away and some don't act on critical information.
Art of Noticing
Dr. Bazerman's accomplishments are lengthy as an expert in the field of study in Behavioral Psychology. He has written numerous articles on ethics and the art of noticing unethical behavior. He argues that ethicality is a product of psychological processes. His studies show that good people do unethical things often and without even considering it. One of his most well-known philosophies is the art of noticing. He studies and teaches how we often fail to recognize available signs and information surrounding us.
Dr. Bazerman also focuses his studies on loyalty and the effects of loyalty on unethical behavior. He uses this insight to help explain and understand the reasoning behind corporate scandals and corruptions.

Publication (books)