Lauren Rivera

Researcher

Professor of management and corporate ethics at Northwestern's Kellogg School. Her fieldwork shows how firms use cultural fit when they judge merit.

Rivera studies how firms hire and judge worth. She earned a Yale degree in the study of people and the mind. She then earned a Harvard PhD. Before she taught, she worked at Evite, Leo Burnett Hispanic, and Monitor Group. [1]

At Northwestern, she holds a chair in business ethics. She also teaches management. Her book Pedigree studies campus hiring at top service firms. Her new work tests ways to make work more fair. [1]

Her field work found that firms did not screen just for skill. They also sought people like themselves in hobbies, life, and style. [2] This gives proof of what can hide inside the word “fit.” Her field has given the work several awards. [1]

Trust Rivera on top-tier hiring and on bias in ideas of worth. This is a key problem for managers. Yet her best-known field work covers a small set of top firms. Other job markets may not work the same way. Check the pattern where you hire. [1] [2]

1
Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, “Lauren Rivera,” accessed September 2, 2026.
https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/rivera_lauren/
2
Lauren A. Rivera, “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms,” American Sociological Review 77, no. 6 (2012): 999–1022.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213