Prof. John Morgan Receives 2013 Williamson Award

Professor John Morgan, who holds the Gary & Sherron Kalbach Chair in Entrepreneurship, received the inaugural Williamson Award, the Haas School’s highest faculty award named in honor of the Nobel Laureate, for exemplifying the attitudes and behaviors that differentiate Berkeley-Haas as an institution, on Friday, Dec. 6.

The Williamson Award honors Morgan for his contributions to the school, his colleagues, and students. Dean Rich Lyons and Haas Professor Emeritus and Nobel Laureate Oliver Williamson presented the award to Morgan at a faculty meeting Friday.

Morgan teaches game theory and strategy. Much of his research focuses on competition in online markets. In 2004, Morgan founded the school’s Xlab Experimental Social Science Laboratory for conducting experiment-based investigations of issues of interest to social scientists. As faculty director of the Center for Executive Education, Morgan facilitates the program’s strategic issues. He also belongs to two academic groups: Haas Business and Public Policy Group and Haas Economic Analysis and Policy Group.

“John was a natural and obvious first recipient of this new and prestigious award. His exemplary research and teaching deserve this highest form of recognition,” says Andrew Rose, associate dean for Academic Affairs and chair of the Faculty.

The Williamson Award honors Oliver Williamson, who received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009, and celebrates honorees who best reflect the character and integrity associated with Williamson’s scholarly work and legacy. It will be bestowed annually by the Berkeley-Haas dean.

“Prof. Williamson is a scholar whom we all admire,” says Dean Rich Lyons.  “He has been an inspiring teacher for a generation of doctoral students, and a leader both on the UC Berkeley campus and in the wider academic community.  As such, he is a powerful exemplar of UC Berkeley’s values of research and creative activity, teaching and service.”

Lyons says Williamson also embodies the Defining Principles of the Haas School:

Question the Status Quo: by producing frame-breaking research;

Confidence Without Attitude: by becoming an intellectual partner with his students;

Students Always: by always exploring and uniting diverse fields of scholarship;

Beyond Yourself: by establishing an endowed chair with his Nobel proceeds.