Ayaj Rana

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), advised by Adam Seth Litwin, Forrest Briscoe, JR Keller, and Michael Maffie. 

My dissertation asks how professionals retain authority, sustain identity, and balance exchange relationships when multi-party markets, rather than employers, organize their work.

Using both qualitative and quantitative methods across three papers, I answer this question in the setting of two global digital platforms for professional work, which exemplify such multi-party markets.  

My research has received the Academy of Management (AOM) Best Paper Award, OB Division's Award for Outstanding Paper with Practical Implications for Management, and Cornell ILR School's Benjamin Miller Award.  

At Cornell, I also serve as a Graduate Resident Fellow in Alice Cook House, one of Cornell's residential colleges. In this live-in role, I mentor 45 undergraduates each year and support the house's living-learning programs.

Before Cornell, I earned a Master of Public Policy (MPP) at Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and studied high-tech entrepreneurship as a Georgia Innovative Economic Development Intern at Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute. 

I began my academic career as a faculty member at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and spent six years consulting across the public, private, and nonprofit organizations.