Kalleberg’s research focuses on three main topics related to work, organizations, occupations and industries, labor markets, and social stratification. First, he has studied the fit between persons and jobs, represented by his comparative studies of organizations and work attitudes in Japan and the United States (e.g., his 1990 book with James Lincoln, Culture, Control, and Commitment, and his 2007 book, The Mismatched Worker). Second, he has documented how different kinds of work structures (occupations, organizations, industries, unions, classes) generate inequalities in economic and noneconomic job rewards (e.g., his 1996 book with David Knoke, Peter Marsden, and Joe Spaeth, Organizations in America). Third, he has studied transformations in employment relations—especially the causes and consequences of nonstandard work arrangements such as temporary, contract, and part-time work—in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Kalleberg’s 2011 book, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s, received best book awards from the Academy of Management and the American Sociological Association. In Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies (2018) and Precarious Asia (2022, with Kevin Hewison and Kwang-Yeong Shin) he showed how precarious work is shaped by institutional and cultural contexts. In current work, Kalleberg is examining the structure of careers and intragenerational mobility in the U.S. (with Ted Mouw and Michael Schultz), and the role of corporations in capitalism.
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