Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior

Rodrigo Canales researches the role of institutions in entrepreneurship and economic development. Specifically, Rodrigo’s work seeks to understand how individuals purposefully enact organizational and institutional change. In particular, Rodrigo explores how individuals’ backgrounds, professional identities, and organizational positions affect how they relate to existing structures and the strategies they pursue to change them. His work builds on the different traditions of institutional theory and contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that allow institutions to operate and change. Rodrigo has done work in entrepreneurial finance and microfinance. As he continues his work on microfinance he is also conducting research in the institutional complexities of renewable energy and the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs. Rodrigo teaches the Innovator Perspective at Yale SOM; he sits in the steering committee of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; and he advises several startups in Mexico that seek to improve the financing environment for small firms.

Selected Articles
"The Dark Side of Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending" with R. Nanda, Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 105, No. 2, August, 2012

"Rule Bending, Sociological Citizenship, and Organizational Contestation in Microfinance," Regulation and Governance. Vol. 5, No. 1, 90-117, March, 2011

"Promises Aren't Enough: Business Schools Need to Do a Better Job Teaching Students Values" with C. Massey and A. Wrzesniewski, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2010

"Para Ganar la Guerra al Narco" To Win the War on Drugs, Nexos, May, 2010

Selected Book Chapters 
"Stranger as Friend: Loan Officers and Positive Deviance in Microfinance," in J. Dutton and K. Golden Biddle, eds., Using a Positive Lens to Explore Social Change and Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011 

"Small and Medium Firm Lending in Mexico: Lessons and Current Issues" with R. Nanda, in R. Hausmann, E. Austin and E. Mia, eds., Mexico Competitiveness Report 2009, World Economic Forum, 2009

Working Papers 
"A Matter of Relational Style:  Loan Officer Coherence and Consistency in Contract Enforcement in Microfinance" (with J. Greenberg)

"Weaving Straw into Gold: Managing Organizational Tensions Between Standardization  and Flexibility in Microfinance"

"The Mechanisms of Institutional Change: Bringing Agents back In"

"From Ideals to Institutions: Institutional Entrepreneurship in Small Business Credit in Mexico"

Education
PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008
MBA Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003
BS summa cum laude, Universidad Iberoamericana, 1998