Rate My Professor Richard Benton

Richard Benton is an Associate Professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he holds additional appointments as Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Business Administration, and serves as Executive Director of the Climate Jobs Institute. He earned his PhD in Sociology from North Carolina State University in 2014, along with an MS in Sociology in 2010, a BA in Sociology in 2007, and a BA in Psychology in 2006. Prior to joining UIUC in 2015, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Duke University from 2014 to 2015.

Benton's research focuses on organization theory, economic sociology, social network analysis, inter-organizational networks, social capital, corporate governance, and social stratification. He investigates the role of social networks in individual and organizational outcomes, the dynamics of network change, and particularly the consequences of network fracturing among U.S. corporate leaders using advanced network models. His scholarship examines how corporate governance and financial pressures influence firms as employers, including job quality, stakeholder engagement, and leadership representation. Benton co-authored the annual Illinois Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation Report, fulfilling state requirements for corporate diversity disclosures.

His work has appeared in leading journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Social Forces, and Social Networks. Key publications include "Changing employment relations under a fractured corporate elite" (Socio-Economic Review, 2021), "Firm partisan positioning, polarization, and risk communication: Examining voluntary disclosures on COVID-19" (Strategic Management Journal, 2022), "The Dependency Structure of Bad Jobs: How Market Constraint Undermines Job Quality" (ILR Review, 2022), "Gender inequality in relational position-taking: An analysis of intra-organizational job mobility networks" (Social Science Research, 2022), and "An Empirical Analysis of Race and Political Partisanship Effects on Workplace Mobility Patterns During Lockdown, Reopening, and Endemic COVID-19" (ILR Review, 2024). Research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. In 2021, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, and in 2025, named an Inaugural Dean's Faculty Research Fellow. Benton teaches courses on organizational fundamentals for HR and power and influence in HR, consistently earning excellent teaching ratings.