Glenn Carroll's research interests include organizational theory, strategic management, and industrial evolution. He has pioneered ecological approaches to organizational analysis, as well as their application to strategy. Carroll helped develop the study of population dynamics among organizations, examining how the demographics of firms affect corporate change. His recent research investigates how organizational identities develop and impact society. Another program examines how the diversity of organizations in a community affects socio-political outcomes. Carroll has also studied the ways internal organizational demography shapes organizational cultures.

Glenn Carroll’s research addresses basic questions of organizational theory, strategic management, and organizational and industrial evolution.

Carroll has been centrally involved in the development of ecological-evolutionary approaches to organizational analysis, as well as their application to issues of strategy. His books on this general topic include: Logics of Organization Theory: Audiences, Codes and Ecologies (coauthored with M.T.Hannan and L. Pólos), The Demography of Corporations and Industries (coauthored with M. T. Hannan), Organizations in Industry: Strategy, Structure and Selection (coedited with M. T. Hannan), Dynamics of Organizational Populations: Density, Competition and Legitimation (coauthored with M. T. Hannan), Ecological Models of Organizations (edited), and Publish and Perish: The Organizational Ecology of Newspaper Industries.

Carroll has also been involved in analyses of the ways internal organizational demography shapes organizational cultures. A book describing this research program is Culture and Demography in Organizations (coauthored with J. R. Harrison).

Carroll’s recent research investigates how organizational identities develop and impact society. Another ongoing program examines how the diversity of organizations in a community affects social and political outcomes.

Carroll enjoys teaching organization design and strategy in MBA programs and Executive Education programs. His classes typically involve the application of theoretical ideas to real-world settings and managerial problems. He has supervised the development of a number of cases, including Cocoa Pete’s Chocolate Adventures, Wind River Systems, the Western States Affiliate of the American Heart Association, Agilent Technologies, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, American Craft Brew International, and the Mendocino Brewing Co. His classes typically involve materials from these cases.

Carroll has been appointed to partial or visiting positions to universities and institutes in the U.K. (Durham Business School), Norway (University of Oslo), Hong Kong (University of Science and Technology), Singapore (National University of Singapore), the Netherlands (University of Maastricht), Germany (Max Planck Institute of Human Development, the University of Munich, and ZUMA in Mannheim), and Switzerland (University of Bern). He has served on the editorial boards of 14 different journals. He has also been actively involved in university review boards and professional associations and conferences.

Carroll has received the Doctor Honoris Causa (in Applied Economics) from the University of Antwerp (2002), the Max Weber Award from the American Sociological Association (2002), and the Cheit Award for Teaching Excellence (in the PhD program) at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley (1995, 2000). He has been named a Fellow by John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1997-98), a Fellow by Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (1990), and a Fellow by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88).