[4] She co-founded the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative and served as Director and Founding Chair from 2008 to 2018.

[12] Although Kanter later decided to pursue a career in business research,[12] her training as a sociologist informed her thinking and subsequent work.

[16] Kanter's earliest work as a sociologist focused on utopian communities and communes in the United States.

To explain their success, Kanter noted these groups' rituals and clear boundaries for membership, as well as the "commitment mechanisms" that utopians utilized: sacrifice, investment, renunciation, communion, mortification and transcendence.

[20] Her consulting clients have included large companies such as IBM, Gap Inc., Monsanto, British Airways, and Volvo.

[20] Kanter's theory of management suggests the manner by which a company operates influences attitudes of the work force.

[23] An article published in the San Diego Tribune on May 29, 2018, mentioned Kanter's idea that the happiest employees can solve the most difficult problems and make a positive change in the lives of people.

[24] In an interview with Business Insider in 2015, Kanter deplored the "miserable state of America's infrastructure which impaired the economy and affected American citizens.

"[citation needed] The Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award is given in recognition of the best piece of work-family research.