Carol Hymowitz interviewed me for a recent Wall Street Journal column, titled “Though Now Routine, Bosses Still Stumble During the Layoff Process.” The interview sparked my curiosity, and I went back and read research on “downsizing,” a topic I’ve been interested in since I did my dissertation research on the process of organizational death in the 1980s. In doing so, some persistent themes — and one interesting twist — jumped out. For the next three weeks, I’ll be examining what I’ve learned about whether layoffs are necessary and how best to proceed when they are.