Research Interests & Publications
Social Change & Business Ethics
My research on social change and business ethics examines the psychological processes used by individuals to make sense of what is right and wrong, as well as the sensegiving processes individuals use to influence others about right and wrong. My research challenges traditionally "rationalist" perspectives on social change (and related areas of behavioral ethics) by proposing that, when faced with social and ethical issues, individuals use a set of sensemaking mechanisms as they construct personal meanings and shape the meanings of others. My research in this area also examines how advocates of social change and ethical issues use sensemaking to establish and validate their identities (and thus buoy their resilience) and customize sensegiving messages to enhance their persuasiveness for a particular audience.
Academy of Management Journal, Forthcoming
- How Accounts Shape Lending Decisions through Fostering Perceived Trustworthiness
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2011
- Tell Me a Good Story and I May Lend You My Money: The Role of Narratives in Peer-to-Peer Lending Decisions
Journal of Marketing Research, 2011
- Being a Positive Social Change Agent through Issue Selling
Exploring Positive Social Change in Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, 2011
- Positive Business Ethics
Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship, 2011
- Positive Organizational Scholarship
Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology, 2009
- Emergence of Ethical Issues during Strategic Change Implementation
Organization Science, 2009
- The Role of Construction, Intuition, and Justification in Responding to Ethical Issues at Work: The Sensemaking-Intuition Model
Academy of Management Review, 2007
- Crafting Social Issues at Work
Academy of Management Journal, 2006
- Positive Organizational Scholarship
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management Volume II: Business Ethics, 2005
- Business Ethics and Internal Social Criticism
Business Ethics Quarterly, 2005
- Toward the Construct Definition of Positive Deviance
American Behavioral Scientist, 2004
- Positive Deviance and Extraordinary Organizing
Positive Organizational Scholarship, 2003
- Toward a Sustainable Tomorrow
The Business of Consumption: Environmental Ethics and the Global Economy, 1998
Electronic copies of articles are posted as a professional courtesy to individuals to facilitate sharing academic work for noncommercial purposes. The copyrights and all associated rights continue to reside with the copyright holders, as noted in each paper.