Humility
Research Hub
Hello! Here are links to my research articles (for personal use only):
Decker, M.W., & Hekman, D.R., 2026. Help or Handicap? How Gender Moderates Pay
Outcomes in Same-Gender Work Groups. Human Resource Management. First published online March 6, 2026: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.70067
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Highlighted in Forbes, March 23, 2026
Ragaglia, R., &
Hekman, D. R. 2025. Trapped: A Qualitative Exploration of
Reluctant Staying. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2025, No. 1, p. 22369). Valhalla, NY
10595: Academy of Management.
Chan, E. T., Hekman,
D. R., & Foo, M. D. 2024. An examination of whether and how leader
humility enhances leader personal career success. Human Resource Management, 63(3), 427-442. 10.1002/hrm.22208
* CU Leeds Center for Ethics and
Social Responsibility (CESR) Highest Impact Paper Award, 2024
·
Highlighted in Newsweek, April 8, 2024
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Highlighted in Decision Marketing and Workplace Insight, March 21, 2024
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Highlighted in LinkedIn also here
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Highlighted in The Conversation, April 18, 2024
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Highlighted in The Coloradan July 16, 2024
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Highlighted in Psychology Today August 5, 2024
Ragaglia, R. &
Hekman, D.R. 2024. I Want to Break Free: The Influence of
Perceived Entrapment on Employee Turnover Intention. Academy of Management Proceedings. Chicago. (1), 14766.
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2024.14766abstract
·
Highlighted in CU Boulder Today January 7, 2025
Lehmann, M., Pery,
S., Kluger, A. N., Hekman, D. R., Owens, B. P., & Malloy, T. E. 2023. Relationship-Specific (Dyadic) Humility: How
Your Humility Predicts My Psychological Safety and Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology. 108: 809-825. doi:10.1037/apl0001059
Highlighted
in “The Conversation,”
December 8, 2023
Decker, M. &
Hekman, D.R. 2023. The Hen House Effect: The Negative
Repercussions of Working in Women-Only Teams. Academy of Management Proceedings. Boston. (1), 12606.
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.12606abstract
·
Highlighted in Latest@Leeds November 12, 2024
Hekman, D.R., Cropanzano,
R., Chan, E., Kirk, J.F., Lamb, M. 2022. How illegitimate pay inequality leads to worse performance via
aggression and coworker devaluing. Academy of Management Proceedings. Seattle, WA. 1: 15045.
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2022.15045abstract
Kirk, J.F., Hekman,
D.R., Chan, E.T., Foo, M.D. 2022. Public Negative Labeling Effects on Team
Interaction and Performance. Small Group Research. First Published April 6, 2022 online. doi:
10.1177/10464964221082516
Hekman, D.R., Van
Wagoner, P., Owens, B., Mitchell, T.R., Holtom, B., Lee, T.M, Dinger, J. 2022. An
Examination of Whether and How Prevention Climate Alters the Influence of
Turnover on Performance. Journal of Management. 48:
542-570. doi:10.1177/0149206320978451
Kahle
Family Research Award Finalist, 2023
Zorgdrager, B., & Hekman, D.R., 2021. An Inductively-Derived
Process Model of Nonprofit Leadership Behaviors and Mechanisms. Academy of Management Proceedings. Virtual
Conference, August 2021. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2021.15746abstract
Marsh, V.
& Hekman, D.R. 2021. Managing Power
Dependence in Diversity Work at San Francisco Bay Area High-Growth Firms
(2016-2020). Academy of Management Proceedings. Virtual Conference, August 2021.
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2021.14720abstract
Lehmann, M., Pery, S., Kluger, A.N., & Hekman, D.R. 2021. You Cause my Humility:
The Dyadic Effect of Co-Worker Humility on Performance. Academy of Management Proceedings. Virtual
Conference, August 2021. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2021.12423abstract
Dinger, J., Conger, M., Hekman, D.R., Bustamante, C. 2020. Somebody
That I Used to Know: The Immediate and Long-Term Effects of Social Identity in
Post-disaster Business Communities. Journal
of Business Ethics. 166: 115–141. doi:10.1007/s10551-019-04131-w
Van Wagoner, P., Embry, E., Barnes, L.Y., Rivin, J.M., Rick Reed, R.
Hekman, D.R., Volpone, S.D., & Johnson, S.K. 2019. Leveraging
Diversity to Enhance Inclusion Efforts for Team Processes and Outcomes. Academy of Management Proceedings. Boston,
August 2019. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2019.15302abstract
Hekman, D.R., Johnson, S.K. Foo, M.D. & Yang, W. 2017. Does
diversity-valuing behavior result in diminished performance ratings for
nonwhite and female leaders? Academy of Management Journal. 60: 771-797. doi:10.5465/amj.2014.0538.
Highlighted in the following media outlets:
·
Forbes
·
TIME
·
Academy of Management (AOM)
in the News
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Mashable
·
Jezebel
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NPR
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Glamour
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Fivethirtyeight.com, March 25, 2016
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CNN, March 24, 2016
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The Atlantic, April 4, 2016
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Also summarized
and included in the Harvard Women and
Public Policy Program's Gender Action Portal (GAP – gap.hks.harvard.edu)
Johnson, S.K., Hekman, D.R., & Chan, E.T. 2016. If
There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance
She’ll Be Hired. Harvard Business Review. April 26,
2016.
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Highlighted in Forbes
on February 11, 2025
Johnson, S.K. & Hekman, D.R. 2016. Women
and Minorities Are Penalized for Promoting Diversity. Harvard
Business Review. March 23, 2016.
Owens, B. P., & Hekman, D. R. 2016. How does
leader humility influence team performance? Exploring the mechanisms of
contagion and collective promotion focus. Academy of Management
Journal, 59(3), 1088-1111. doi:
10.5465/amj.2013.0660
·
SIOP award for
being one of the top 10 articles published in 2016 (out of 955 management
articles published in the fifteen most prestigious management journals in 2016
and this was the only one of the 10 selected that was published in AMJ http://www.siop.org/tip/april17/gap.aspx)
York, J.,
Vedula, S., Conger, M., Hekman, D.R. 2016. Green
to Gone: How Institutional Logics Impact the Survival of Social Entrepreneurs.
Frontiers
of Entrepreneurship Research: Vol. 36 : Iss. 15, Article 4.
https://digitalcollections.babson.edu/digital/collection/ferpapers/id/62/
Hekman, D.R., van Knippenberg, D. & Pratt, M.G.
2015. Channeling
Identification: How Perceived Regulatory Focus Moderates the Influence of
Organizational and Professional Identification on Professional Employees’
Diagnosis and Treatment Behaviors, Human Relations, 69:
753–780. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726715599240
Schilpzand, P., Hekman,
D. R., & Mitchell, T. R. 2015. An
inductively generated typology and process model of workplace courage. Organization
Science, 26(1), 52-77.
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/orsc.2014.0928
*Finalist
for best Positive Organizational Scholarship article published in 2015 award.
Saleh,
S.H., Foo, M.D., Hekman, D.R., 2015. Mentor
or Tormentor: Understanding How Mentors Impact Entrepreneurs’ Performance Using
a Creativity Perspective. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research.
35: 5.
https://digitalcollections.babson.edu/digital/collection/ferpapers/id/734/
Kirk, J.,
Hekman, D. R. Chan, E. 2015. It’s All in The Name:
An Investigation of Bad Apple Antecedents. Academy of Management
Proceedings, Vancouver, BC, August 2015, 18020.
https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2015.18020abstract
Sun, S. Owens, B.P.,
Hekman, D.R. 2014. When
Proactive Employees Meet Humble Leaders: Job Satisfaction, Innovation and
Learning Behavior. Academy of Management Proceedings. Philadelphia,
August 2014, 12213.
Hekman, D.R., Yang, W. & Foo, M.D. 2014. Does valuing
diversity result in worse performance ratings for minority and female leaders?
Academy of Management
Proceedings. Philadelphia, August 2014.
Owens, B.P., Hekman,
D.R. 2013. Humility
in Teams: Collective Humility and Its Impact on Team Growth Climate and
Performance. Academy of Management Proceedings. Orlando, August 2013, 14272.
Owens, B. & Hekman, D.R. 2012. Modeling How to
Grow: An Inductive Examination of Humble Leader Behaviors, Outcomes, and
Contingencies. Academy of Management Journal, 55: 787-818.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2010.0441
Highlighted in the following media outlets:
Forbes February 16, 2012
The Atlantic January 13, 2012
Men's Health December 18, 2011Business News Daily December 12, 2011
Quality Digest December 10, 2011
Psych Central December 9, 2011
Science Daily December 8, 2011
Johnson, M., Morgeson,
F. & Hekman, D.R. 2012. Cognitive
and Affective Identification: Developing a New Measure and Exploring the Links
between Different Forms of Social Identification and Personality with Work
Attitudes and Behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior,
33(8): 1142-1167. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-27698-006
*JOB Best Article Award Finalist
Hekman, D.R., Aquino,
K.A., Owens, B., Mitchell, T.R., Schilpzand, P., Leavitt, K. 2010. An
Examination of Whether and How Racial and Gender Biases Influence Customer
Satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal. 53: 238 – 264.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMJ.2010.49388763
*AMJ Best Article
Award 2010.
* Saroj Parasuraman Award
for the Outstanding Publication on Gender and Diversity in 2010
Highlighted in the following media outlets:
The Washington Post, June 1, 2009
The Chicago Tribune, June 2, 2009 and September 1, 2009
UWM News, June 10, 2009
The NY Times, June 23, 2009
The Boston Globe, July 6, 2009
The Globe and Mail, July 20, 2009
Hekman, D.R., Steensma,
H.K., Bigley, G.A., Hereford, J.F. 2009. Effects
of Organizational and Professional Identification
on the Relationship Between Administrators’ Social Influence and Professional Employees' Adoption of
New Work Behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology. 94
(5): 1325-1335.
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2009-12532-015.html
Hekman, D.R., Bigley,
G.A., Steensma, H.K., Hereford, J.F. 2009. Combined
Effects of Organizational and Professional Identification on the Reciprocity
Dynamic for Professional Employees. Academy of Management
Journal. 52(3): 506-526.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2009.41330897
Felps, W., Mitchell,
T.R., Hekman, D.R., Lee, T.M, Holtom, B., Harman, W. 2009. Turnover
Contagion: How Coworkers’ Job Embeddedness and Coworkers’ Job Search Behaviors
Influence Quitting. Academy of Management Journal.
52(3): 545-561.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMJ.2009.41331075
·
Highlighted in Fortune, January 25, 2022
Reynolds, S.J., Schultz,
F.C., Hekman, D.R. 2006. Stakeholder
Theory and Managerial Decision-making: Constraints and Implications of
Balancing Stakeholder Interests, Journal of Business Ethics.
64(3), 285-301.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-005-5493-2
Research Statement 2026
My research examines how common
organizational practices, often adopted with good intentions, produce
unintended consequences that undermine both worker dignity and organizational
effectiveness. Across five interconnected research streams, I identify
overlooked social and psychological mechanisms that quietly erode performance.
Collectively, this work advances a broader argument: organizations frequently
harm themselves not through malice, but through structural blind spots embedded
in widely accepted managerial assumptions.
To date, I have published nine
papers in UTD-ranked or top-tier OB journals (six in AMJ, two in JAP, one in
OS), eight articles in FT50 journals (including two in HBR, two in JBE, one in
JOM, one in HR, and two in HRM), and two additional peer-reviewed articles
(JOB, SGR). Below, I briefly review these research streams.
Social Contagion and the
Amplification of Behavior
Organizations often treat employee
decisions, particularly turnover, as individual and rational. However, my
research demonstrates that social dynamics amplify behavior in ways that
traditional models overlook. Using multilevel analysis across 45 bank branches
and 1,038 hospitality departments, we found that coworkers’ job embeddedness
and job search behaviors create contagion effects that explain voluntary
turnover beyond individual-level predictors (Felps
et al., 2009, UTD list).
This contagion logic extends beyond
turnover. We found that leader humility spreads through teams, fostering
collective promotion focus that enhances performance (Owens
and Hekman, 2012, UTD list). In both cases, small relational signals scale
into collective outcomes. Organizations that fail to recognize these
amplification processes miss powerful levers for shaping behavior.
My current research extends this
stream by examining how workplace negative entanglement, a form of negative
attachment rooted in unresolved conflict, interacts with psychological
empowerment to produce both dysfunctional and functional retention paths (Ragaglia & Hekman,
under review). Together, this work reframes turnover and leadership as
socially emergent rather than purely individual phenomena.
Threat-Oriented Management and
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Organizations frequently respond to
uncertainty by tightening controls and emphasizing risk avoidance. Yet this
threat-based orientation can paradoxically worsen outcomes. Across 232 groups,
we found that prevention climate – norms emphasizing mistake avoidance –
moderates the turnover–performance relationship: turnover is more damaging when
groups perceive it as threatening, but far less harmful in groups that do not
frame it as loss (Hekman
et al., 2022, FT50 list).
Similarly, professional employees’
responses to administrative pressure depend on identity dynamics. When
professionals identify more strongly with their profession than their
organization, they retaliate against perceived negative treatment and exploit positive
treatment, reducing productivity (Hekman
et al., 2009, UTD list). Rather than correcting behavior, control-oriented
approaches can trigger resistance.
Extending this logic, my work on pay
inequity reveals that both underpayment and overpayment activate coworker
devaluation and aggression, ultimately harming performance through a shared
psychological pathway (Hekman
et al., under review). These findings suggest that threat-focused
management often creates the very dysfunction it seeks to prevent.
Public Sanctioning and the Limits of
Punitive Correction
A common assumption in organizations
is that publicly identifying “bad actors” deters misconduct. Across four
studies (three experiments and one field study), however, we found that public
negative labeling reduces team interaction quality and undermines performance (Kirk et
al., 2022). Rather than strengthening norms, public punishment degrades
relational dynamics.
Complementing this work, our
qualitative study of workplace courage showed that most courageous acts involve
protecting vulnerable individuals from abusive authority rather than
confronting wrongdoing publicly (Schilpzand
et al., 2015, UTD list). Together, these studies challenge the “fighting
fire with fire” approach and suggest that preserving dignity, even when
addressing misconduct, may be more effective than spectacle-based correction.
Meritocratic Assumptions and
Systemic Bias
Organizations often assume that
anonymous or standardized evaluations ensure objectivity. My research
demonstrates that such systems frequently embed structural bias. We found that
customer satisfaction ratings systematically disadvantage minority and female
service employees, generating financial consequences for individuals and
organizations (Hekman
et al., 2010, UTD list).
Similarly, ethnic minority and
female leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior receive lower
supervisory ratings due to stereotype activation, while white and male leaders
are not penalized (Hekman
et al., 2017, UTD list). In hiring contexts, we showed that including a
single female finalist does not meaningfully improve selection odds; without a
critical mass, statistical bias persists (Johnson,
Hekman & Chan, 2016, FT50 list).
Most recently, we found that
all-women teams receive the lowest pay while all-men teams receive the highest
pay, driven by perceptions that women’s collective action is socially
competitive and threatening (Decker & Hekman,
2026, FT50 list). Across contexts, systems presumed neutral instead
reproduce inequality through subtle but cumulative mechanisms.
The Amplification of Leader Signals:
Reconsidering Heroic Leadership
Traditional leadership models
valorize strength, certainty, and decisive authority. My work questions whether
these assumptions overlook more effective relational processes. Drawing on 55
interviews, my coauthor and I reconceptualized leader humility as a dynamic
developmental practice of admitting mistakes, praising others’ strengths, and
modeling teachability (Owens
& Hekman, 2012, UTD list).
Across subsequent studies, we
demonstrated that humility fosters psychological safety, spreads socially
through teams, and enhances performance (Owens
and Hekman, 2016, UTD list; Lehmann
et al. (2023, OB list). Further, we showed that humble leaders are
not disadvantaged in advancement; when paired with strong mentoring networks,
humility enhances status and promotability (Chan et al.,
2024, FT50 list). Rather than weakness, growth-oriented vulnerability may
be a more scalable and sustainable leadership strategy than traditional heroic
models.
Integrative Agenda and Future
Directions
Across these streams, a unifying
theme emerges: organizational systems can amplify small psychological signals
into large structural consequences. Social contagion spreads behaviors,
threat-focused climates magnify loss framing, public sanctions erode interaction
quality, evaluation systems can compound bias, and leadership behaviors shape
collective norms and performance.
My ongoing work integrates these
insights into a broader theory of organizational amplification: how micro-level
practices compound into higher-level performance differentials. This agenda
specifies the psychological and social mechanisms through which everyday
decisions cascade into organizational outcomes, thereby enabling leaders to
design systems where dignity and effectiveness reinforce rather than undermine
each other. I remain committed to developing theoretically novel and
empirically rigorous research that challenges entrenched assumptions while
offering practical guidance for building organizations that are both more
humane and effective.