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Member Spotlight: Joel Brockner, winner of an AOM 2020 Career Achievement Award

14 Sep 2020
The 2020 AOM Distinguished Award for Scholarly Contributions to Management was presented to Joel Brockner, in recognition of a career that spans 37 years in business schools.

“This award recognizes efforts to advance management knowledge and practice through the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. Our recipient this year is not only prolific, but vastly influential. He is a scholar who has initiated or shaped a number of research streams and has been able to bridge in a variety of different ways. He has a particular skillset in synthesizing individual studies and bundling them together into a new and cohesive theoretical perspective.”

— Brian Boyd, Career Achievement Awards Committee Chair

According to the award committee chair, Joel Brockner, winner of AOM's 2020 Career Achievement Award, is prolific, vastly influential, and a scholar who has initiated or shaped a number of research streams, including organizational justice, escalation of commitment, and regulatory focus theory.

On what receiving the Career Achievement Award means to Joel: “It’s thrilling to be recognized by my peers from an organization I am proud to belong to, for a lifetime of work. It’s as good of a professional honor I could ever receive. It’s also wonderful to share this award with family, friends, and colleagues who contributed to it in so many ways.”

2020AnnualMeeting_CAA_Scholarly_JoelBrockner_500x500pngAfter earning a Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from Tufts University, Joel spent seven years as a psychology professor at Middlebury College and Tufts University.

Career Milestones:

Working on topics of theoretical and practical importance in a variety of areas of organizational behavior including:

  1. Organizational justice (e.g., Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B.M. An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: The interactive effects of outcomes and procedures. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 189-208).
  2. Survivors’ reactions to organizational downsizing (e.g., Brockner, J., Spreitzer, G., Mishra, A., Hochwarter, W., Pepper, L., & Weinberg, J. Perceived control as an antidote to the negative effects of layoffs on survivors’ organizational commitment and job performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49, 76-100).
  3. Self-esteem (e.g., Brockner, J. (1988). Self-esteem at work: Research, theory, and practice. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
  4. Escalation of commitment (e.g., Brockner, J. The escalation of commitment to a failing course of action: Towards theoretical progress. Academy of Management Review, 17, 39-61).
  5. Regulatory focus theory (e.g., Brockner, J., & Higgins, E.T. Regulatory focus theory: Its implications for the study of emotions in the workplace. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86, 35-66).

Joel learned of the Academy of Management and the Organizational Behavior division from AOM member Max Bazerman, who encouraged him to apply for faculty positions in Management Departments at B-Schools. After spending a year in the Management Department at the University of Arizona, he joined the Management Division at Columbia University in 1984, where he has happily been ever since.

When asked about his decision to join AOM, Joel noted that several factors influenced him. The most notable was that AOM was the only organization to offer such a wide range of options for members—from different management styles, teaching resources, research, and more.

One of the most impactful and influential reasons Joel has continued his membership with AOM is the highlight of attending the Annual Meeting. To date, has attended 36 straight meetings, with no plan of slowing down!

“The meeting is all about collaboration. I’ve met friends for life at the conference—kindred spirits. You develop relationships. There is an art to attending-the meeting is thrilling, exciting and exhausting. The best of me is at the AOM Annual Meeting”.

Joel's advice to new and student members: Pace yourself! There is a smorgasbord of opportunities at AOM and the Annual Meeting.

From senior faculty mentoring junior faculty, members celebrating each other’s accomplishments to networking and collaboration, the possibilities are endless.

Informative sessions are also presented on different parts of your career, which to Joel is incredibly relevant. “It isn’t at every management organization conference that you can attend sessions on transitioning from the beginning of your career to mid-career, pre-retirement and finally to retirement, proving there is something at AOM for everyone at any stage of their career."

"It’s striking how seriously AOM took its role as facilitator of people’s careers. There is a place for you!"