Brigham Young University
Faculty Center


Faculty Development Plan
Department of Organizational Leadership and Strategy
2006

Part I- Self Assessment

Strengths: I am a dedicated person. I feel a strong and urgent desire to contribute to the missions of BYU education through research, teaching, and citizenship. I understand and am fully committed to advancing the overarching principles that guide my professional field of study. I feel a strong desire to disseminate these principles to the students with whom I interact, and feel that I am enthusiastic and innovative in the ways I deliver content. Understanding the underlying principles of management, and more specifically, organizational behavior, has helped me to become proficient in specific research streams where I have been actively involved in scholarly pursuits. I have also developed a substantial network of scholars in my discipline areas of organizational behavior. I feel my ability to develop networks is an additional strength I can continue to foster as a way to contribute to knowledge creation and publication in my field.

Skills and competencies: I study organizational behavior and the human capital side of business because I have an affinity for people and their innate nature to be creative, engaging, teachable, and altruistic. I feel that I interact with and manage relationships with people well. I feel comfortable speaking and presenting material to large groups, and feel motivated when I am in an interactive learning context. I am a competent researcher and writer. I know the basic formulations that lead to good scholarly content. My statistical and research method skills allow me to analyze and explore unique relationships using both traditional and non-traditional approaches.

Research:  My primary areas of interest fall under the rubric of organizational and human resource management, with a particular focus on organizational behavior. Specifically, I am interested in both individual and organizational commitments to societal causes, or ideologies. Parallel to this is interest in the employee-employer relationship (psychological contracts), ethics in organizations, organizational commitment, job demands, idea generation, and organizational justice. I also have interests in corporate social responsibility and business sustainability at an individual level of analysis.

Teaching:  I have taught OB 321 (Organizational Effectiveness) for two semesters now and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My involvement with BYU undergraduate students has motivated me to become a better teacher and provide a better learning experience in the classroom. My teaching philosophy revolves around stimulating discussion and creative thought, integrating practical applications, and encouraging feedback. I look forward to teaching OB 321 and other courses at the undergraduate level, as well as courses in the graduate program.  

Citizenship:  As a new assistant professor, I realize the demands on my time are very high, thus necessitating consideration of how my time is allocated to service responsibilities, particularly in the pre-tenure years. I have served as an ad-hoc member of the search committee for the OLS department in our search for a new faculty member. I am also a co-chair (with XXX) of the undergraduate curriculum committee heading up the effort to reinstate an undergraduate emphasis in OB/HR.

Areas I wish to develop:   I would like to become a more prolific and well-known scholar in the areas in which I study. My aspirations and current research efforts are narrowly focused on publishing my work in top-tier journals that are more visible on many levels. I am working to develop relationships with more established faculty as a way to better develop the art and skill of publishing in A-level journals. I am also interested in becoming a better teacher in the classroom by actively engaging in observation, evaluation, and reformulation related to my teaching strategies and style.

Part II – Professional Goals and Plan

Teaching Goals: I want to integrate more practical business application into my classes in the form of current business events and business cases. I want students to fully grasp the importance of human capital in business environments and understand how they can contribute to the effective functioning of the team and organizational structures of which they are a part. I want to maintain my enthusiasm for teaching by creating novel approaches to presenting material and keeping fully current on the latest business events. My aspiration is to maintain my teaching ratings in the above-average to outstanding range (mid 6 to mid 7 range). Further, I hope to expand the repertoire of classes that I teach to include other undergraduate courses (such as HR management and Leadership) as well as graduate courses (Graduate Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Power, Influence, and Negotiations).

Teaching Plan: As a way to integrate more practical business application into my classes, I plan on subscribing to several trade magazines and journals (e.g., Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, etc.) and dedicating myself to reading and integrating these resources into materials I prepare for class. I plan to then implement the readings that I find most applicable to the class content. As part of this process, I plan to develop a well-organized electronic filing system for categorizing and archiving articles of potential use for different areas of interest. I hope to continue teaching in the integrated core (OB 321) as a way to further refine my thinking about effective teaching in this particular course. As a more long-term part of this plan, I want to begin accumulating materials to form the basic course structure of a graduate-level course in organizational behavior.

Research Goals: I intend to publish two peer-reviewed articles this year; one in an A-level journal. I also intend to present my research at the Academy of Management conference in the form of research presentations. I also hope to create and develop new relationships with research faculty related to my areas of interest.

Projects that I hope will be published:

Projects that I hope will be under review:

Research Plan: To achieve my research goals for the next year and long-term research goals, I have constructed a framework for productivity. First, I plan on writing every day. Consistency in writing, even in small increments, seems to be the strongest predictor of publishing likelihood. Second, I plan on disseminating my work through different stages of development to colleagues within and outside of my field of study. Gaining feedback early and often through the research development process seems to be another strong predictor of publication prolificacy. Specific to this step, I will set short term goals parallel to conference deadlines and the termination of academic blocks. Finally, I plan on maintaining existing projects while also beginning several new projects this year. I would also like to attempt to work more closely with faculty within the Marriott School, both within and outside of the OB/HR group.

Citizenship Goals: My citizenship goals surround two areas within the field of scholarship. First, I want to be an active and engaged citizen in my department. My goal is to be actively engaged in at least one committee and make significant contributions without sacrificing extensive research time. Second, I want to be actively involved as a scholarly contributor to my discipline. Specifically, I want to become an ad-hoc reviewer for a major (A-level) journal in my discipline this year (probably JAP) and continue my involvement as a conference reviewer for AoM and SIOP. Additionally, I will continue to work with colleagues to organize symposia on topics of current interest in management research.

Citizenship Plan: My first professional citizenship responsibility is to the students, faculty, and programs within my faculty group, my department, the Marriott School, and BYU. I will be cautious about becoming overly-involved or committed to multiple projects in this stage of my career, but will nonetheless contribute in meaningful ways to the betterment of the stakeholders with whom I affiliate. With regard to my scholarly citizenship toward the discipline, my involvement will include reviewing for journals, reviewing for conferences, participation in the HR and OB divisions of the Academy of Management, and organizing symposia.