Gies College of Business
Irwin Hall in autumn

BADM PhD Specialization - Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior is designed to prepare you for an academic and research career in the interdisciplinary study of individual and group behavior in organizations, intraorganizational structures and processes, and the relationship of organizations with their environments.

Overview

Typical Coursework

Foundational courses:

  • Foundations of organizational behavior
  • Macro organizational behavior
  • Micro organizational behavior

Methodology classes:

  • Statistics classes
  • Qualitive research methods

Disciplinary courses in:

  • Sociology
  • Psychology

Proseminars:

  • Organizational Behavior Speaker Series featuring globally renowned researchers
  • Teaching and professional development

Alumni Highlights

  • Emily Block, University of Alberta
  • Teresa Cardador, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Erik Dane, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Yuri Mishina, Imperial College London
  • Tim Pollock, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
  • Kevin Rockmann, George Mason University

Recent Placements

  • Indian School of Business
  • Purdue University
  • Texas A&M University
  • Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  • University of Manitoba
business instructional facility

Research and faculty engagement

  • Cognition in organizations
  • Collective intelligence
  • Computational social science
  • Corporate demography
  • Corporate governance
  • Creativity
  • Decision-making
  • Diversity
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Ethics
  • Groups and teams Ideology
  • Industrial evolution
  • Innovation
  • Institutional theory
  • Learning
  • Leadership
  • Market emergence
  • Media
  • Meaningful work
  • Negotiations
  • Organizational attention
  • Organizational change
  • Organizational evolution
  • Organizational identity
  • Organizational intelligence
  • Organizational names
  • Organizational practices
  • Product demography
  • Reputation
  • Status
  • Stigma
  • Social evaluations
  • Social identity
  • Values
  • Academy of Management Annals
  • Academy of Management Journal
  • Academy of Management Perspectives
  • Administrative Science Quarterly
  • Journal of Business Ethics
  • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
  • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
  • Strategic Management Journal
  • Strategy Science
  • Academy of Management Discoveries
  • Academy of Management Journal
  • Academy of Management Perspectives
  • Academy of Management Review
  • Journal of Organizational Design
  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
  • Organization Science
  • Research in Organizational Behavior
  • Strategic Management Journal
  • Strategic Organization 
  • Social Cognition

Recent faculty awards and leadership positions

Willie Ocasio

Willie Ocasio

OMT Distinguished Scholar Award, Academy of Management, 2023
Director of Illinois Strategic Organization Initiative (ISOI), Gies College of Business

Sarah Ward

Sarah Ward

SAGE Emerging Scholar Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2022

Michael Bednar

Michael Bednar

Named one of the top 50 undergraduate professors by Poets and Quants, 2021
Academic Director of Experiential Learning, Gies College of Business

Olga Khessina

Olga Khessina

Director of Graduate Studies, BA Ph.D. Program, Gies College of Business

Matt Kraatz

Matt Kraatz

Associate Editor of Strategic Organization

Lewyn Denise Loid

Denise Lewin Loyd

Associate Dean for Equity, Gies College of Business

Jack Goncalo

Jack Goncalo

Editor of Research in Organizational Behavior

Hear from PhD students and alumni

Michelle Checketts

The thing I most enjoy about the PhD program at Gies is working with excellent faculty. They have afforded me the freedom to explore topics I find interesting while offering insightful feedback and support to develop ideas into successful research projects.

Michelle Checketts

Current PhD Student
Ying Li

The Business Administration PhD program at Gies deeply shaped my academic tastes, fundamentally transformed my way of thinking, and offered me a complete toolkit to become an independent researcher. The faculty members treat students as future colleagues and would never hesitate to provide any kind of support.

Ying Li, PhD ’22

Assistant Professor, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid / Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Gies College of Business
515 East Gregory Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217-300-7327