Professor Susan Adams studies careers of women and prominent leaders, organizational change and gender equality. In an action-oriented article, “Breaking Down Barriers,” (Handbook of Gendered Careers: Getting In, Getting On, Getting Out, Eds., Adelina Broadbridge and Sandra Fielden, 2015), Professor Adams reviews women’s career barriers and change models that can be employed to advance more women to leadership positions. A study about the gender wage gap that she conducted with Bentley colleagues John Leeth and Atul Gupta (Gender in Management: An International Journal, 25(5), 366-385, 2010) extends the conversation regarding the complexity of the gender wage gap by examining the relationship between gender-dominated industries and salaries by gender.

Professor Donna Blancero’s work focuses on the challenges and successes of Latino business professionals.  Her goals are to help organizations recruit, retain and effectively reward their Hispanic talent, and to assist Latino business professionals better understand the national landscape.  In a recent chapter in Latinas y Latinos in the United States: 21st Century Dynamics of Multiculturalism, (Ed. M. Urbina, Charles C. Thomas Publisher), she and her colleague Jill Cruz provide a framework for Latino career success.  The framework focuses particularly on how factors associated with the Hispanic acculturation experience may uniquely affect Latinos in their professional roles.  With this framework in mind, organizational leaders and decision-makers can better support Hispanics in achieving more successful and satisfying careers.

Professor Natalie Cotton-Nessler researches how people interact with others at work and how networks operate to enhance/hinder the success of social actors.  In a recent paper, "Proximity Effects on the Dynamics and Outcomes of Scientific Collaborations" in Research Policy (2014, 43: 1469-1485), she and her co-authors Felichism Kabo, Yongha Hwang, Margaret Levenstein, and Jason Owen-Smith demonstrate how the physical layout of offices influences work relationships by providing serendipitous contact in hallways which lead to more successful collaborations.  In another study, she and co-authors Jason Owen-Smith and Helena Buhr demonstrate that network mechanisms in some contexts operate to amplify each other’s effects, while in other contexts, network processes create difficult tradeoffs (“Network Effects on Organizational Decision-making:  Blended Social Mechanisms and IPO Withdrawal”, forthcoming in Social Networks).  Also, in a paper which has won the DeSantis Award (best paper based on a dissertation) at the Academy of Management, Prof. Cotton-Nessler develops an improved approach to analyzing how the physical movements of people in a workspace produce greater/lesser exposure to new information.

Professor Marcy Crary’s scholarly work focuses on diversity issues in the workplace and in the classroom. One part of her research explores transitions in the “third phase” of life; she is a member of a retirement research project that will examine the experiences and identity changes of individuals as they go through different stages of the retirement process.

Professor Aaron Nurick’s scholarly interests focus on interpersonal behavior, emotional intelligence and the application of psychodynamic psychology to life in organizations.  These themes come together in his book, The Good Enough Manager: The Making of a GEM (Routledge, 2012), summarized in The Harvard Business Review blog network, and featured in Forbes.com.  This work is based on a comprehensive study of the best and worst managers in a variety of organizations, and concludes that the best managers are mentors and teachers, relationship builders and models of integrity.  He has consulted with several organizations on organizational diversity and improving emotional intelligence and interpersonal competence.

Professor Jeff Shuman’s work focuses on collaboration, strategic alliances, and partnerships. He has conducted innovative research and engaged in hands-on work with government agencies and major global corporations including numerous Fortune 100 companies helping them to develop the capability to collaborate successfully. He has made dozens of conference presentations on alliance and collaboration management and written numerous articles and whitepapers for practitioner focused publications.  He has developed and applied methodologies and measurement tools in large, complex organizations in the life sciences and medical devices, information technology, international economic development, high-tech manufacturing, and consumer goods and logistics. He is a member of the team that created the first alliance management professional certification and is a leader in the only alliance management professional organization.