Biography

Monica Worline joined the faculty of Goizueta Business School in the summer of 2003, following completion of her Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology at the University of Michigan. Worline came to her study of organizations as an entrepreneur, having worked in Silicon Valley, co-founded a successful software firm, and established a highly influential knowledge development and delivery company,Precision Questioning, which is now considered mandatory methodology for employees at such organizations as Cypress Semiconductor and Microsoft.

Professor Worline's research draws upon the notion that organizations have the potential to enliven or to deaden those who work and live in them. Once scholars and managers see organizations as sites of life, we begin to ask new questions about people, about systematic properties of organizations, and about the generative intersection of agency and structure. Worline's main research emphasis to date has centered around the concept of courage as a silent yet omnipresent factor in organizational life. Courage has rarely been the subject of rigorous empirical study, yet Worline shows that courage is critical to effective collective endeavors and fuels excellent organizational performance.

Professor Worline uses a variety of research methods in her work, including experimental paradigms, case studies, archival analysis, survey research, interviews, field observation, and narrative analysis. Worline is also interested in developing new research methods that help scholars bring the power of life in organizations fully into their work. As an experimental research methodology, Worline is currently making a film that accompanies a research paper documenting an organizational community's response to the death of a child. Worline reaches for a combination of art and science that enhances the power of each. Art is necessary to a science of organization because, as poet Adrienne Rich writes, art "helps keep alive in us the capacity to resist, to imagine, to change." .

Publications

• Explaining compassion organizing (with J. E. Dutton, P. J. Frost & J. M. Lilius), Administrative Science Quarterly, 51(1): 59-96, 2006
• Valor. In C. Peterson & M. Seligman (eds.). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (pp. 213-228). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004
• Creating courageous organizations.  In P. Frost, W. Nord & L. Krefting (eds), Managerial and Organizational Reality:  Stories of Life and Work (pp. 226-234).  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2003
• Courage at work: The interrelationship of organizational form and principled action (with R. Quinn). In K. Cameron, J. Dutton, & R. Quinn (eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship (pp. 138-157).  San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2003
• Courage and work: Breaking routines to improve performance (with A. Wrzesniewski & A. Fafeli).  In R. Lord, R. Klimoski & R. Kanfer (eds), Emotions in the Workplace:  Understanding the Structure and Role of Emotions in Organizational Behavior (pp. 295-330).  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002
• Leading in times of trauma (with J. E. Dutton, P. J. Frost, J. M. Lilius & J. M. Kanov), Harvard Business Review, 80(1): 54-61, 2002
• Individual emotion in work organizations (with A. Rafaeli), Social Science Information, 40(1): 95-123, 2001
• Narratives of compassion in organizations (with P. Frost, J. Dutton & A. Wilson). In S. Fineman (ed.), Emotion in Organizations (pp. 25-46), 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications, 2000
• Symbols in organizational culture (with A. Rafaeli). In N. Ashkanasy, C. Wilderom & M. Peterson (eds.), Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate (pp. 71-84). London: Sage Publications, 2000

Working Papers

• Creating Fertile Soil: The organizing dynamics of resilience, Organization Science, under review following invitation to resubmit
• What good is compassion at work? (with Lilius, J., Dutton, J., Frost, P., Maitlis, S. & Kanov, J.), Academy of Management Journal

Areas of Specialization

• Courage at work; Organizational strengths; Organizational excellence
• Emotion in organizations; Aesthetics and symbols; Stories in social life
• Professional relationships & relational practice; Case study and qualitative methods

Achievements and Honors

• Horace H. Rackman One Term Dissertation Fellowship, Winter 2002
• Michigan Teaching Fellows
• Psychology Distinguished Graduate Student Instructor Award, 2000-2001
• Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies (ICOS) Small Grant, January 1999

Professional Memberships and Activities

• Academy of Management
• American Psychological Society; American Psychological Association

Academic Background
PhD, Organizational Psychology, University of Michigan, 2003
Master of Arts, Organizational Psychology, University of Michigan, 1999
Bachelor of Arts (With Honors and Distinction), English & Feminist Studies, Stanford University, 1991