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Adam M. Grant

Adam M. Grant

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Adam Grant is an award-winning teacher, researcher, and tenured management professor at Wharton. He is the author of Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, published by Viking Press in April 2013. His research focuses on work motivation, prosocial helping and giving behaviors, job design and meaningful work, employee initiative and proactivity, leadership, and burnout. He has earned numerous prestigious awards for distinguished scholarly achievement, including the Cummings Scholarly Achievement Award for early-to-mid-career contributions from the Academy of Management, the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award, the Owens Scholarly Achievement Award for the best publication in the field from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and a fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

His pioneering research has introduced evidence-based techniques that increase performance and reduce burnout among engineers and salespeople, enhance call center productivity, and motivate helping and safety behaviors among doctors, nurses, and lifeguards. He has published more than 60 articles in a wide range of leading management and psychology journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Research in Organizational Behavior, and Harvard Business Review.

Professor Grant has been honored as the highest-rated teacher at Wharton and received the Excellence in Teaching Award for all of his classes, as well as the Goes Above and Beyond the Call of Duty MBA Teaching Award. He has designed several experiential learning activities based on The Apprentice in which students have raised over $118,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation while developing leadership, influence, networking, and collaboration skills.He received his Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Michigan in organizational psychology and his B.A. from Harvard University, magna cum laude with highest honors, Phi Beta Kappa honors, and the John Harvard Scholarship for highest academic achievement.

Primary Interests:

  • Applied Social Psychology
  • Helping, Prosocial Behavior
  • Motivation, Goal Setting
  • Organizational Behavior
  • Personality, Individual Differences
  • Persuasion, Social Influence

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Books:

Journal Articles:

  • Grant, A. M. (2013). Rethinking the extraverted sales ideal: The ambivert advantage. Psychological Science.
  • Grant, A. M. (2013). Rocking the boat but keeping it steady: The role of emotion regulation in employee voice. Academy of Management Journal.
  • Grant, A. M. (2012). Giving time, time after time: Work design and sustained employee participation in corporate volunteering. Academy of Management Review, 37, 589-615.
  • Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 458-476.
  • Grant, A. M. (2008). The significance of task significance: Job performance effects, relational mechanisms, and boundary conditions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 108-124.
  • Grant, A. M., & Ashford, S. J. (2008). The dynamics of proactivity at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 28, 3-34.
  • Grant, A. M., & Berry, J. (2011). The necessity of others is the mother of invention: Intrinsic and prosocial motivations, perspective-taking, and creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 73-96.
  • Grant, A. M., Campbell, E. M., Chen, G., Cottone, K., Lapedis, D., & Lee, K. (2007). Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103, 53-67.
  • Grant, A. M., & Dutton, J. E. (2012). Beneficiary or benefactor: The effects of reflecting about receiving versus giving on prosocial behavior. Psychological Science, 23, 1033-1039
  • Grant, A. M., Dutton, J. E., & Rosso, B. (2008). Giving commitment: Employee support programs and the prosocial sensemaking process. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 898-918.
  • Grant, A. M., & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 946-955.
  • Grant, A. M., Gino, F., & Hofmann, D. A. (2011). Reversing the extraverted leadership advantage: The role of employee proactivity. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 528-550.
  • Grant, A. M., & Hofmann, D. A. (2011). It’s not all about me: Motivating hospital hand hygiene by focusing on patients. Psychological Science, 22, 1494-1499.
  • Grant, A. M., & Hofmann, D. A. (2011). Outsourcing inspiration: The performance effects of ideological messages from leaders and beneficiaries. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116, 173-187.
  • Grant, A. M., & Mayer, D. M. (2009). Good soldiers and good actors: Prosocial and impression management motives as interactive predictors of affiliative citizenship behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 900-912.
  • Grant, A. M., Nurmohamed, S., Ashford, S. J., & Dekas, K. D. (2011). The performance implications of ambivalent initiative: The interplay of autonomous and controlled motivations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116, 241-251.
  • Grant, A. M., Parker, S. K., & Collins, C. G. (2009). Getting credit for proactive behavior: Supervisor reactions depend on what you value and how you feel. Personnel Psychology, 62, 31-55.
  • Grant, A. M., & Patil, S. V. (2012). Challenging the norm of self-interest: Minority influence and transitions to helping norms in work units. Academy of Management Review, 37, 547-568.
  • Grant, A. M., & Schwartz, B. (2011). Too much of a good thing: The challenge and opportunity of the inverted-U. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 61-76.

Adam M. Grant
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
United States

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