The doctoral program in Organizational Behaviour is designed to train students for an academic career with an emphasis on research. The field of OB focuses on understanding the behaviour of individuals, groups and organizations. This field uses theory and methods from a wide variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology, statistics and economics.
The research of our faculty and doctoral students reflects a wide range of interests, including: leadership, personnel selection, gender and diversity in the workplace, discrimination and prejudice, expatriate management, goal-setting, group learning and team processes, errors, high performance work systems, and organizational mindfulness.
Doctoral students take the full spectrum of PhD Foundation courses and Organizational Behaviour Special Field offerings. Courses offered by other non-business programs such as economics, psychology, statistics and sociology may be taken to augment the student’s knowledge of both methods and substantive areas. Other aspects of the program are tailored to fit the student’s own research, teaching and professional interests.
Areas of Research Focus
- Leadership and leader character
- Gender and diversity in the workplace
- Discrimination and prejudice
- Group learning and team processes
- Errors and experiential learning
- High performance work systems
- Organizational identity and legitimacy
PhD Student Opportunities
Professors in the Organizational Behaviour Group are recruiting PhD students with an interest in studying positive interactions among people in the workplace, especially among those who bring different characteristics, perspectives, and lived experiences to work-related interactions. We examine different types of interactions, including team processes, interpersonal processes, and training interventions. For example, some of the topics our faculty are currently studying include:
- Skill-building for inclusion (e.g., in-person and virtual reality training, sexual harassment bystander intervention, intersectionality and allyship);
- The emergence of team processes and emergent states – such as trust and efficacy – in work teams and other settings;
- Globally distributed teams working across organizational boundaries on adaptive, multi-stakeholder tasks on complex challenges;
- The role of leadership in understanding these complex topics.
In our research, we seek answers to how the different phenomena interact and influence each other over time, with the goal of enhancing their positive impact on individuals, teams, and organizations.
The following Organizational Behaviour faculty members are currently recruiting applicants for the Ivey PhD Program. Students are free to develop their own independent research but should also expect to work on projects related to corresponding topics for each faculty member.
Dr. Barnini Bhattacharyya: Dr. Bhattacharyya researches diversity, equity, and inclusion at work, with a focus on the barriers faced by marginalized employees and the strategies that can help mitigate them. She studies topics such as identity, intersectionality, and allyship, and primarily uses qualitative methods to understand how organizational structures and relationships shape employees' experiences.
Dr. Kevin Nanakdewa: Dr. Nanakdewa researches decision-making, organizational networks, and diversity in the workplace. His work explores how systems designed to promote fairness, such as peer reviews and promotion committees, can unintentionally reproduce inequality. Using surveys, social network analysis, and field data, he investigates how bias, trust, and network dynamics shape equity in organizations.
Dr. Shannon Rawski: Dr. Rawski researches sexual harassment and sexual harassment training in the workplace. She draws on social interactions, identity theory, and trauma-informed perspectives to conduct survey, experimental, and field studies. Her work also incorporates virtual reality as both a research method and a training tool to advance understanding and prevention of workplace sexual harassment.
