About

James R. Detert is the John L. Colley Professor of Business Administration in the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and a professor of business administration and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on workplace courage, ethical decision-making and behavior, improvement-oriented voice (why people speak up or stay silent at work), and other leadership-related topics. Detert's research and consulting experience span a variety of global high-technology and service-oriented industries as well as public sector institutions, including K-12 education. He has taught at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management prior to joining UVA and has developed numerous teaching cases, curriculum materials, and leadership and ethics classes for students worldwide in various formats. Detert has received multiple awards for his teaching in both MBA and Executive MBA programs, and his research has been published in top outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Harvard Business Review. He is also the author of the book 'Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work,' published by Harvard Business Review Press. Detert holds a PhD and MA in organizational behavior from Harvard University, an MBA from the University of Minnesota, and a BBA from the University of Wisconsin.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Public relations
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Business
• Epistemology
• Algorithm
• Law
• Criminology

Selected publications

• The Voice Improvement Team at InnovaCo

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Speaking Up To Be Heard: Influence Processes in Employee Voice

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  In this symposium, we seek to shed light on factors that influence the extent to which employee voice is endorsed and implemented by managers. Although ideas and suggestions from lower-level ranks are considered critical to driving workplace improvement, employees face considerable challenges in having their input taken seriously by higher-ups. For instance, managers can be threatened by new ideas that challenge the status quo, and employees can fail to communicate their ideas in ways that are persuasive and effective. As such, understanding how voice can translate into meaningful action is relevant from a both theoretical and practical standpoint. This symposium brings together five empirical papers that together outline: (1) How employees can better frame their ideas to increase the likelihood of managerial voice endorsement, (2) The channels of employee voice that are most effective, and (3) The role of peers in helping employees receive favorable evaluations of their voice by managers. The papers in this symposium collectively span a diverse set of methodologies and samples. Dr. James (Jim) Detert, an expert in the area of employee voice, will serve as the Discussant, leading an interactive group discussion, providing feedback, and outlining future directions from the works presented. How to Gain Endorsement: Voice Framing Tactics and Feedback-Seeking from Peers Author: Rui Shu; Shanghai U. of Finance and Economics Author: Jing Wu; BI Norwegian Business School Examining the Group Context: How Peer Responses to Voice Affect Endorsement Author: Kristin Bain; Rochester Institute of Technology The Spillover Effects of Radical Ideas on Managerial Implementation of Other Proposals Author: Insiya Hussain; U. of Texas at Austin Author: Subrahmaniam Tangirala; U. of Maryland Author: Hyunsun Park; U. of Maryland College Park Author: E. S. Srinivas; Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore From Individual Concern to Voice Implementation: A Collective Interactional Process Author: Limei Zhang; Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong U. Author: Jian Liang; Tongji U. Heard it through the Grapevine: How Voice Leakage Influences Manager Reactions to Voice Author: Michael Parke; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Author: Stephanie Yu; U. of Pennsylvania

  PublisherDOI

• Defining Moments: Leading When You're Being Followed (A)

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Data Analytics and the Overall Research Process

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Quiet quitting and the great resignation have a common cause – dissatisfied workers feel they can’t speak up in the workplace

  2022-10-11 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Walking Our Evidence-Based Talk: The Case of Leadership Development in Business Schools

  Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies · 2022 · 36 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Public relations

  Academics have lamented that practitioners do not always adopt scientific evidence in practice, yet while academics preach evidence-based management (EBM), they do not always practice it. This paper extends prior literature on difficulties to engage in EBM with insights from behavioral integrity (i.e., the study of what makes individuals and collectives walk their talk). We focus on leader development, widely used but often critiqued for lacking evidence. Analyzing 60 interviews with academic directors of leadership centers at top business schools, we find that the selection of programs does not always align with scientific recommendations nor do schools always engage in high-quality program evaluation. Respondents further indicated a wide variety of challenges that help explain the disconnect between business schools claiming A but practicing B. Behavioral Integrity theory would argue these difficulties are rooted in the lack of an individually owned and collectively endorsed identity, an identity of an evidence-based leader developer (EBLD). A closer inspection of our data confirmed that the lack of a clear and salient EBLD identity makes it difficult for academics to walk their evidence-based leader development talk. We discuss how these findings can help facilitate more evidence-based leader development in an academic context.

  PublisherDOI

• Controversy at K-State

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• “Braking” bad: How managers can respond to employee misbehavior

  Behavioral Science & Policy · 2022 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Business

  Employee misbehavior can be defined as transgressions that go beyond unintentional mistakes but do not rise to the level of criminal offenses. Managers are often given substantial discretion over how to handle such behavior, but they may be unsure about what their response should be or unaware of the extent to which others will care about their response. We offer a framework to help managers respond to misbehavior, particularly when firing the offender is not an option. We identify types of formal and informal responses that not only deter future offenses but also help to restore perceptions of justice within the organization. We also provide guidance on how managers should select and communicate these responses to other employees. Finally, we highlight two supplementary actions that managers can consider to restore perceptions of justice: victim restitution (that is, providing compensation to or otherwise helping to assuage the distress of the wronged party) and offender reintegration (that is, helping the wrongdoer get back to work within the organization).

  PublisherDOI

• Evidence-Based Leadership Development: Do We ‘Walk the Talk’ and How Can We Get Better at Doing That

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2022-07-06

  article

  Academic institutions are guided by science, with scholars and educators seeking ways to extend knowledge in different domains and establish their work on evidence. Yet, despite the fact that leadership development is at the core of many business schools’ mission statements, leadership development programs (LDPs) are not as evidence based as one might expect. Research shows that a variety of reasons is behind this inconsistency, such as relative scarcity and availability of leadership development research, low accessibility of existing work, challenges of conducting research to examine the effects of LDPs, and conflicting priorities in business schools themselves. This panel symposium will examine the main challenges academics and practitioners face in their efforts to make leadership development programs more evidence-based. It will further explore ways in which we can all work together to overcome these challenges and create more evidence-based LDPs that are crucial to equip leaders of today and tomorrow with the knowledge, tools, competencies, and abilities to effectively lead organizations and society as a whole.

  PublisherDOI

• (I Think) I Know Why You Did That: The Risky Business of Inferring Intentions

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ethan R. Burris

  The University of Texas at Austin

  20 shared

• Linda Klebe Treviño

  14 shared

• Kevin J. Cullen

  U-M Rogel Cancer Center

  9 shared

• Amy C. Edmondson

  7 shared

• Evan Bruno

  James Madison University

  6 shared

• Christina Black

  University of Louisville Hospital

  6 shared

• David A. Harrison

  The University of Texas at Austin

  6 shared

• Roger G. Schroeder

  5 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Business Administration

  University of Virginia

  2000

• M.S., Business Administration

  University of Florida

  1995

• B.A., Business Administration

  University of Florida

  1993

Awards & honors

• Numerous awards for teaching in both Master of Business Admi…
• Several academic best paper awards