Denise Rousseau

Denise M. Rousseau (born 20 October 1951) She holds an H.J. Heinz II Chair in Organizational Behavior and Public Policy, Heinz College and jointly Tepper School of Business.

She was the 60th president of the Academy of Management.

In 2007, she founded the Evidence-Based Management Collaborative to promote the development and dissemination of Evidence-based Management teaching and practice. Operating as the Center for Evidence-Based Management (Eric Barends, managing director), this Collaborative helps educators and practitioners make better use of evidence from science, data, stakeholders and experience in organizational decisions. Rousseau serves as CEBMa's Academic Chair. Barends and Rousseau are co-convenors of the Business and Management Group of the Campbell Library of Systematic Reviews.

Rousseau's influences include Herb Simon and Stephen Laner.

Former Students include: Karl Aquino, Eric Barends, Guillermo Dabos, Violet Ho, Byeong Jo Kim , Lai Lei, Laurie Levesque, Gerard Beenen, Ranga Ranganujam, and Sandra Robinson.

Work

Psychological contract theory Rousseau developed the concept of a psychological contract in order to better specify how employers and employees understand the employment relationship. Psychological Contract Theory (PCT) also provides a basis for developing shared understandings in employment. It also addresses how to more effectively change the nature and terms of psychological contracts.

Rousseau's 1995 book Psychological Contract in Organizations: Understanding Written and Unwritten Agreements won the George Terry Book Award for best book in management from the Academy of Management.

Idiosyncratic deals Rousseau's research identified the often hidden but widespread phenomenon of idiosyncratic deals, whereby individual employees bargain for employment arrangements different from their peers. Early research on the psychological contract identified an anomaly, the repeated observation that people working for the same firm and same boss can have distinctly different psychological contracts. Her 2005 book I-deals: Idiosyncratic Deals Employees Bargain for Themselves also won the George Terry Book Award for best book in management from the Academy of Management.

Evidence-Based Management Rousseau is a proponent of Evidence-Based Management (EBM), a decision-making approach that emphasizes the use of the available evidence from multiple sources.

Selected publications

Journals

Books

Awards Phi Beta Kappa, University of California at Berkeley (1973) Society of Organization Behavior (Elected 1979) William J. Davis Memorial Award, Best Article, Educational Administration Quarterly (1982) National Institute for Health Care Management Research Award (1994) George R. Terry Award, Best Book in Management, Academy of Management (1996) Co-winner, Benedictine University Scholar-Practitioner Collaboration Award Management Consulting Division, Academy of Management (2022) Best Paper Award, Psychological Contract Small Group Conference, Bordeaux (2023) with Lyo Laulie and Amanuel Tekleab