Ronit Kark

Ronit Kark is a full professor of leadership and organizational psychology in the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and the founder and former director of the 'Gender in the Field' Graduate Program at the Gender Studies department of Bar-Ilan. She is a distinguished research professor at the University of Exeter Business School

Since 2014, she has been an affiliate scholar at the Center For Gender in Organizations (CGO) at Simmons University, Boston.

In 2019, Kark became an affiliated distinguished research professor at the University of Exeter Business School.

Her editorial responsibilities include serving as a consulting editor, International Journal of Management Reviews (2007 to date); associate editor, The Leadership Quarterly (2017 to date); editorial board member of various leading journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Discoveries, Frontiers in Psychology and Cambridge Elements in Leadership.

Kark's research interests include leadership and followership, positive relationships and relatedness in organizations, identity and identification processes, gender and leadership, and leading for creativity.

Selected publications

Scientific publications Kark has authored or co-authored over 90 scientific publications. Publications with over 200 citations are (in descending order of citations): "Motivation to Lead, Motivation to Follow: The Role of the Self-Regulatory Focus in Leadership Processes" "Alive and creating: the mediating role of vitality and aliveness in the relationship between psychological safety and creative work involvement" "The Dual Effect of Transformational Leadership: Priming Relational and Collective Selves and Further Effects on Followers" "Leadership and followership identity processes: A multilevel review" "Does valuing androgyny and femininity lead to a female advantage? The relationship between gender-role, transformational leadership and identification" "The transformational leader: who is (s)he? A feminist perspective" "Leading by example: The case of leader OCB" "Creative leadership: A multi-context conceptualization" "A single-item graphic scale for the measurement of organizational identification" "Motivated or demotivated to be creative: The role of self‐regulatory focus in transformational and transactional leadership processes" "How do transformational leaders transform organizations? A study of the relationship between leadership and entrepreneurship" "The impact of situational vulnerability on the development and erosion of followers' trust in their leader" "Gender and leadership: Negotiating the labyrinth"

Praxis publications

"How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership" "Fake it though you’ve made it: battling leader impostorism" "What Makes an Inclusive Leader?"

Impact Scientific publications authored or co-authored by Kark have received over 9,000 citations in scientific literature.

The mainstream media have carried a number of articles about the work of Kark and her co-authors. They include:

"'Be strong, but in a nice way': how female managers deal with the paradox of female management", published in the Israeli financial newspaper Globes. "Managing leaders with impostor syndrome", published in the Kenyan business newspaper Business Daily. "Girls at the center study high-tech professions for personal fulfillment; In the periphery, for money", published in the Israeli business newspaper TheMarker.

Awards and distinctions

2000: Loreal-Recanati Prize for the Study of Women and Management in Israel 2005: Best Paper Prize (second place) from the International Leadership Association (ILA) 2011: Best Paper Award for the 9th International Academy of Management and Business (IAMB) conference (with Dina Van Dijk) 2012: Academy of Management Award for Scholarly Contributions to Educational Practice Advancing Women in Leadership 2016: Bar-Ilan University Rector Prize for Outstanding Research Achievements 2016: Iconic Leaders in Social Enterprise prize from the All Ladies League (ALL) Women Economic Forum 2016: Academy of Management Annals Best 2015 Published Article Award (Honorable Mention) (with Olga Epitropaki and Charalampos Mainemelis) 2019: Forbes Magazine's "Top 10 Creative Leadership Books From 2018" included the book "Creative Leadership: Contexts and Prospects" by Mainemelis, Epitropaki and Kark 2021: Kark was included in the top 2% percentile of academics most cited by the Stanford University and Elsevier data list 2022: Technical University of Munich (TUM) Anna Boyksen Fellowship Award for Outstanding professors in the field of gender and diversity 2022: Sam and Bonnie Rechter Fellowship Award from the University of Louisville College of Business's Project on Positive Leadership 2025: Societal Impact Award from the Academy of Management Organizational Behavior Division