Isenberg Management Faculty Publish New Research on Global Innovation, Mergers, Workplace Inclusion, and Leadership

Faculty in the Management Department at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst have recently published new research in several of the field’s top journals. Their studies offer practical takeaways for employers and decision-makers on issues ranging from global innovation to retaining leaders after mergers—and from workplace inclusion to how supervisors behave under pressure.

“Isenberg management faculty are tackling questions that matter to organizations and communities: how innovation spreads globally, how leaders navigate change, and how workplaces can be fairer and more effective. These publications reflect the rigor and real-world relevance that define Isenberg research and impact on industry,” said Management Department Chair Mzamo Mangaliso, PhD. “At Isenberg, we believe the best research doesn’t stay on the page—it helps organizations make better decisions.”

How Hair Bias Can Affect Belonging at Work

In the Journal of Applied Psychology, Orlando Richard, PhD, the Earl W. Stafford Endowed Professor of Management, coauthored a study introducing the Hair and Its Ramifications (HAIR) model. The model explains how hair bias—such as negative comments, subtle reactions, or “professionalism” standards that pressure Black women to change natural hairstyles—can make employees feel judged or that they don’t fully belong. The authors also outline steps employers can take to reduce harm, including reviewing grooming and dress policies, training managers to recognize bias, and building workplace cultures where natural hair is respected.

How Policy Can Influence the Spread of New Knowledge Worldwide

In the Strategic Management Journal, Assistant Professor of Management Michael Blomfield, PhD, and coauthors examine how global intellectual property policy may affect how knowledge spreads from low- and middle-income countries to wealthier countries. The study looks at the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS agreement and explores how adopting stronger intellectual property rules may increase the visibility and diffusion of research from these countries—an issue that experts say matters for innovation and long-term economic development. This knowledge, however, only indirectly reaches firms in other countries via increased academic, scientific, and inventive attention to research from TRIPS-adopting countries.

Why Some Mergers Keep Top Leaders—and Others Lose Them

In forthcoming research in Organization Science, Associate Professor of Management Ulya Tsolmon, PhD, and coauthor Tingyu Du tackle a paradox in mergers and acquisitions: losing top managers after a deal hurts performance, yet companies routinely let them go. Using data on 18,987 managers across 2,941 deals, they show that while industry expertise may overlap, managers also carry valuable structural knowledge—an understanding of how to coordinate within a particular organizational design. When acquiring and target firms are organized similarly, these managers are more likely to be retained, helping to facilitate the complex process of post-acquisition integration. Deals with this structural alignment also tend to perform better over time. Their findings suggest that “fit” in acquisitions isn’t just about what companies do—it’s also about how they’re organized.

Leadership Under Pressure: Imposter Feelings, Power, and Supervisor Behavior

Assistant Professor of Management Feng Qiu, PhD, is a coauthor on two studies examining how workplace power dynamics can shape supervisors’ behavior. 

In the Academy of Management Journal, Qiu and coauthors show that informal leadership—when a team member becomes influential despite lacking a formal leadership title—may trigger supervisor jealousy toward the individual, which in turn may lead supervisors to treat the other team members more favorably by increasing support and reducing abusive supervision.

In the Journal of Applied Psychology, Qiu and colleagues find that when leaders experience impostor feelings—the sense that they do not truly deserve their position and may be exposed as a fraud—their behavior may differ based on their beliefs about hierarchy and authority. Sometimes this leads to more support toward team members, and other times to more undermining behavior toward them.