Isaac Smith

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Biography

Isaac Smith joined the Marriott School of Business in 2019, after spending 5 years as a faculty member at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. His research examines the morality and ethics of organizations and the people within them, with a particular focus on three primary questions:

(1) What are the causes and consequences of (un)ethical behavior?
(2) What motivates and inspires people to be their best selves--and otherwise fulfill their potential?
(3) How can businesses and organizations help battle the world's social ills, such as poverty?

His work has been published in top-tier academic journals, such as Organization Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science. His research has been covered by various media outlets, including BBC World Service Radio, Businessweek, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Isaac has worked with and consulted for a number of Fortune 100 companies in the financial services and high-tech industries, and he has spent time in both Mongolia and Thailand working with nonprofit organizations dedicated to reducing poverty and promoting economic self-reliance.

Education

• PhD, Organizational Behavior, University of Utah, 2014
• MBA, OB/HR, Brigham Young University, 2007
• BA, English & Economics (majors), Political Science (minor), Brigham Young University, 2004

Selected Publications

• "Ethical learning: The workplace as a moral laboratory for character development", Social Issues & Policy Review, 2021
• "The price leaders pay for making unethical requests", MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021
• "Craft a Career That Reflects Your Character", Harvard Business Review, 2020
• "Building an Ethical Career: A three-stage approach to navigating ethical challenges at work", Harvard Business Review, 2020
• "In the trenches: Making your work meetings a success", Business Horizons, 2019
• "Does deciding among morally relevant options feel like making a choice? How morality constrains people’s sense of choice", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018
• "Moral humility: In life and at work", Research in Organizational Behavior, 2018
• "Molecular insights into chronotype and time-of-day effects on decision-making", Scientific Reports, 2016
• "Not all fairness is created equal: Fairness perceptions of group versus individual decision makers", Organization Science, 2015
• "Social innovation through development franchising: Compensating for a lack of entrepreneurial expertise and connecting to formal supply chains", The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation, Springer International Publishing, 2015
• "Does the morning morality effect hold true only for morning people?", Psychological Science, 2014
• "The moral ties that bind...even to out-groups: The interactive effect of moral identity and the binding moral foundations", Psychological Science, 2014
• "The morning morality effect: The influence of time of day on unethical behavior", Psychological Science, 2014
• "Exploring entrepreneurial cognition in franchisees: A knowledge-structure approach", Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 2013
• "Developing social entrepreneurs and social innovators: A social identity and self-efficacy approach", Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2012
• "Managerial ethics: Managing the psychology of morality [Book Review]", Business Ethics Quarterly, 2012
• "A stakeholder identity orientation approach to corporate social performance in family firms", Journal of Business Ethics, 2011

Experience

Other

• Assistant Professor, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 2014–2019
• Senior Consultant, Hitachi Consulting, 2007–2009

Awards

• Teaching Honor Roll, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 2017
• 40 under 40 most Outstanding MBA Professors, Poets&Quants, 2016
• Clifford H. Whitcomb Faculty Fellowship, Cornell University, 2015
• Research featured in the "Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life in 2013", The Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2014
• Doctoral Student Teaching Excellence Award, University of Utah, 2013
• Research Honorarium, Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, 2013

Languages

• Mongolian