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. 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 develop moral character--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 and practitioner journals, such as Organization Science, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Isaac's research has been covered by various media outlets, including BBC World Service Radio, Businessweek, Forbes, NPR's Hidden Brain Podcast, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has taught MBA and undergraduate courses focused on organizational behavior, ethics, leadership, and teams, and in 2016 he was recognized as one of the "40 under 40 Most Outstanding MBA professors" by Poets&Quants for his teaching at Cornell. Isaac has also 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

• "Meaningfulness is a Luxury? How daily meaningful work activities and financial resources influence daily meaning and purpose in life", International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2024
• "4 strategies to cultivate an authentic corporate purpose", Harvard Business Review [digital article], 2023
• "Narrow the gap between company and employee purpose", Harvard Business Review [digital article], 2023
• "Psychological reactance to leader moral hypocrisy", Business Ethics Quarterly, 2023
• "Recognizing and correcting positive bias: The salient victim effect", Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2023
• "An examination of mind perception and moral reasoning in ethical decision making: A mixed-methods approach", Journal of Business Ethics, 2023
• "Desirable or deceitful? How social exchange dynamics shape responses to pro‐coworker unethical behavior", Personnel Psychology, 2022
• "Ethical learning: The workplace as a moral laboratory for character development", Social Issues & Policy Review, 2021
• "The price leaders pay for cutting ethical corners", MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021
• "Building an ethical company: Create an organization that helps employees behave more honorably", Harvard Business Review, 2021
• "Craft a career that reflects your character", Harvard Business Review [digital article], 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

• Early Career Scholarship Award, Brigham Young University, 2023
• Research in Practice Award, Management Department, BYU Marriott School of Business, 2021
• 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

Professional Citizenship

• Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Editorial Review Board Member, 2022–0
• Society of Business Ethics, Ethics Dissertation Award, Committee/Council Member, 2022–0