Kira Schabram
Assistant Professor in Management & Organization
I research how employees can make a positive difference through their work without sacrificing themselves in the process. In short, I seek to explain how employees can do good while also doing well.
Expertise
My topics of inquiry are meaningful and sustainable work. I study employees who want to make a positive difference through their work in ways big and small, ranging from employees who view their work as a calling—a source of personal, social or moral significance— to those who engage in everyday acts of helping, kindness, and compassion. I examine the challenges that impede such aims to determine how employees can achieve them without sacrificing themselves in the process. I am a multi-methods scholar, leverage both qualitative (interviews and ethnographic observation) and quantitative data (e.g., field surveys, experience sampling, experiments), and have published inductive, deductive, and conceptual papers. As a secondary focus, this work has led me to also co-author publications on how our field develops and tests organizational theory.
Education
PhD in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2016-06-01 MSc in Business Administration, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2010-06-01 BA in Literature Writing, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA, 2005-06-01 BSc in Psychology, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA, 2005-06-01
Courses Taught
BA 597 – Special Topics
Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered infrequently.
MGMT 215 – Entr Mindset
This course provides the opportunity to learn to think like an entrepreneur in the broader context of social entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, creative problem solving, opportunity recognition, and innovation. MGMT 215 Entrepreneurial Mindset (3) An entrepreneurial mindset can be applied to different situations such as social entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, creative problem solving, opportunity recognition, technology management, innovation and career development, etc. The skills and attributes of an entrepreneurial mindset can be used to expand career options and career paths for students in any major. Students will develop self-efficacy, leadership, recognition of new opportunities, resourcefulness, creativity and comfort with ambiguity. Further, this course will help students develop an appreciation for mistakes and failure as valuable learning opportunities. Through experiential exercises and problem based learning the student will be afforded the opportunity to study, apply and absorb an entrepreneurial mindset as an approach to viewing the world, to recognizing opportunities and to developing novel solutions. After taking this course the student, regardless of a student's major or college, will have a greater understanding of how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to problems and adopt entrepreneurial solutions to those problems to transform them from problems into opportunities.
MGMT 326 – Org Beh and Design
Concepts, theories, and methods of managing people and designing organizations. MGMT 326 Organizational Behavior and Design (3) This introductory course covers the concepts, theories, and methods of managing people and designing organizations. Issues and challenges of managing at different organizational levels (individual, group, project, and total organization) are discussed and illustrated with real-world examples. Students learn about the latest means of designing high-performing organizations, including how to change an organization. This course will serve as a foundation for taking advanced management courses. The primary method of evaluation is an examination after each of the four major parts of the course, but class participation and short papers may also be used for evaluation.
MGMT 600 – Thesis Research
Selected Publications
Schabram K., Myers C., Hardin A. "Manipulation in organizational research: On executing and interpreting designs from treatments to primes" Organizational Research Methods, vol. 29, 2026-04-01
Leavitt K., Schabram K., Barnes C., Prashanth H. "The machine hums! Addressing ontological and normative concerns regarding machine learning applications in organizational scholarship" Academy of Management Review, vol. 49, 2024-01-01
Schabram K., Bloom M., DiDonna D. "Recover, explore, practice: The transformative potential of sabbaticals" Academy of Management Discoveries, vol. 9, 2023-12-18
Quan S., Lam C., Schabram K., Yam K. "All creatures great and small: A review and typology of employee-animal interactions" Journal of Management, vol. 50, 2023-08-17
Schabram K., Nielsen J., Thompson J. "The dynamics of work orientations: An updated typology and agenda for the study of jobs, careers, and callings" Academy of Management Annals, vol. 17, 2023-07-27
Barnes C., Wagner D., Schabram K., Boncoeur D. "Human sustainability at work: A meta-synthesis and new theoretical framework" Journal of Management, vol. 49, 2022-10-31
Leavitt K., Schabram K., Prashanth H., Barnes C. "Ghost in the machine: On organizational theory in the age of machine learning" Academy of Management Review, vol. 46, 2021-10-25
Schabram K., Robinson S., Cruz K. "Honor among thieves: The interaction of team and member deviance on trust in the team" Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 103, 2018-01-01
Schabram K., Maitlis S. "Negotiating the challenges of a calling: Emotion and enacted sensemaking in animal shelter work" Academy of Management Journal, vol. 60, 2017-01-01
Honors and Awards
Sigal Barsade Inaugural Paper Prize, Wharton School of Business, (2023-11-30)
Dean’s Excellence Award for Faculty Research, University of Washington, Foster School of Business, (2023-07-31)
Poets & Quants Favorite Professors of Business Majors, Poets & Quants, (2022-12-31)
PhD Program Mentoring Award, University of Washington, Foster School of Business, (2020-07-31)
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Washington, Foster School of Business, (2019-06-30)
University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Washington, (2019-05-31)