Name: Shannon Taylor
Position:  Professor of management in the College of Business

Why are you interested in this research?
Studying workplace mistreatment is not only intellectually stimulating but also socially relevant. Better understanding its causes, consequences, and potential interventions can help people navigate and cope with mistreatment, and it can provide insights into how organizations can mitigate mistreatment to enhance employee satisfaction, well-being, and performance.

Who inspires you to conduct your research?
I often hear from people who have experienced mistreatment at work, and I often speak with managers who want to know how to handle it. These people inspire me to keep going, to keep learning more and to keep contributing in my own small way to foster respectful work environments for future generations.

How does Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ empower you to do your research?
I’m grateful to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ for providing me with the resources and environment where I can do meaningful, impactful work. I also feel empowered working alongside my talented colleagues and Ph.D. students in the management department.

What major grants and honors have you earned to support your research?
I have been fortunate to receive summer research grants and research productivity awards from the College of Business, as well as Research Incentive Awards from the university. My work has also been honored in the best paper proceedings of the Academy of Management.

Why is this research important?
Workplace mistreatment can cost organizations millions of dollars, and it can end careers, marriages and even lives. So research on workplace mistreatment is important because the stakes can be very high.

“Gratitude interventions are exercises designed to increase your focus on the positive things in your life. One intervention involves writing down a list of things you are thankful for each day,� says management Professor Shannon Taylor, who teamed up with fellow management Professor Maureen Ambrose and doctoral student and lead researcher Lauren Locklear for the study. “That simple action can change your outlook, your approach to work, and the way your co-workers see you.�

Workplace mistreatment is widespread and can cost organizations millions of dollars each year. Bullying, gossip, and exclusion or ostracism have been shown to negatively impact physical health, job performance and job satisfaction. Mistreatment also hurts the bottom line, as it creates costs from productivity loss, employee turnover, and litigation.

“While organizations spend quite a bit of time and money to improve employee behavior, there are not a lot of known tools available to actually make the needed changes,� Locklear says. “We found the gratitude journal is a simple, inexpensive intervention that can have a significant impact on changing employee behavior for the better.�

For two weeks, study participants spent a few minutes a day jotting down the things, people and events they were grateful for — and as a result, their coworkers reported that they engaged in fewer rude, gossiping, and ostracizing behaviors.

“Gratitude exercises are becoming increasingly popular products to improve employee attitudes and well-being, and our study shows managers can also use them to foster more respectful behavior in their teams,� Taylor says.

The study was recently published in the . Locklear studies workplace deviance and mistreatment, as well as interventions in gratitude and mindfulness, and expects to graduate in the spring.

Taylor, who joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2012, has a doctorate in organizational behavior from Louisiana State University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Bradley University. His areas of research include leadership and workplace mistreatment.

Ambrose is the Gordon J. Barnett Professor of Business Ethics at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Business. Her research interests include organizational fairness, ethics and workplace deviance. Locklear studies workplace deviance and mistreatment, as well as interventions in gratitude and mindfulness, and expects to graduate in the spring.

A new Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ study suggests abuse and mistreatment by those at the top of an organization do not necessarily lead to abusive behavior by lower-level leaders. When offered leadership opportunities, prior victims of workplace abuse are more likely to treat their own subordinates better by learning from the bad behavior of their bosses.

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Business professors Shannon Taylor and Robert Folger, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso, Suffolk University and Singapore Management University, recently published their findings in the .

“Some employees who are abused by their bosses resolve not to repeat that pattern with their own subordinates and become exceptional leaders of their teams,� Taylor says. “Our study sheds light on a silver lining of sorts for people who are subjected to abuse at work. Some managers who experience this abuse can reframe their experience so it doesn’t reflect their behavior and actually makes them better leaders.�

“Some employees who are abused by their bosses resolve not to repeat that pattern with their own subordinates and become exceptional leaders of their teams.â€� — Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ professor Shannon Taylor

The study found those who relied on their morals and integrity to defy their manager’s abusive approach felt encouraged to prevent it from moving beyond their bosses.

Through multiple experiments over several years, the researchers examined the differences in attitude and behavior of supervisors who had been abused by superiors and those who had not and, in turn, how each group treated their employees. They found that abused supervisors who purposefully distanced themselves from their manager expressed respect and kindness toward their own employees, despite the poor treatment they received from their own boss.

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“The lesson here isn’t to hire more abusive managers, of course, but to try to encourage people who have been abused, among other things, to say, ‘Look, I’m not like my boss,’� Taylor says. “You can take a stand—not just by reporting the bad behavior, but by actively rejecting this abusive leadership style.�

Taylor says he doesn’t expect workplace abuse to disappear, but he notes that companies are learning and trying to solve the problem through training and maintaining positive workplace climates.

Taylor joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2012. He has a doctorate in organizational behavior from Louisiana State University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Bradley University. His areas of research include ethical and unethical/abusive leadership, uncivil and counterproductive work behaviors, and time and temporal dynamics

Folger joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2003. An author of 125 publications, Folger received his master’s degree and doctorate in social psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include organizational justice, workplace violence and the evolutionary roots of human behavior.