Research Interests:

A major component of my professional portfolio surrounds research and practice in the areas of employee justice, behavioral ethics, and corporate social responsibility. This is focused on isolating the motivations behind individuals’ justice concerns (Cropanzano & Rupp, 2003), and the extent to which the experience of fair treatment at work influences the development of strong, lasting, socio-emotional ties between employees and employers (Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002). Following on the work of psychologist/behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, I argue that behavior at work is driven not by self-interest alone, but also by moral reasoning and a universal concern that justice is a fundamental human right (Rupp & Bell, 2010). I have tested these notions both in the lab (Rupp & Spencer, 2006; Skarlicki & Rupp, 2010) as well as in the field (i.e., among bankers in Germany; Rupp et al., 2008; among professionals in South Korea; Kwon & Rupp, 2011; in military contexts; Rupp, Ng, Liao, & Drasgow, 2011; among unionized steel workers, Rupp & M. Thornton, 2011; among those who care for the developmentally disabled; Liao & Rupp, 2005; and via a meta analytic exploration of field data from 32 nations, Shao, Rupp, Skarlicki, & Jones, in press). I have further extended this work to consider how justice in the workplace influences the creation of climates within workgroups (Rupp & Paddock, 2010; Kwon, Rupp, & Young, 2011), as well as how organizations’ socially responsible and irresponsible behaviors impact employee functioning (Rupp & Williams, 2011).

The second major component of my professional portfolio--behavioral assessment and development--is very much aligned with my interests in justice and social responsibility. This work involves research on methods for developing and validating developmental assessment centers. This was a focus of the Thornton and Rupp (2005) text (which was cited in the Supreme Court proceedings for Ricci v. DeStefano et al.) and was a component of the revised Guidelines and Ethical Considerations for Assessment Center Operations (2009). In these endeavors, I have worked with the South Korean government, SK, Doosan, Beijing University, IACBE, and both the International Congress on Assessment Center Methods, and the National AC Congresses of South Africa and Indonesia. Currently, a team of graduate students and I are conducting an audit of the managerial assessment and development center programs at the United Nations. Finally, George Thornton and I have just begun a project that seeks to trace how the use of assessment centers has had an impact on positive social change, worldwide.

Recent Publications:

Grandey, A. Dieffendorf, J., Rupp, D. E. (forthcoming). Emotional labor in the 21st century: Diverse perspectives on emotion regulation at work (Eds.). In A. Brief, K. D. Elsbach, and M. Frese's Organizational and Management Series. New York, New York: Psychology Press/Routledge.

Shao, R., Rupp, D. E., Skarlicki, D. P., Jones, K. S. (in press). Managing justice across cultures: A meta-analytic review, a management framework, and a cross-cultural research agenda. Journal of Management.

Rupp, D. E. (2011). An employee-centered model of organizational justice and social responsibility. Organizational Psychology Review, 1, 72-94.

Rupp, D. R., & Williams, C. A. (2011). The efficacy of regulation as a function of psychological fit: A re-evaluation of hard and soft law in the age of new governance. Theoretical Inquires in Law, 12(2), 581-602.

Rupp, D. E., Bell, C. M. (2010). Extending the deontic model of justice: Moral self-regulation in third-party responses to injustice. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20, 89-106.

Skarlicki, D., & Rupp, D. E. (2010). Dual processing and organizational justice: The role of rational versus experiential processing in third party reactions to workplace mistreatment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 944-952.


Reprints of articles

Curriculum Vitae

Journal of Management

27th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology

My Current Students:

      - Meghan Thornton
      - Jing Guo

My Former Students:

   PhD:
       - Michael Bashshur
       - Alyssa Gibbons
       - Sharmin (Spencer) Tunguz
       - Sang Woo

   Masters:
       - Jordan Stein
       - Kisha Jones
       - Shuyin Chuai (McKinsey Corporation)
       - Amanda Farthing (City of Champaign)
       - Jyoti Ganapathi (New Delhi)
       - Silke (Holub) McCance (Proctor & Gamble)
       - Zhiwen Ng (Singapore Army)
       - Sara Raouf Salama (Schlumberger Corporation)

   Undergraduate Honors Thesis:
       - Paul Sledd (Microsoft Corporation)