Fulton Hall 424C
Telephone: 617-552-6992
Email: michael.pratt.1@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-2917-1781
Identity and Identification; Meaningful Work; Ambivalence; Intuition/Nonconscious Processes.
Prior to joining the Department of Management and Organization at Boston College in 2008, Pratt was a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Illinois. He currently enjoys a courtesy appointment with the Department of Psychology. He is an Academy of Management Fellow.
His research is problem-centered and consequently he tends to engage in process-oriented, cross-level research. His interests include how individuals connect with the work that they do, as well as to the organizations, professions, occupations, and other collectives in which they find themselves. Recent work has focused on polarizing identity conflicts within organizations and how they can be managed. Theoretically, his research draws heavily from theories of identity and identification, meaning, emotion, intuition, trust, and culture (e.g., artifacts). Methodologically, while he has published work that utilizes lab research and surveys, much of his work is ethnographic or otherwise qualitative in nature. Recent research projects center on meaningful work, collective ambivalence, professional identity work, and the social construction of trust among firefighters.
His work has appeared in various outlets, including the Academy of Management Annual Review, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Management Learning, Organizational Research Methods, Organization Science, Qualitative Inquiry, Science, Small Group Research, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, and in numerous edited books. He also has co-edited the books: Artifacts and Organizations: Beyond Mere Symbolism(with A. Rafaeli, 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) and The Handbook of Organizational Identity (with M. Schultz, B. Ashforth, and D. Ravasi, 2016, Oxford University Press). Dr. Pratt was a recipient of the 2007 Best Paper Award for the Academy of Management Review (with Erik Dane).
“Moving Beyond Templates: A Bricolage Approach to Conducting Trustworthy Qualitative Research.” (With Scott Sonenshein and Martha Feldman.) Organizational Research Methods, 25 (2), 211-238. June, 2020.
“Exploring the Hidden Side of Trust: Supporting and Sustaining Leaps of Faith among Firefighters.” (With Douglas Lepisto and Erik Dane.) Administrative Science Quarterly, 64 (2), 398-434. April, 2018.
“Toward a Model of Organizational Mourning: The Case of Former Lehman Brothers Bankers.” (With Eliana Crosina.) Academy of Management Journal, 62 (1), 66-98. February, 2019.
“Becoming Who We Serve: A Model of Multi-Layered Employee-Customer Identification.” (With Teresa Cardador.) Academy of Management Journal, 61 (6), 2053-2080. December, 2018.
“An Introduction to Video Methods in Organizational Research.” (With Curtis LeBaron, Paula Jarzabkowski and Greg Fetzer.) Organizational Research Methods, 2 (2), 239-260. April, 2018.
“Meaningful work as realization and justification Toward a dual conceptualization.” (With Douglas Lepisto.) Organizational Psychology Review, 7 (2), 99-121. May, 2017.
“Qualitative Research in I/O Psychology: Myths, Maps and Moving Forward.” (With Silvia Bonaccio.) Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 94 (4), 693-715. 2016.
“Channeling Identification: How Perceived Regulatory Focus Moderates the Influence of Organizational and Professional Identification on Professional Employees’ Diagnosis and Treatment Behaviors.” (With David Hekman and Daan van Knippenberg.) Human Relations, 69 (3), 753-780. March, 2016.
“Understanding the dual nature of ambivalence: Why and when ambivalence leads to good and bad outcomes.” (With Naomi Rothman, Laura Rees and Timothy Vogus.) Academy of Management Annals, 11, 33-72. 2017.
“The dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning.” (With Teresa Amabile.) In B. Staw & A. Brief (Eds.) Research in Organizational Behavior, 36, 157-183. 2016.
“The Nonconscious at Work.” (With Eliana Crosina.) Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 321-347. 2016.
“Crafting and Selecting Research Questions and Contexts in Qualitative Research.” In Kimberly Elsbach and Roderick Kramer’s (Eds.) The Handbook of Qualitative Organizational Research, 177-185. New York: Taylor & Francis/Routledge. December, 2015.
“Is it me, or is it me?” The role of coactivated multiple identities and identifications in promoting or discouraging workplace crimes.” (With Abhijeet Vadera.) In Donald Palmer, Kristin Smith-Crowe and Royston Greenwood (Eds). Organizational Wrongdoing: Key Perspectives and New Directions, 337-369. Cambridge University Press. July, 2016.
“Identity Work Within and Beyond the Professions: Toward a Theoretical Integration and Extension.” (With Douglas Lepisto and Eliana Crosina.) In Ana Maria e silva and Miriam Aparicio (Eds.) International Handbook of Professional Identities, 1-37. Rosemead, CA: Scientific & Academic Publishing.
“Contagious offsite work and the lonely office?: The Unintended Consequences of Distributed Work.” (With Kevin Rockmann.) Academy of Management Discoveries, 1 (2), 150-164. January, 2015.
“Assessing Candidate Quality: Lessons from Ethnography (and Accountants).” Journal of Management Inquiry, 24 (3), 340-344. July, 2015.
“Organizational Identification during Change: The Role of Self-Enhancement and Uncertainty Reduction Motives.” (With Mirdita Elstak, Cees van Riel, Mamta Bhatt and Guido Berens.) Journal of Management Studies, 51 (1), 32-62. September, 2014.
“Meaningful Work: Connecting Business Ethics and Organizational Studies.” (With Christopher Michaelson, Adam Grant and Craig P. Dunn.) Journal of Business Ethics, 12 (1), 77-90. 2014.
“What Clients Don’t Get About My Profession: A Model of Perceived Role-Based Image Discrepancies.” (With Heather Vough, Jeffrey Bednar, Teresa Cardador and Erik Dane.) Academy of Management Journal, 56 (4): 1050-1080.
“Intuitive Decision Making.” In Eric Kiesler (Ed), Encyclopedia of Management Theory, Volume 1, 401-404. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. March, 2013.
“Constructive Deviance in Organizations: Integrating and Moving Forward.” (With Abhijeet Vadera and Pooja Mishra.) Journal of Management, 39 (5), 1221-1276. July, 2013.
“Doing Well, Doing Good, and Doing With: Organizational Practices for Effectively Cultivating Meaningful Work.” (With Camille Pradies and Douglas Lepisto.) In Bryan Dik, Znita Byrne and Michael Steger’s (Eds.) Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace, 173-196. Washington, D.C., APA Books. 2013.
“Love, Hate, Ambivalence, or Indifference?: A Conceptual Examination of Workplace Crime and Organizational Identification.” (With Abhijeet Vadera.) Organization Science, 24 (1), 172-188. January-February 2013.
“Managing Intractable Identity Conflicts.” (With C. Marlebe Fiol and Edward O’Connor.) Academy of Management Review, 34 (1), 32-55. January, 2009.
“Fitting Oval Pegs into Round Holes: Tensions in Evaluating and Publishing Qualitative Research in Top-Tier North American journals.” Organizational Research Methods, 11 (3), 481-509. July, 2008.
“Intuition: Its Boundaries and Role in Organizational Decision-Making.” (With Erik Dane.) Academy of Management Review, 32 (1), 33-54. December, 2017.
“Constructing Professional Identity: The Role of Work and Identity Learning Cycles in the Customization of Identity among Medical Residents.” (With Kevin Rockmann and Jeffrey Kaufmann.) Academy of Management Journal, 49 (2), 235-262. April, 2006.
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent: Managing Identification Among Amway Distributors.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 45 (3), 456-493. September, 2000.
“Classifying Managerial Responses to Multiple Organizational Identities.” (With Peter O. Foreman.) Academy of Management Review, 25 (1), 18–42. January, 2000.
“Organizational Dress as a Symbol of Multilayered Social Identities.” (With Anat Rafaeli.) Academy of Management Journal, 40 (4), 862-898. 1997.
Books
“Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity.” (Edited with Majken Shultz, Blake Ashforth and Davide Ravasi.) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. September, 2016.
“Artifacts and Organizations: Beyond Mere Symbolism.” (Edited with Anat Rafaeli.) Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2006.
Pratt served as an associate editor for the Administrative Science Quarterly from 2013-2022. Prior to that, he was the inaugural qualitative associate editor for the Academy of Management Journal and was a Nontraditional Research Editor at the Journal of Management Inquiry. He has also been a guest editor for Organizational Research Methods. He has been an active member of the Academy of Management. He is a former Division/Program/PDW Chair for the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division, and former representative-at-large for the Research Methods Division, of the Academy of Management. He has also served on numerous committees including the Cummings Scholarly Achievement Award, the Organizational Behavioral Award, the Best Paper in the Academy of Management Review, and the Best Paper in the Academy of Management Journal. He has also been a judge for the INFORMS dissertation proposal competition.