Smith PhD Selected for Wharton Post-Doc

Narda Quigley, an organizational behavior doctoral candidate, will head to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School as a senior research fellow in its post-doctoral research-fellowship program in July 2003.

"Narda is making a terrific move by going to Wharton," remarks Lawrence Gordon, Smith PhD Program Director and Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance. "She'll get a great research-fellowship experience at Wharton and prepare herself for even greater academic challenges ahead," he adds. Gordon doesn't hide the fact that the Smith faculty is world-renowned, according to the Financial Times, which ranked them #6 in faculty research worldwide in 2001 and 2002, and #7 in 2003. So, the Smith PhD program remains on track to become one of the top 10 doctoral programs in the nation.

Quigley will focus on "The GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) Research Project," an international program based at Wharton that examines the inter-relationships between societal cultures, organizational cultures, and organizational leadership. Launched in 1993, The GLOBE Research Project analyzes data gathered from more than 60 countries, tapping the expertise of about 170 social scientists and management scholars worldwide. The project's principal investigator is Robert House, PhD, a well-known scholar in the organizational behavior area of leadership.

Quigley's major area of research examines how internal team leaders help teams build their confidence and adjust to stressful situations, thus enabling the teams to perform more effectively. This research, in fact, forms the crux of her dissertation paper, which she successfully defended in June 2003.

"It's been a tremendously exciting time for me here at Smith. The PhD program provided the academic development I was looking for," notes Quigley, who entered the program soon after receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. "I wasnt finished learning at Penn, but at Smith I've learned how to ask questions -- and how to find answers. This has been a real learning experience."

"When I met Professor Locke for the first time, he said, 'Call me by my first name, Ed.' It took some getting used to initially, but Smith professors treat me like a real colleague."

Quigley's doctoral dissertation committee co-chairs are Professor Emeritus Edwin Locke and Assistant Professor Paul Tesluk. She says she feels privileged for the academic advice, moral support, and professional camaraderie she's received from her doctoral program advisors: Robert H. Smith Professor of Management and Organization Kay Bartol, Professor Hank Sims, and Tesluk, who also serves as associate director of the schools Center for Human Capital, Innovation, and Technology.

Quigley follows the footsteps of Ming-Jer Chen, Smith PhD '88, who also spent several years at Wharton. She refers to Chen as "a real source of pride and joy for Smiths M&O department." Chen is now the E. Thayer Bigelow Research Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginias Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. As a Smith doctoral student, Quigley has already emulated Chen, teaching such courses as Organizational Behavior, Management and Organization Theory, and Business Policies.

Quigley will complete Wharton's research-fellowship program in July 2004.