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Caroline Bartel

Department Chair

Department:     Management

Additional Titles:     Professor

Research Areas:     Collaboration, Managerial Group & Org Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Identification Processes

Caroline Bartel headshot

Caroline Bartel is a professor of management in The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on leadership, management, organizational behavior and analysis, and the psychology of organizations. Her research and teaching address how leaders can sustain employee engagement in the workplace, particularly in organizations and professions undergoing change.

Bartel has studied how organizations in various industries can keep employees motivated and committed during times of organizational growth and decline. She has examined an array of change initiatives, such as corporate citizenship and community outreach, virtual work and telecommuting, and organizational restructuring. A main theme in her work is how organizational cultures and systems affect the degree to which employees feel respected and valued at work.

Bartel’s research appears in many leading journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and The Journal of Applied Psychology.

Bartel teaches to diverse audiences, having designed undergraduate and graduate courses, and executive training seminars at the University of Michigan, New York University, and UT Austin. Her courses focus on how individual and group behavior are shaped by structural, social, and political forces within organizations.

Bartel earned a Ph.D. and a M.A. in organizational psychology, both from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in psychology from Stony Brook University.

ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP & AWARDS

2020

Hank and Mary Harkins Award for Undergraduate Teaching McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin

2013

CBA Foundation Advisory Council Centennial Fellowship #6 McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin

2008

Trammell/CBA Foundation Teaching Award for Assistant Professors, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin

2007

Dean’s Fellow, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin

Caroline A. Bartel, and Kevin W. Rockmann. Feb. 2024. 
The Disease of Indifference: How Relational Systems Provide the Attentional Infrastructure for Organizational Resilience.
Strategic Organization 22(1): 18-48.

Kevin Rockmann, and Caroline Bartel.  Nov 2023. 3 Strategies to Promote Healthy Work Relationships. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, Nov. 9, 2023, 1-6.

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Caroline A Bartel, Laura Rees, and Quy Huy. 2016. Assessing Collective Affect Recognition via the Emotional Aperture Measure. Cognition & Emotion 30(1), 117-133.

 

Nathanael J. Fast, Ethan R. Burris, and Caroline A Bartel. 2014. Managing to Stay in the Dark: Managerial Self-Efficacy, Ego Defensiveness, and the Aversion to Employee Voice. Academy of Management Journal 57(4), 1013-1034.

 

Caroline A Bartel and Batia M. Wiesenfeld. 2013. The Social Negotiation of Group Prototype Ambiguity in Dynamic Organizational Contexts. Academy of Management Review 38(4), 503-524.

 

Caroline A Bartel, A. Wrzesniewski, and B. Wiesenfeld. 2012. Knowing Where You Stand: Perceived Respect, Organizational Identification and Physical Isolation among Virtual Workers. Organization Science 23, 743-757.

 

Caroline A Bartel. 2011. Alexander S. Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher, and Michael J. Platow: The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power. Administrative Science Quarterly 56(3), 477-479.

 

Raghu Garud, Roger Dunbar, and Caroline A Bartel. 2011. Dealing with Unusual Experiences: A Narrative Perspective on Organizational Learning. Organization Science 22(3), 587-601.

 

J. Sharek, Ethan R. Burris, and Caroline A Bartel. 2010. When Does voice Prompt Action? Constructing Ideas That Trigger Attention, Importance and Feasibility.. Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management.

 

Sanchez-Burks, J., Caroline A Bartel, and Blount, S. 2009. Performance in intercultural interactions at work: Cross-cultural differences in response to behavioral mirroring. Journal of Applied Psychology 94, 216-223.

 

Caroline A Bartel and Garud, R.. 2009. The role of narratives in sustaining organizational innovation. Organization Science 20, 107-117.

 

Caroline A Bartel, A. Wrzesniewski, and B. Wiesenfeld. 2007. Identifying from Afar: Communicating Organizational Membership in Remote Contexts, in Identity and the Modern Organization, C. A. Bartel, S. Blader, and A. Wrzesniewski, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

 

Caroline A Bartel, S. Blader, and A. Wrzesniewski, eds. 2007. Identity and the Modern Organization. Lawrence Erlbaum.

 

Wiesenfeld, B. M., Swann, W. B., Brockner, J., and Caroline A Bartel. 2007. Is more fairness always preferred? Self-esteem moderates reactions to procedural justice. Academy of Management Journal 50, 1235-1253.

 

Caroline A Bartel and F. Milliken. 2004. Perceptions Of Time In Work Groups: Do Members Develop Shared Cognitions About Their Temporal Demands?, in Research on Managing Groups and Teams, M. Neale, E. Mannix, and S. Blount, eds. Elsevier, Vol. 6, pp. 87-109.

 

Caroline A Bartel and R. Garud. 2003. Adaptive Abduction As a Mechanism for Generalizing from Narratives, in The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, M. Lyles and M. Easterby-Smith, eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 324-342.

 

F. Milliken, Caroline A Bartel, and T. Kurtzberg. 2003. Diversity and Creativity in Work Groups: A Dynamic Perspective on the Affective and Cognitive Processes That Link Diversity and Performance, in Group Creativity, P. B. Paulus and B. Nijstad, eds. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 32-62.

 

Caroline A Bartel and Garud, Raghu. 2003. Narrative Knowledge in Action: Adaptive Abduction as a Mechanism for Knowledge Creation and Exchange in Organizations. Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning & Knowledge Management 2003, 324-342.

 

G.S. Janicik and Caroline A Bartel. 2003. Talking About Time: Effects Of Temporal Planning And Temporal Norms On Group Coordination And Performance. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice 7(2), 122-134.

 

Caroline A Bartel. 2002. I Love New York, More Than Ever: Changes In People’s Identities As New Yorkers Following The World Trade Center Terrorist Attacks. Journal of Management Inquiry 11, 240-248.

 

Caroline A Bartel and J. E. Dutton. 2001. Ambiguous Organizational Memberships: Constructing Organizational Identities in Interactions with Others, in Social Identity Processes in Organizational Contexts, M. A. Hogg and D. Terry, eds. New York, NY: Psychology Press, 115-130.

 

Caroline A Bartel, R. Saavedra, and L. Van Dyne. 2001. Design Conditions for Learning in Community Service Contexts. Journal of Organizational Behavior 22, 367-385.

 

Caroline A Bartel. 2001. Social Comparisons in Boundary-Spanning Work: Effects of Community Outreach on Members’ Organizational Identity and Identification. Administrative Science Quarterly 46, 379-413.

 

Caroline A Bartel and R. Saavedra. 2000. The Collective Construction of Work Group Moods. Administrative Science Quarterly 45, 197-231.

 

R. Garud, R. Dunbar, and Caroline A Bartel. Dealing with unusual experiences: A narrative perspective on organizational learning. Organization Science 22(3), 587-601.