Research
Leading with Big Ideas
Research sponsorship allows our corporate partners to engage with The University of Texas at Austin, a Tier One research institution, with access to objective and academic quality research.
Our Research Mission
Research is the core activity of our teaching and corporate partnerships. We support research that impacts leadership, explains phenomena, and provides practical solutions for organization problems. There are three specific sets of activities that contribute to the research mission for the Center.

Research Activities

Ph.D. Dissertations

The Center for Leadership and Ethics sponsors funding for Ph.D. student dissertations, helping to drive new scholarship on unexplored issues that impact decision-making, employee engagement, and other leadership priorities.

Industry Research

The Center fosters partnerships with businesses and organizations that seek to explore industry-relevant research that will transform the future of industry thought, practice, and leadership approaches.

Corporate Partnerships

We partner with organizations on applied research projects (e.g., analyzing engagement surveys) led by our BBA and MBA students. Partners get enhanced recruiting visibility and access to students through research projects.

Workforce Insights Initiative

The Center for Leadership and Ethics serves as a bridge between academic research and organizational practice through a growing portfolio of research partnerships, practitioner engagement, and thought leadership initiatives. At the heart of these efforts is the People Analytics Exchange, which brings together McCombs faculty and professionals responsible for talent, employee experience, and workforce analytics to discuss emerging challenges and opportunities in managing people. Through regular convenings, collaborative research partnerships with organizations, and the annual UT Employee Voice Conference, the Center fosters meaningful dialogue between scholars and practitioners while advancing evidence-based approaches to leadership, talent management, and employee engagement.

Ethan Burris Teaching TEE Class

Corporate Research Topics

Our goal is to develop long-term partnerships between industry and academia, leading to deep yet practical insights to help companies navigate their most pressing challenges. These are examples of past research topics.

Employee Voice IMpacts Sales Performance

Studying effective strategies for employees to voice their ideas, accumulate support, and improve performance with a Fortune 500 insurance company. Findings show that employing different strategies can account for up to 20 percent improvement in sales performance.

Unconscious Bias Impacts Innovation

Documenting with a dozen financial services firms the impact of unconscious bias on assigning credit for innovative ideas and identifying high-potential employees.

Communication Networks for Employee Engagement

Study of over 10,000 employees of a Fortune 500 tech company to test how patterns of communication networks can enable engagement, reduce turnover, and spur team innovation.

Responsive Leadership Reduces Turnover

Measuring the impact of responsive leadership across 140 restaurants for a national chain with 5,500 employees. Findings show that responsive leadership accounted for a 30 percent reduction in annual turnover.

Become a Research Partner
Partnerships between industry and academia lead to deep yet practical insights to help companies navigate their most pressing challenges. Partners obtain independently compiled, factual data on their company and answers to questions that translate into actionable best practices.
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