Nancy Paige Rothbard is the Deputy Dean and David Pottruck Professor of Management at the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a Private university, private Ivy League rese ...

. She studies the impact of emotions on work, specifically in areas of workplace motivation, teamwork, and

work–life balance Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physical work done by humans ** House work, housework, or homemaking ** Working animal, an animal tr ...

Early life and education

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rothbard assisted with the family office supply and furniture business. Rothbard graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1990. She published her undergraduate history thesis ''Nineteenth century British Psychiatry: Professionalization, Somatic Theorization and Practice'' in 1990 with advisor

Ian Dowbiggin Ian Robert Dowbiggin (born 1952) is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and writer on the history of medicine, in particular topics such as euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. His research and ...

. Inspired by her mother Aileen returning to school for her PhD, she became interested in research and became a research associate at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

. While working under the guidance of

John Kotter John Paul Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School, an author, and the founder of Kotter International, a management consulting firm based in Seattle and Boston. He is a thought leader ...

, Rothbard interviewed successful male and female executives and was "struck by the fact that non-work subjects like divorces and problems with kids kept creeping into the conversation."

Career

Rothbard pursued her PhD in Organizational Behavior at the University of Michigan, where she met her future husband Brian Bushee. Upon receiving her PhD in 1998, Rothbard accepted a post-doctoral fellowship position at the

Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...

of Northwestern University. In 2000, both Rothbard and her husband accepted faculty positions at the

. Within the same year, she became a member of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

. She was subsequently nominated for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research for her project titled "Managing multiple roles: Work-family policies and individuals’ desires for segmentation." In January 2006, Rothbard led a survey of 460 employees to judge their happiness while working at a large public university. Her research team found that one would be happiest at their job if their employer supported their personal preference for managing work/family identities. If there were childcare options did not follow their own vision, they would be less happy at their place of employment. In 2009, Rothbard and Sigal Barsade helped launch Wharton's MBA core course, Foundations of Leadership and Teamwork. The following year, she was appointed the David Pottruck Associate Professor of Management and received the Wharton Teaching and Curriculum Innovation Award. While serving in this role, she co-led a week-long program called "Women’s Executive Leadership: Business Strategies for Success" with Monica McGrath to assist female executives and those who aspire to leadership roles. Rothbard also collaborated with researchers at Columbia Business School and Ohio State University to test whether forcing co-workers to attend work social events led to improved workplace relationships. They conducted two surveys; one focusing on 228 MBA students and another including 141 individuals in the United States workforce. Their overall findings found that such social events only improved workplace relationships among those of similar racial backgrounds. As a result of her research into the impact of emotions on work, specifically in areas of workplace motivation, teamwork, and work–life balance, Rothbard was named a Penn Fellow during the 2015 academic year. The following year, she was appointed chair of the Management Department at Wharton, becoming the first woman to hold this role in institution history. During the COVID-19 pandemic in North America, Rothbard studied how families were adjusting to the increase in

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

. This accumulated into a

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massach ...

article titled ''Building Work-Life Boundaries in the WFH Era,'' about how employees were "navigating the divide between work and home during the pandemic."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rothbard, Nancy Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Educators from Philadelphia Brown University alumni University of Michigan alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania faculty Kellogg School of Management faculty American women academics 21st-century American women