Assistant Professor
Educational Background
Ph.D., Moscow State University, Russia
Social/Organizational Psychology
Academic Positions Held
Santa Clara University: 2008 - present.
Previous appointments: Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania
Teaching
PSYC 40: Statistical Data Analysis
PSYC 156: Managing Diverse Workforce
PSYC 157: Industrial/Organizational Psychology
PSYC 161: Advanced Topics in I/O Psychology
Research
The focus of my research is to understand the functioning of diverse groups in organizational settings.
My research program has four main objectives:
- first, to extend the current theory in the study of group composition and diversity to a new conceptualization of diversity—group faultline theory;
- second, to understand how conflicts arise from faultlines and affect employee and group performance, mental health outcomes, turnover, and mobility within a company;
- third, to explore factors, such as leadership, group identity, emotions, and workgroup environment (e.g., HR practices, organizational culture, and business strategies) that may contribute to the escalation of conflict in situations where faultlines exist; and
- fourth, to operationalize group faultlines through sound measurement techniques and rigorous testing in multiple research settings.
Most recently, I have been interested in understanding the roots of ethnic conflict and the process of conflict escalation in ethnopolitical situations. I have been drawing on my research in the areas of diversity and group conflict to study international ethnopolitical conflict and peacekeeping.
Representative Publications
Bezrukova, K., thatcher, S.M.B., Jehn, K., and Spell, C. (In press). The Effects of Alignments: Examining Group Faultlines, Organizational Cultures and Performace. Forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology.(JAP).
Bezrukova, K., Spell, C.S.And Perry,J. (2010). Coping with injustices: Faultlines and mental health in diverse workgroups. Personnel Psychology, 63, 727-759.
Jehn, K. and Bezrukova, K. (2010). The Faultline Activation Process and the Effects of Activated Faultlines on Coalition Formation, Conflict, and Group Outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 112(1), 24-42.
Zanutto, E., Bezrukova, K., and Jehn, K. (2010). Revisiting Faultline Conceptualization: Measuring Faultline Strength and Distance. Quality & Quantity. DOI 10.1007/s11135-009-9299-7.
Spell, C. and Bezrukova, K. (2010). A Question of balance? Women, men and high performance organizations. French review of social sciences “Travail, Genre et Société, 23, 193-201.
Bezrukova, K., Jehn, K., Zanutto, E., and Thatcher, S.M.B. (2009). Do workgroup faultlines help or hurt? A moderated model of faultlines, team identification, and group performance. Organization Science, 20(1), 35-50.
Bezrukova, K. and Uparna, J. (2009). Group splits and culture shifts: A new map of the creativity terrain. In M.A.Neale, B.Mannix & J.Goncalo (Eds.), Research on Managing Groups and Teams (pp.161-191), Vol. 12. Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
Jehn, K., Bezrukova, K., and Thatcher, S.M.B. (2008). Conflict, diversity, and working in teams. In C. K.W. De Dreu and M. Gelfand (Eds.), The Psychology of Conflict and Conflict Management in Organizations (pp.179-210). The SIOP Frontiers Series, New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bezrukova, K., Thatcher, S.M.B., and Jehn, K. (2007). Group heterogeneity and faultlines: Comparing alignment and dispersion theories of group composition. In K. J. Behfar and L.L. Thompson (Eds.), Conflict in Organizational Groups: New Directions in Theory and Practice (pp.57-92). Evanston, IL: The Northwestern University Press.
Jehn, K.A. and Bezrukova, K. (2004). A field study of group diversity, workgroup context, and performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25: 1-27.
Kochan, T., Bezrukova, K., Ely, R., Jackson, S., Joshi, A., Jehn, K., Leonard, J., Levine, D., and Thomas, D. (2003). The effects of diversity on business performance: Report of a feasibility study of the diversity research network. Human Resource Management Journal, 42(1): 3-21
