Thomas A. Wright
Professor of management and the President Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration
Thomas A. Wright, an international expert on organizational behavior, is the first
President Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration at K-State.
Wright joined K-State in 2007 after a national search to fill the chair. His appointment includes serving as director of the College of Business Administration's Center for Business Leadership and as a professor of management, teaching organizational behavior.
Wright's research is in the areas of optimizing employee performance and organizational productivity, sustaining employee commitment, stimulating employee motivation, developing effective employee recruitment and retention strategies, finding innovative ways to enhance employee health and well-being, and character-based leadership. He has presented more than 50 academic papers in the U.S. and internationally, and has published more than 70 scholarly articles and book chapters.
His work has appeared in the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Psychometrika, Academy of Management Executive, Organizational Dynamics, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Management and the Journal of Management Inquiry. In addition, he currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Management and Journal of Organizational Behavior.
His many honors include an American Management Association/Organizational Dynamics Best Paper Award, the Sage McCune Best Paper Award, Emerald Literati Award for Excellence and the American Psychological Association's Most Outstanding Article Award for Division 13. He has also been recognized several times for excellence in teaching.
Wright was named a fellow of Division 5 of the American Psychological Association in 2011. He also is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, the Western Psychological Association and an at-large fellow of the American Psychological Association. He is the first K-State scholar to achieve fellow status in each of these prestigious professional organizations.
Prior to joining K-State, Wright was a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Nevada at Reno. He received his doctorate in organizational behavior and industrial relations from the University of California at Berkeley.
Wright can contacted at 785-532-5672 or thomaswr@k-state.edu.