Dustin Sleesman

Biography

Dustin J. Sleesman is an associate professor of management and UD-SWUFE Joint Institute Fellow at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware. He received a Ph.D. from Michigan State University and a B.S. and B.A. from The Ohio State University.

Dr. Sleesman conducts research in multiple areas. First, he studies the psychology of decision-making, including why people become committed to their decisions and how biases can influence them. Second, he focuses on negotiation and conflict resolution – and especially how they are affected by our thoughts and perceptions. Third, Dr. Sleesman studies team effectiveness, such as understanding how the motivation and personality of team members influence their interactions.

His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Annals, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, The Leadership Quarterly and Journal of Applied Psychology. It has also been cited in various media outlets, such as Forbes, HuffPost, MIT Sloan Management Review, The European Business Review, Philanthropy Journal, La Tercera (Santiago, Chile), Delaware Public Radio WDPN-TV Wilmington/Philadelphia and Cheddar TV.

He has received several awards and recognition for his research, including the UD-SWUFE Joint Institute Fellowship in 2022, the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award and the Dean’s Office Research Recognition Award” from the Lerner College of Business and Economics in 2019, and the Best Empirical or Theoretical Paper Award from the Conflict Management division of the Academy of Management in 2017.

Dr. Sleesman is very passionate about his teaching and impact on students. He teaches in both the graduate and undergraduate programs and offers courses in negotiation and conflict resolution, organizational behavior and a specialty course on management skills for engineers and scientists. He also provides customized training and development workshops for various organizations.

Education

• Ph.D. in organizational behavior & human resource management, Michigan State University, 2012
• B.S. in business administration, The Ohio State University, 2007
• B.A. in psychology, The Ohio State University, 2007

Select Publications

• Bear, J. B., Pinkley, R., Barsness, Z., Mazei, J., Bhatia, N., & Sleesman, D. J. (in press). Gender, pay transparency, and competitiveness: Why salary information sometimes, but not always, mitigates gender gaps in salary negotiations. Group Decision and Negotiation.
• Sleesman, D. J. & Cronin, C. E. (in press). From microbe to metaphor: Virus-like problems in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology.
• Sleesman, D. J., Hollenbeck, J. R., Davison, R. B., & Scott, B. A. (in press). Leader intuition: Good or bad for multiteam system performance? The roles of information load and introversion. Group & Organization Management.
• Barrett, C. A., Sleesman, D. J., Spear, S. E., Clinkscales, A., & Amin, T. (2023). Sticking with programs that do not work: The role of escalation of commitment in schools. Prevention Science, 24, 567-576.
• Li, S., Conlon, D. E., Sleesman, D. J., Pinkley, R. L., & Sawyer, J. E. (2022). Responses to phantom alternatives: The role of truthful, exaggerated, deceptive, and false statements. In Sonia Taneja (Ed.). Proceedings of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.
• Nederveen Pieterse, A., Hollenbeck, J. R., van Knippenberg, D., Spitzmuller, M., Dimotakis, N., Karam, E. P., & Sleesman, D. J. (2019). Hierarchical leadership versus self-management in teams: Goal orientation diversity as moderator of their relative effectiveness. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(6), 101343. doi: doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101343.
• Sleesman, D. J. (2019). Pushing through the tension while stuck in the mud: Paradox mindset and escalation of commitment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 155(1), 83-96. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.03.008.
• Pinkley, R. L., Conlon, D. E., Sawyer, J. E., Sleesman, D. J., Vandewalle, D., & Kuenzi, M. (2019). The power of phantom alternatives in negotiation: How what could be haunts what is. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 151(1), 34-48. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.12.008.
• Sleesman, D. J., Hollenbeck, J. R., Spitzmuller, M., & Schouten, M. E. (2018). Initial expectations of team performance: Specious speculation or framing the future? Small Group Research, 49(5), 600-635. doi: 10.1177/1046496418767554.
• Sleesman, D. J., Lennard, A. C., McNamara, G., & Conlon, D. E. (2018). Putting escalation of commitment in context: A multilevel review and analysis. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1), 178-207. doi: 10.5465/annals.2016.0046.
• Sleesman, D. J. & Conlon, D. E. (2017). Encouraging prosocial decisions: The role of fairness salience and uncertainty. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(2), 502-515. doi: 10.1002/bdm.1970.
• Sleesman, D. J. (2015). Wanted: A better psychological understanding of how individuals integrate “big data” into their decision-making. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 8(4): 534-538. doi: 10.1017/iop.2015.79.
• Sleesman, D. J., Conlon, D. E., McNamara, G., & Miles, J. E. (2012). Cleaning up the big muddy: A meta-analytic review of the determinants of escalation of commitment. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3): 541-562. doi: 10.5465/amj.2010.0696.

Awards & Honors

• MBA Teaching Award Honorable Mention, 2023
• UD-SWUFE Joint Institute Fellowship, Lerner College of Business and Economics, 2022
• Best Paper Proceedings, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2022
• Nominated for MBA Teaching Award, University of Delaware, 2022
• Nominated for Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Delaware, 2020
• Keynote Speaker, Executive Reception, Delaware BioScience Association, 2019
• Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Lerner College of Business and Economics, 2019
• Outstanding Research Award, Department of Business Administration, 2019
• Dean’s Office Research Recognition Award, Lerner College of Business and Economics, 2019
• Best Empirical or Theoretical Paper Award, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2017
• General University Research Grant, University of Delaware, 2014
• Outstanding Reviewer Award, Organizational Behavior Division, Academy of Management, 2014

Curriculum Vitae

Download Dustin J. Sleesman’s CV (PDF)