Tesluk named dean of School of Management

Paul E. Tesluk, the Donald S. Carmichael Professor of Organizational Behavior at the School of Management, has been appointed dean of the school after an international search.

The appointment, effective April 25, was announced today by Charles F. Zukoski, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, who noted that Tesluk was selected from a pool of highly competitive candidates.

“I am very pleased to announce Dr. Tesluk’s appointment,” Zukoski said. “He brings to this role impressive scholarly accomplishments, significant leadership experience and expertise, and a clear vision for furthering the School of Management’s mission of advancing the global practice of management through research, education and service.”

“This is an outstanding outcome for our university,” said President Satish K. Tripathi. “Dr. Tesluk’s leadership and impact as a scholar, administrator and educator set him apart within a distinguished pool of top candidates. In addition to these impressive qualifications, he has a deep, broad and sophisticated understanding of the UB School of Management’s distinctive strengths. With his strong and compelling vision for the school, the school will be further known nationally and internationally for excellence and innovation.”

A UB faculty member since 2011 and a nationally recognized scholar in leadership, team effectiveness and organizational performance, Tesluk said he was excited by the opportunity to make the School of Management “a powerful catalyst for innovation, not only in business but also in addressing the most pressing challenges we face in society today.”

“We will do so by serving as a creator and disseminator of new knowledge in collaboration with other academic disciplines. We will link scholarship, education and practice, building new models of lifelong learning and developing leaders for the future,” he said.

“Together, I believe we can continue the upward trajectory of the school in a way that can redefine the image of a modern school of management at a major, public research-intensive university.”

In addition to his faculty appointment at UB, Tesluk has been serving as interim dean of the School of Management since July 2015, served for two years as chair of the Department of Organization and Human Resources, and was academic director of the school’s Center for Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (CLOE).

He succeeds Arjang A. Assad, who stepped down as dean of the School of Management after nearly seven years to lead the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration.

Tesluk is a prolific scholar who has published numerous articles in the most selective journals in his field.

His research in the areas of virtual team effectiveness and organizational innovation and change has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and several other funding agencies; he has secured more than $2.5 million in grant funding in recent years. He has served on the editorial boards of several of the leading academic journals in the management field.

Tesluk has worked with numerous private-and public-sector organizations in both research and consulting capacities. His consulting activities have focused on leadership development, organizational transitions to high-involvement work practices, work team design and performance, organizational climate and performance, and performance management and reward-system design.

He has extensive experience in designing, leading and teaching in numerous executive and corporate development programs on topics involving teams, leadership development, organizational change and innovation. He led the creation of CLOE, which advances research, education and outreach in leadership and organizational effectiveness. In 2014, he received a UB Exceptional Scholar Sustained Achievement Award.

Prior to joining UB, Tesluk was on the faculty for 13 years at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he served as chair of the Department of Management and Organization, as the Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, and as co-director of the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change.

He is an elected fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Society for Organizational Behavior. He also recently served an elected term on the executive committee of the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management, the world’s most prominent association for management and organization scholars.

While earning doctoral and master’s degrees from The Pennsylvania State University, Tesluk majored in industrial/organizational psychology and minored in management and organization. He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.

Tesluk and his wife, Megan Hurley, PhD, are native Buffalonians. The family moved back to Buffalo in 2012 — Tesluk commuted to UB from Washington, D.C., during his first year on the faculty — after being away for more than 25 years.