Faculty Friday: Dr. John Donovan

It's #FacultyFriday here at RiderCBA and we would like to recognize Dr. John Donovan, Director of the Executive MBA program and a faculty member in the area of Human Resource Management.

It took only one management course to alter Dr. John Donovan’s career path from accounting to organizational psychology. The application of psychological elements such as motivation to the workplace piqued Dr. Donovan’s interest and serves as the foundation of much of his teaching and researching career.

I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in teaching...

"When I successfully taught statistics to a group of previously disgruntled and overwhelmed students. Seeing the students learn and develop was a satisfying feeling that I pursued for ten years at Virginia Tech, and now at Rider University. I love the small-school atmosphere at Rider that emphasizes relationship building and advising. Currently, I am the Director of the Executive MBA program and a faculty member in the area of Human Resource Management, where I teach courses on the fundamentals of HR and how compensation relates to employee motivation. My goal in these courses is to show students that HR can be a competitive advantage for companies, and to show them that not everyone who works in HR is like 'The Office’s' Toby Flenderson."

Research focus:

"My research initiatives can be categorized into two main areas of focus. First, I want to know what motivates people, and how they respond to failure (giving up vs. learning from failure and getting better). My research in this area has looked at occupations such as pharmaceutical sales representatives, to see how they respond to falling short of their sales goals."

"My other topic of research poses the question: How often do people lie when they apply for jobs? Observing pharmaceutical sales representatives once again,I found that about two-thirds of the sample size significantly lied about themselves in the surveys and applications they filled out. In addition, those who misrepresented themselves performed well below colleagues who were honest during the application process, creating serious issues for companies. As a result, I suggest that these organizations should utilize the surveys and tests as initial hurdles in the hiring process, not the deciding factor. "

Future Research Projects:

"I hope to look at machine-learning and big-data for future research projects, as these are hot topics in today’s business world with a lot of potential for helping organizations make better decisions about their talent. "