John Paul Stephens

John Paul Stephens
Associate Professor
Case Western Reserve University
john.p.stephens@case.edu
weatherhead.case.edu/faculty/John-Paul-Stephens

Related Research Interests

Generally speaking, I am interested in how individuals involved in organizing are aware of their involvement with the system of collective work as they coordinate their actions with others. This means that I care about how individuals mindfully or carefully engage their relationships with others at work, and how these relationships benefit the individuals involved. Some of my work has looked at how people can use feedback from their relationships to learn more about themselves, such as in the Reflected Best Self Exercise. Other work has focused on measuring the quality of the human connections at work and examining the positive outcomes predicted by connection quality. Moreover, I am interested in how individuals, through the actions that occur in relationship with others, come to know the work of the group as a whole, over and above the effects of the discrete relationships involved. With this in mind, my other research focuses on mechanisms, such as aesthetic knowledge, that help individuals be more knowledgeable of the gestalt quality of their interrelating with others.

Related Publications

  • Spreitzer, G., Stephens, J.P., & Sweetman, D. (2009). The Reflected Best Self field experiment with adolescent leaders: Exploring the psychological resources associated with feedback source and valence. Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 (5), 331-348.
  • Stephens, J.P. (2011). Making research sing: Sharing, building, and feeling knowledge in conversation. In A. Carlsen & J. Dutton (Eds.) Research Alive: Exploring Generative Moments of Doing Qualitative Research. Copenhagen Business School Press.
  • Stephens J.P., Heaphy, E. & Dutton, J. (2012). High Quality Connections. In K. Cameron & G. Spreitzer (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship, pp. 385 – 399. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Stephens, J.P., Heaphy, E., Carmeli, A., Spreitzer, G., & Dutton, J. (2013). Relationship quality and virtuousness: Emotional carrying capacity as a source of individual and team resilience. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 49(1), 13-41.
  • Stephens, J.P. (2016). Adapting for the sake of beauty: The role of leaders, levels, and learning in the coordination of a choral group. In K.D. Elsbach and B.A. Bechky (Eds.) Qualitative Organizational Research, Vol. 3: Best Papers from the Davis Conference on Organizational Research: 225-263. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
  • Stephens, J. P., & Kanov, J. (2016). Stories as artworks: Giving form to felt dignity in connections at work. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-15. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3067-0
  • Stephens, J. P., & Carmeli, A. (2016). The positive effect of expressing negative emotions on knowledge creation capability and performance of project teams. International Journal of Project Management, 34(5), 862-873.
  • Stephens, J.P., & Carmeli. (2017). Relational leadership and creativity: The effects of respectful engagement and caring on meaningfulness and creative work involvement. In S. Hemlin, and M. Mumford (Eds.) Handbook of Leadership of Creative Work: 273-296. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar