Farh named “Ascendant Scholar” by Western Academy of Management
Crystal Farh, an assistant professor of management at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, has received the 2017 Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management.
The west coast affiliate of the Academy of Management bestows this distinction each year to a handful of young b-school scholars who have demonstrated an exemplary record of research, teaching and service—and even greater potential.
Farh joined the Foster School in 2015 after earning a BA in psychology at Harvard University and a PhD in organizational behavior at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business.
Individuals, teams and leaders
Her research explores employee voice (how individuals speak up to fuel creativity and innovation), teams and leadership. And she has published extensively in her young career. In 2017, Farh co-authored papers published or forthcoming in three of her discipline’s most influential journals:
In a paper published in the Academy of Management Review, she and Jo K. Oh introduced a theoretical framework that illustrates how abusive supervisors generate a range of negative behavioral responses by creating feelings of anger, fear or sadness in their employees.
In a two-study paper published in the Academy of Management Journal, Farh, Klodiana Lanaj and Remus Ilies demonstrated that building strong exchange relationships with fellow team members creates relational obligations that may not always facilitate individual performance in a team.
And in a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Farh and Gilad Chen studied surgical teams to identify the conditions under which different leadership behaviors—directing, coaching and supporting—encouraged members of surgical teams to voice their ideas and opinions, despite steep power distances and unfamiliarity with teammates.
Contributing early (and often)
Farh has won numerous awards for her research, including the Wallace Dissertation Research Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2014), and the Best International Paper Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management (2010).
In addition, Farh has been an active and sought-after reviewer. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Journal. She is an ad-hoc reviewer for Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Organization Science.
Farh received the Editorial Board Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Academy of Management Journal (2016) and the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the OB Division of the Academy of Management (2009).
At Foster, she teaches the core management course and a leadership elective course to students in the Evening and Full-time MBA Programs.
Several of Farh’s colleagues in the Foster School’s Department of Management and Organization have previously received the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management, among them Ryan Fehr (2016), Chris Barnes (2014), Michael Johnson (2012), Tom Lee (1988) and Vandra Huber (1987).
