Cynthia Wang

Cynthia Wang is the Executive Director of the Dispute Resolution and Research Center (DRRC) and a Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University and a M.S. and Ph.D in Management and Organizations from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Professor Wang has taught classes in negotiations, organizational behavior, group decision-making, and cross-cultural communications at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive levels. She currently teaches Negotiation Fundamentals and Advanced Negotiations at Kellogg. Her research interests fall in the area of cultural and social diversity, ethical decision-making, and negotiations. An ongoing line of her research examines how to reduce social bias. She has examined how perspective-taking (i.e., actively imagining the world from another’s viewpoint) reduces prejudice, encourages the coordination of social behavior, and bolsters social bonds in diverse settings. Complimenting her interest in perspective-taking as a means to reduce bias, she has also demonstrated how stigmatized groups can reduce the social biases that they experience. She explores how individuals employ social creativity to diminish the pernicious impact of stigmatizing labels by self-labeling (self-consciously referring to oneself in terms of a stigmatizing label). She publishes in top research outlets such as Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organization Science, and Psychological Science, and has received attention from media outlets such as Time Magazine, Scientific American, and the New York Times. She has received a number of research and teaching awards, including several best paper awards at the Academy of Management Conference.

She is an active member in the international academic community. She is President-Elect, International Association for Conflict Management, and has served as the program chair of and is a board representative for this association. She also currently serves on the editorial board for Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Prior to her academic life, she worked at Imagitas Corporation (a subsidiary of Red Ventures) in a role managing and consulting for public and private sector organizations.

Research Interests

• Diversity, Culture, Reciprocity, Conspiracies, Negotiations

Education

• PhD, 2007, Management and Organizations, Northwestern University; Kellogg School of Management
• MS, 2004, Management and Organizations, Northwestern University; Kellogg School of Management
• BA, 1999, Psychology, Yale University, with Distinction

Academic Positions

• President-Elect, International Association for Conflict Management, 2021-present
• Executive Director of the Dispute Resolution and Research Center (DRRC), Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2018-present
• Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations, Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2018-present
• Associate Professor and William S. Spears Chair, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, 2015-2018
• Associate Professor, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, 2014-2015
• Assistant Professor, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, 2012-2014
• Assistant Professor, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, 2007-2012
• Visiting Assistant Professor, National Center for Institutional Diversity and Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 2011-2012
• Visiting Scholar, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, 2009-2010

Awards

• American Accounting Association Conference, Best Paper Award, Diversity Division, American Accounting Association
• Daniel I. Linzer Grant for Innovation in Diversity and Equity, Northwestern University
• Northwestern University Dispute Resolution and Research Center Grant
• National University of Singapore Research Grant
• William H. Newman Dissertation Award for Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management
• Annual Teaching Excellence Award Nominee, National University of Singapore
• Positive Organizational Scholarship Best Paper Finalist, University of Michigan
• HSS Faculty Research Fellowship, National University of Singapore
• National Center for Institutional Diversity Fellowship, University of Michigan
• Greiner Teaching Award (Graduate Level), Oklahoma State University
• Richard Poole Research Award, Oklahoma State University
• Inducted as a Society for Experimental Social Psychology Fellow
• Academy of Management Conference Best Student-Led Paper, Punishment contingency and unethical behavior
• Academy of Management Conference Best Paper Proceedings, Punishment contingency and unethical behavior, Social Issues in Management Division
• President’s Fellows Faculty Award Finalist, Oklahoma State University
• Academy of Management Conference Best Paper Proceedings, Inclusion strategies: The effect of blacks’ perspective-taking in white-dominated spaces, Gender and Diversity Division

Editorial Positions

• Referee, Journal of Management, 2021-
• Referee, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2020
• Referee, Psychological Science, 2019
• Referee, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2019
• Referee, Academy of Management Journal, 2018
• Editorial Board, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2013

Teaching Interests

• Negotiations, Teams, Organizational Behavior