Rick Cotton

Dr. Rick Cotton began teaching at the Gustavson School of Business in 2015, bringing a passion for understanding how individuals thrive in their careers and how talent management practices can foster sustainable organizational, team and individual success in a variety of country, industry and occupational contexts.

Rick’s research focuses on better understanding how human capital, social capital and positive psychological capital foster success and resilience at multiple levels of analysis from individual to country levels. He seeks to understand how individuals can better thrive in their careers and better handle challenging work contexts around the world. In particular, Rick studies high achievers including hall of famers, leaders and managers as well as those in challenging work contexts including Australian women miners, correctional officers, serial entrepreneurs, HR professionals who have laid off thousands of employees and organizations recovering from scandal. He is also very interested in researching how countries and societies can move forward to achieve a variety of meaningful objectives.

Rick is a Principal Co-Investigator for the 160+ country Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program (https://www.globeproject.com; https://spark.adobe.com/page/r8gwS4op50IL9/), a core research team member of the 35+ country Cross-Cultural Collaboration on Contemporary Careers (5C) (https://5c.careers/), the current Program Chair for the Academy of Management’s 900+ member Careers Division, a Gustavson Center for Social and Sustainable Innovation Fellow and a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Rick has written several book chapters and his research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Career Development International and the Journal of Management Inquiry as well as in media outlets including BC Business, CFAX 1070 radio, CHEK News, EFMD Global Focus, Globe & Mail, Inc., Toronto Star, UPI, Victoria News and Your Workplace. His research has been awarded several grants and he has won five Academy of Management Best Paper awards and has thirteen articles that have earned Academy of Management Proceedings honors in addition to being awarded two Gustavson Leader of Excellence in Research Awards and being recognized six times as a ‘Most Memorable Professor’ for his teaching prior to coming to UVic.

Before pursuing his PhD, Rick worked in financial futures for Citibank in London, as a change management consultant and manager with Accenture and as a SVP of Learning and Development supporting U.S. and Japanese employees at Putnam Investments (part of Great-West Lifeco). Rick earned his PhD from Boston College before working as an assistant professor at Appalachian State University prior to coming to UVic. Rick also enjoys facilitating executive education sessions and consulting. His clients have included Aetna, BC Ferries, General Electric, the Hay Group, Harbour Air, the Intercultural Association of Greater Victoria, Pepsi, Sapient, Tourism Victoria, United Technologies and several other primarily services-based firms, governmental entities and multinationals.

Courses Taught

• People and the Future of Work (Daytime & Weekend MBA)
• Managing People and Organizations II (Daytime, TELUS, Weekend MBA)
• Driving Performance through Human, Social and Positive Psychological Capital (TELUS MBA)
• Service Management Module: Talent/HR Management (BCom)
• Leading People and Organizations II (BCom)
• Gustavson Aboriginal Canadian Entrepreneurs (ACE Program), My Values, My Passion, My Prosperity (Executive Programs)

Expertise

• Career Success
• Developmental Networks and Mentoring
• Cross-Cultural Management and Leadership
• Talent Management
• Human Resource Management
• Team Thriving and Resilience
• Workforce Analytics