Ramon (Ray) John Aldag

Biography

Ramon J. Aldag is the Glen A. Skillrud Family Chair in Business, past Executive Director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, and past Chair of the Department of Management and Human Resources in the WiscSchool of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, M.B.A. in Production Management, and Ph.D. in Management, all from Michigan State University.  He was a thermal engineer on Apollo, Voyager, and other aerospace projects at the Bendix Aerospace Division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  At Wisconsin, he was formerly Associate Director of the Industrial Relations Research Institute and was the 1993 recipient of the Jerrod Distinguished Service Award.  He is a member of honorary societies in business, engineering, and decision sciences and is listed in Who's Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.  He was the 1995 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Academy of Management.

Dr. Aldag has 45+ years of experience teaching negotiations, management principles, organizational behavior, decision making, introduction to business, human resource management, business policy, and seminars on leadership, group processes, organizational culture, stress, and other topics.  He has served on more than 75 Ph.D. thesis committees and has taught at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.  

Dr. Aldag’s research has focused on decision making, leadership, organizational culture, emotions, work values, social responsibility, entrepreneurship, group decision processes, and task design.  He has published more than 85 journal articles and book chapters in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Decision Sciences, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Psychological Bulletin, and elsewhere.  He is co-author of nine books, including Mastering Management Skills, Organizational Behavior and Management, Business in a Changing World (Fourth Edition), Management (Second Edition), Leadership and Vision (in the New York Times Pocket MBA series), Organizational Behavior: A Skills-Based Approach, and Creating High Performance Teams (2015).  He has served in editorial roles for the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Management Inquiry and Decision Sciences.  He now serves on the Editorial Review Boards of AMR, ASQ, JAP, and Organization and Environment.  He is Editor of the Henry Stewart Talks Organizational Behavior Video Series and Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford University Press Research Encyclopedia in Business and Management. He has reviewed proposals for the Office of Personnel Management and the National Science Foundation and has received NSF funding.

Dr. Aldag was the 1991-1992 President of the Academy of Management (AoM), a professional organization with more than 20,000 members in 100+ countries, and the 1992-1993 President of the Foundation for Administrative Research.  He has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management, as chair and/or program chair of the Academy’s Research Methods, Public/Nonprofit Sector, and Organizational Behavior Divisions, and in roles in the Social Issues and the Organizations and the Natural Environment Divisions.  He served a three-year elected term as Dean of the Fellows of the AoM.  He has also served as President of the Midwest Academy of Management and in roles in the Decision Sciences Institute and the Industrial Relations Research Association (now the LERA).

Dr. Aldag has consulting experience with a wide variety of public and private sector organizations.

Education

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University, 1966
MBA Production Management, Michigan State University, 1968
Ph.D. Management, Michigan State University, 1974

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Teams, Organizational Behavior, Group Decision Processes, Behavioral Decision Making, Negotiations, Task Design, Organizational Culture, Leadership, Motivation, Social Issues, Entrepreneurship, Emotions

Personal Interests

Reading, Traveling, Kayaking, Biking, Gardening, Cooking

Books