Meet Erika James

Scholar

Erika’s education began at Pomona College, a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology.

She earned her PhD in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan. The topic of her dissertation is another current and relevant topic, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know: effects of human and social capital on promotion and support.”

Educator

An engaging and provocative teaching style has earned Erika accolades from the MBA students she has impacted at two of the top-ranked business schools in the world: The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and Harvard Business School at Harvard University. Prior to these appointments Dr. James has also served on the faculty at the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

In addition, she pioneered a new position at Darden—Associate Dean of Diversity, in order to create a more diverse and inclusive environment for faculty and students.

Research and Teaching Interests

Because her two main research and teaching focuses—crisis leadership and diversity—continue to be critical to today’s business and political climate, Erika continues her work in this area:

  • Leading Under Pressure: From Surviving to Thriving Before, During, and After a Crisis, her much anticipated new book co-authored by Lynn Perry Wooten.  Available Fall 2009.
  • With the Batten Institute’s fellow Joel Brockner and Sean Carr, James is working to transform her innovative Crisis Management simulation into a research tool, enlisting faculty and alumni to test the theories presented in their new paper, “Towards an understanding of when executives see crisis as opportunity.”
  • A Woman’s Worth: Composition of Compensation Packages for Male and Female Top Executives, a gender study that explores compensation differences at the executive level between men and women.
  • Crisis Leadership: an Executive Briefing, James, E.H. & Smith, L. ©2005.
Click here to view abstracts and purchase case studies, simulations, and executive briefings by Erika Hayes James.

On a Personal Note

Erika has recently returned from a year as a guest professor at Harvard Business School, and is now back at her permanent post as Associate Professor at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.  She is working on promoting her upcoming new book, Leading Under Pressure: From Surviving to Thriving Before, During and After a Crisis which is eagerly anticipated by the academic and business communities.  The James family, husband Jimmie and their two children, Jordan and Alexandra, live in Charlottesville, VA.