Kevin Rockmann

George Mason University Costello College of Business faculty Kevin Rockmann headshot

Professor of Management

Contact Information

Email: krockma2@gmu.edu
Phone: (703) 993-4988
Office Location: Enterprise Hall, 214
Office Hours: By appointment
Mail Stop: 5F5

Personal Websites

KevinRockmann.com

Biography

Rockmann is a Professor of Management and the CGI Corporate Partner Faculty Fellow at the George Mason University Costello College of Business. He is also an affiliate faculty of the Honors College. His research involves studying working relationships in organizations, including how relationships are generated, maintained, and dissolve. He is particularly interested in how organizations cultivate relationships given the increasing use of remote and hybrid work. He teaches and consults in the areas of leadership, cultivating high quality relationships, training middle and top-level managers, and negotiation and conflict management. His research has been covered by Harvard Business Review, Time, The New York Times, NPR, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is the lead author of Negotiation: Moving from Conflict to Agreement (Sage, 2021).

Research Interests

  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Relational Systems and Leadership
  • Remote and Hybrid Work
  • Personal Trauma and Interpersonal Effects
  • Identity / Identification

Education

  • BS - Business, University of Illinois (1999)
  • PhD - Organizational Behavior, University of Illinois (2004)

Research and Awards

Awards

  • University Teaching Excellence Award (2025)
  • Southern Management Association Best Overall Paper Award. “Longing for the past: The dual effects of daily nostalgia on employee performance” (with J. Methot & E. Rosado-Solomon)
  • Seed Grant Proposal Preparation Award - $10,000 (2022)
  • George Mason University School of Business Dean’s Scholar (2017 – 2020; 2020 – 2023)

Research

  • Long, D., Colquitt, J., Burgess, R., & Rockmann, K.W. (2025). Stories from the Danger Zone: Conversational Storytelling and the Meaning of Work after a Close Brush with Death. Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming. 
  • Rockmann, K.W. & Bartel, C.A (2025). Interpersonal relationships in organizations: Building better pipes and looking through prisms. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 12, 295-320.
  • Methot, J., Rockmann, K.W., & Rosado-Solomon, E (2024). Longing for the past: The dual effects of daily nostalgia on employee performance. Journal of Management, forthcoming. 
  • Rockmann, K.W. & Vough, H. (2024). Using quotes to present claims: Practices for the writing stages of qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, forthcoming.
  • Bartel, C. & Rockmann, K.W. (2024). The Disease of Indifference: How Relational Systems Provide the Attentional Infrastructure for Organizational Resilience. Strategic Organization, 22(1): 18-48.
  • Bartel, C. & Rockmann, K.W. (2023). The Disease of Indifference: How Relational Systems Provide the Attentional Infrastructure for Organizational Resilience. Strategic Organization, forthcoming.
  • George, M., Wittman, S., & Rockmann, K.W. (2021). Transitioning the study of role transitions: Four challenges for management researchers. Academy of Management Annals. 16 (1): 102-133.
  • Cooper, D.*, Rockmann, K.W.*, Moteabbed, S., & Thatcher, S.M.B. (2020). Integrator or gremlin? Identity partnerships and team newcomer socialization. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 128-146. *denotes each author contributed equally.
  • Rockmann, K.W. & Northcraft, G.B. (2018). The dilemma portfolio: A strategy to advance the study of social dilemmas in organizations. Academy of Management Annals. 12(2): 494-509
  • Rockmann, K.W., & Ballinger, G.B. (2017). Intrinsic Motivation and Organizational Identification Among On- Demand Workers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102: 1305-1316.
  • Burris, E., Rockmann, K.W., & Kimmons, Y. (2017) The Value of Voice (to Managers): Employee Identification and the Content of Voice. Academy of Management Journal, 60: 2099-2125.
  • Rockmann, K.W., & Pratt, M.G. (2015). Contagious offsite work and the lonely office: The unintended consequences of distributed work. Academy of Management Discoveries, 1: 150-164.

Teaching Interests

  • Organizational Behavior
  • Leadership
  • Negotiations
  • People Analytics

 Courses Taught

  • HNRS 260 - Thriving in Organizations: Organizations form the backbone of society and as such employ almost every worker. In this practicum course, students will be visiting several organizations to become thoughtful observers of culture and processes, all with the goal of cultivating success and helping students thrive in their future organizational lives. 
  • MBA 726 - Negotiations: Focuses on theory, processes, and practice of negotiation within and across organizations, including attention to ethical issues. Explores systematic ways to increase quality of negotiated agreements, including methods of preparation, effective communication, and various strategies to increase power.
  • MBA 740 - People Analytics: This course seeks to develop business leaders who understand how people data can be leveraged to improve firm performance.

Media Clippings