Douglas Brown

Professor
Head shot of Dr. Doug Brown

BA (Alberta), MSc (Calgary), PhD (Akron)

Contact information

View my profile on Google Scholar

Fellow, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)

Fellow, Association of Psychological Science (APS)

I may be accepting new graduate students for Fall 2026.

Research interests

My research focuses on three areas. First, my long-standing curiosity has been in understanding basic processes surrounding organizational leadership and the nature of the influence process through which leaders impact subordinates and subordinates impact leaders. My conceptual approach is grounded in understanding leadership as the outcome of a social cognitive process and how leadership perceptions are formed by observers as well as how leaders alter subordinates’ self-views and self-concepts. A second research concentration has been on investigating workplace mistreatment and deviance, both in terms of their consequences as well as their antecedents. I am particularly interested in workplace ostracism and gossip. Finally, I also actively engage in scholarship at the intersection of these two topics investigating abusive and destructive forms of leadership. Here I have conducted research that has examined the nature of the factors that exacerbate and mitigate the negative impact of abusive supervision on employee’s behaviour and well-being, such as retaliation, values, and self-control. More recently, drawing on self-regulatory failure and self-control frameworks, I have conducted research into why and when supervisors engage in abusive behaviour.

Teaching interests

  • Organizational Behaviour
  • Leadership

Selected publications

  • Ng, P., Zur, E., Liang, L. H., & Brown, D. J. (forthcoming). Experiments and abusive supervision. In Breevaart, K. & Schyns, B. (Eds.) Destructive Leadership – Forms, Context, and Boundary Conditions. Edward Elgar Publishing.

  • Liang, L. H., Varty, C. T., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., Law, D., Chen, J., & Evans, R. (2023). Subordinate OCB trajectories and well-being: The role of supervisor behaviors. Human Performance, 2,64-88.
  • Shen, W., Evans, R., Liang, L. H., & Brown, D. J. (2023). Feeling bad, mad, or glad? Exploring leaders’ emotional reactions to their use of abusive supervision. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 72, 647-673.
  • Liang, L. H., Coulombe, C., Brown, D. J., Lian, H., Hanig, S., Ferris, D. L., & Keeping, L. (2022). Can two wrongs make a right? The buffering effect of retaliation on subordinate well-being following abusive supervision. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 27, 37-52.
  • Coulombe, C., Liang, L. H., & Brown, D. J. (2021). Third party reactions to supervisor mistreatment through an identity theory lens. Canadian Psychology, 62, 195-203.
  • Kwok, N., Shen, W., & Brown, D. J. (2021). I can, I am: Differential predictors of leader efficacy and identity trajectories in leader development. The Leadership Quarterly, 32(5), 101422.

  • Shen, W., Liang, L. H., Brown, D. J., Ni, D., Zheng, X. (2021). Subordinate poor performance as a stressor on leader well-being: The mediating role of abusive supervision and the moderating role of motives for abuse, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 26, 491-506.

  • Brown, D. J., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2018). Self-Esteem. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.), The Self at Work (pp. 40-71). Jossey-Bass.

  • Kwok, N., Hanig, S., Brown, D. J., & Shen, W. (2018). How leader identity influences the process of leader emergence: A social network analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 29, 648-662.

  • Liang, L. H., Brown, D. J., Ferris, D. L., Hanig, S., Lian, H., & Keeping, L. M. (2018). The dimensions and mechanisms of mindfulness in regulating aggressive behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103, 281-299.

  • Liang, L. H., Brown, D. J., Lian, H., Hanig, S., Ferris, D. L., & Keeping, L. M. (2018). Righting a wrong: Retaliation on a voodoo doll symbolizing abusive supervision restores justice. The Leadership Quarterly, 29, 443-456.

  • Brady, D., Brown, D.J., & Liang, L. H. (2017). Moving beyond assumptions of deviance: The reconceptualization and measurement of workplace gossip. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 1-25.

  • Brown, D.J. (2017). In the minds of followers: Follower centric approaches to leadership. In J. Antonakis & D.V. Day (Eds.), The Nature of Leadership (3rd ed., pp. 331-362). Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications.

  • Lian, H., Brown, D. J., Ferris, D. L.,Liang, L. H., Keeping, L. M. & Morrison, R. (2014). Abusive Supervision and retaliation: A self-control framework. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 116-139.

  • Lian, H.,Ferris, D. L.,Morrison, R., & Brown, D. J., (2014). Blame it on the supervisor or the subordinate? Reciprocal relations between abusive supervision and organizational deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 651-664.

  • Ferris, D. L., Rosen, C. C., Johnson, R. E., Brown, D. J., Risavy, S.,& Heller, D. (2011). Approach or avoidance (or Both?): Integrating core self-evaluations within an Approach/Avoidance Framework. Personnel Psychology, 64, 137-161.

  • Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Berry, J.,&Lian, H. (2008). The development and validation of the Workplace Ostracism Scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1348-1366.

  • Scott, K., & Brown, D. J. (2006). Female first, leader second? Gender bias in the encoding of leadership behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101, 230-242.

  • Brown, D. J., & Keeping, L. M. (2005). Elaborating the construct of transformational leadership: The role of affect, The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 245-272.

  • Lord, R. G., Brown, D. J., & Freiberg, S. M. (1999).  Understanding the dynamics of leadership: The role of follower self-concepts in the leader/follower relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78, 1-37.

Book

  • Lord, R. G., Brown, D. J. (2004). Leadership Processes and Follower Self-Identity. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum