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James Avey
'James Avey'

James Avey, born March 21, 1980 in Wenatchee Washington is a management professor specializing in leadership and organizational behavior.

Background and Education
James B. Avey graduated with a B.S. from the Central Washington University with a B.A. in Business Administration and then obtained his Ph.D. in management from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Drs. Fred Luthans and Bruce Avolio were his major academic advisers at Nebraska. Dr Avey, his wife Christy and their three children currently reside in the state of Washington.

Academic Career
After PhD work at the University of Nebraska, Dr. Avey accepted an academic appointment at Central Washington University located in Ellensburg Washington. During his academic career he has received several accolades including for teaching (2009 Excellence in Teaching Award from CWU Alumni Association), research (Three times Central Washington University, College of Business Researcher of the Year Award 2008-2010; Honorable Mention for the 2008 Douglas Memorial Award in Journal of Applied Behavioral Science; 2009- Outstanding Paper Award Winner at the Literati Network Awards for Excellence; 2008- Southern Management Association Best Paper Award) and service (Academy of Management Outstanding Reviewer Award). During this time Dr. Avey has published numerous discipline based research articles in per reviewed journals and has been a reviewer for nine different academic journals including the Leadership Quarterly, Human Resource Management and the Journal of Applied Psychology. Also during Dr. Avey’s academic career he has taught upper division collegiate business courses such as: Business Strategy/Policy, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, Staffing Organizations, Contemporary Issues in Management, Leadership in Sport Organizations, Leadership in Business.

Psychological Capital
Dr. Avey’s research has focused on three main topics. First, he has conducted dozens of empirical studies on employee’s hope, optimism, confidence (Self efficacy) and resilience (together called positive psychological capital) in the workplace. These studies have been cross sectional, longitudinal, experimental and multi-level. This domain of research, called psychological capital, has roots in positive psychology and positive organizational behavior which was founded by his academic advisor Dr. Fred Luthans. The summative findings of this research stream are as follows: 1.	Employees’ psychological capital causes higher employee performance. 2.	Organizations can take actions to develop or increase employees’ psychological capital. 3.	Managerial leaders can enhance or destroy employee psychological captial. 4.	A team can have high psychological capital even if the members of the team do not. 5.	A team of high psychological capital people can have low team psychological capital. 6.	Employees higher in psychological capital are more satisfied, more committed, less likely to be absent from work, have less stress and anxiety and are more creative. 7.	Psychological capital may matter most in extremely physically and cognitively demanding jobs. 8.	Psychological capital can be developed at least short term in a web based developmental session Citations and references for such work can be seen below.

Ethical Leadership
A second area of Dr. Avey’s research is based on the idea of ethical leadership. While there are multiple perspective on what does and does not constitute ethical behavior, his research focuses on the follower perspective of an ethical leader. This leaves open the idea that a leader may do a single behavior and it may be viewed as ethical by one follower, neutral by the second and unethical by the third. To date, the summative findings of this research stream are as follows: 1.	Employees with immediate supervisors they believe are highly ethical are less likely to leave a company prematurely. 2.	Ethical behavior is subjective by the follower. 3.	Supervisors can “fake” appearing ethical but only for short periods of time. 4.	Certain types of employees (e.g., those lower in self esteem) are highly influenced by ethical leaders whereas those high in self esteem are less likely to be influenced. Citations and references for such work can be seen below.

Employee Ownership
The third area of Dr. Avey’s research is based on the extent to which employees feel like owners in organizations. Specifically, he notes that organizations often desire employee’s to “take ownership” yet fail to realize they have a critical role in “giving ownership”. In a 2008 article in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Dr. Avey and his colleagues argue there are two types of employee feelings of ownership. The less desirable type is territoriality where employees mark and defend territories where they feel like owners. This is based off the work of Dr. Graham Brown. The second type of “psychological ownership” includes feelings of personal efficacy, accountability, sense of place, and identity. Employees who demonstrate these symptoms will feel a sense of responsibility to take care of the organization but they also feel they have rights to express what happens to the organization and make decisions in it. In this way, as noted by Dr. Jon Pierce from the University of Minnesota Duluth, employees who feel like owners feel they have both responsibilities to take care of the firm and rights to influence heat happens to it.