Derek Rich

My research philosophy is two pronged: create new knowledge through research, and acquire the ability to bring the most up-to-date developments to the classrooms. I strongly believe that it is a unique responsibility of the university professors to create new knowledge that addresses the long term needs of society. This knowledge creation is essential also for the textbooks of the future. Therefore, faculty members should stay actively involved with research in emerging areas of either technology or education. I feel that training and support of undergraduate and graduate students in their fields of independent research is one of the most important outcomes of a faculty member’s research activities. A faculty member’s research focus should be agile, and she/he should be able to move into new and emerging areas as they develop.  

I believe in actively seeking research funds from local, State, and Federal sources and private foundations.  Although funding from most of the Federal sources are extremely competitive and hence difficult to obtain, applying for such funds helps researchers to be exposed to higher standards and to compare their work with the best in the field. This, I believe, results in a significant improvement in the quality of research, and also brings national visibility to the researchers and their institutions. My publication philosophy is “quality and not quantity,” i.e., to consider only the journals with rigorous review standards.   I also believe in the value of both empirical and theoretical forms of research inquiry and strongly encourage publications that focus in these areas.   

            Specifically, my research interests revolve around organizational behavior and human resource management.  The areas that most interest me involve organizational change, values based human resource management, diversity, ethics, retention, and gender.  Overall, I am quite interested in any area that involves people.