Moore School professor Audrey Korsgaard was recently named the incoming chair of the USC Faculty Senate.
Part of the Moore School faculty since 1991, Korsgaard is a management professor, academic director of the Master of Human Resources program and director of the Riegel & Emory Human Resources Research Center.
Before accepting the current incoming chair position, Korsgaard previously served the Faculty Senate as a senator and has served as chair of the University Tenure and Promotion Committee and the Senate Steering Committee.
Korsgaard said she hopes to further the university’s current goals as chair.
“President [Bob] Caslen is committed to shared governance and transparency, and under the leadership of the current chair, Mark Cooper, the Faculty Senate has made great strides in both of these areas,” she said. “I hope to continue that momentum and assure that the faculty’s expertise and interests are well represented as the university addresses the challenges ahead.”
Korsgaard’s colleague, Sherry Thatcher, who is the management chair and a fellow professor, said Korsgaard will be a great addition to the Faculty Senate.
“This is such a critically important role at the university level, and I have no doubt that [Korsgaard] will be a fantastic chair,” Thatcher said. “Her leadership will be a great reflection of the quality of people that we have in the Management Department and at the Darla Moore School of Business.”
Along with her new position on the Faculty Senate, Korsgaard was named director of the Riegel & Emory Human Resources Research Center just ahead of the fall 2020 semester. As a core member of the Master of Human Resources faculty, she has been involved with the center since joining the faculty nearly 30 years ago.
“The [Riegel & Emory] Center plays a vital role in supporting research and our graduate program in HR,” she said. “As with the Faculty Senate, I am following in the footsteps of an outstanding leader, Anthony Nyberg, who guided a transformation of the board of the center and expanded the funds available for scholarship and other academic enhancements of our graduate program. These changes have materially improved the quality of our graduates. My goal is to continue that momentum and to deepen the multiplex relationships between the board and our academic programs.”
In addition to Korsgaard’s university and Moore School leadership roles, she has recently published research focusing on trust dynamics. She has focused her nearly three decades of research on trust in the workplace.
“Trust is essential to any exchange relationship. Every day, we engage in exchanges within and between organizations that extend beyond the formal contract,” she said. “An employee may take on an additional project without a formal agreement about additional compensation. A manager may share sensitive information with direct reports without a non-disclosure agreement. Why do we do this? Because it is efficient – faster and cheaper – than contracting every detail of our work arrangements. Trust is essential to these sorts of exchanges.”
Korsgaard and fellow Moore School Professor Paul Bliese published a book chapter this year in Multilevel Perspectives on Trust about how mutual trust develops between individuals and within groups. This paper offer insights into how individuals develop mutual trust — a shared level of trusting and being trusted — and the importance of mutual trust building stronger cooperative relationships .
Korsgaard’s current projects include looking at the role of CEO trustworthiness in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the dynamics of trust development in volunteer groups and the process of trust recovery among managers and employees.