Biography

Melissa L. Gruys, Ph.D., SPHR is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management in the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris with majors in Management, Economics, and Communications and her Ph.D. in Human Resources and Industrial Relations at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

She joined the Wright State University faculty in June 2006, and was previously at Washington State University Vancouver for seven years. Dr. Gruys has taught courses in human resource management, management, and organizational behavior. At Wright State University she is primarily focused on delivering courses in the undergraduate program. 

Her two main streams of research revolve around employee performance and work behavior. The first stream of research focuses on predicting, defining, and examining employee performance and work behavior (e.g., employee selection, the impact of work attitudes such as job satisfaction on job performance) and the second stream of research focuses on counterproductive work behavior (CWB), or behavior that is counter to effective employee job performance (e.g., how to predict and prevent such behavior). Dr. Gruys’ work has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, International Journal of Management Practice, Thinking Skills and Creativity, Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology, Public Personnel Management, and the Journal of Business and Public Affairs. She has partnered with firms to conduct research and has consulted with a variety of organizations.

Research Interests

I have two main streams of research, both of which revolve, in a broad sense, around employee performance and work behavior. My first stream of research focuses on predicting, defining, and examining employee performance and work behavior and the influences work attitudes and contextual factors can have on employee performance. My second stream of research focuses on counterproductive work behavior (CWB), or behavior that is counter to effective employee job performance.

My first stream of research focuses work performance. One aspect of this work addresses personnel selection and the prediction of job performance using individual difference variables such as cognitive ability and work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organziational committment). I have done research on employee selection assessment centers, individual performance in work settings (e.g., the impact of job insecurity on employee performance), and employment testing and the use of personnel tests in employee selection. Other projects focus on the extent to which employees enact the core values espoused by their organizations in their daily performance behaviors and whether such values enactment has an impact on important organizational outcomes such as employee turnover and promotion. Lastly, recent and current projects look at creativity as a desirable work outcome and focus on the degree to which individual creativity levels are impacted by situational and contextual characteristics (e.g., what impact does job insecurity have on individual creativity, and can individual employee creativity levels be changed by educational efforts in the context of an MBA course).

My second stream of research studies counterproductive work behavior (CWB). CWB can be described as behavior that violates the norms of the organization and in doing so harms the organization, its members, or both. This is, CWB is employee behavior that organizations hope to minimize. My research examines the relationships between various types of counterproductive work behavior as well as focusing on other variables and influences that might impact whether employees will engage in CWB (e.g., will employees who perceive their jobs to be very insecure engage in more or less CWB?).

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Gruys, M. L., Stewart, S. M., & Goodstein, J, Bing, M. N., & Wicks, A. C. (In Press). Values Enactment in Organizations: A Multi-Level Examination. J ournal of Management .

Gruys, M. L., Stewart, S. M., & Patel, T. (In Press). Business etiquette in twelve countries: Special considerations for female expatriates. International Journal of Management Practice.

Dewett, T. & Gruys, M.L. (In Press). Advancing the case for creativity through graduate business education. Thinking Skills and Creativity.

Gruys, M. L. & Stewart, S. M.  (2007). Teaching human resource management concepts with experiential exercises.  Journal of Human Resources Education , 1(1), Online journal.

Probst, T. M., Stewart, S. M., Gruys, M. L., & Tierney, B. W. (In Press). Productivity, counter-productivity, and creativity: The ups and downs of job insecurity. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

Stewart, S. M., Bing, M. N., Gruys, M. L., & Helford, M. C. (2006). Men, women, and perceptions of work environments, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Journal of Business and Public Affairs, 1(1), 1-24.

Berry, C. M., Gruys, M. L., & Sackett, P. R. (2006). Educational attainment as a proxy for cognitive ability in selection: Effects on levels of cognitive ability and adverse impact. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 696-705.

Gruys, M. L. & Sackett, P. R. (2003). The dimensionality of counterproductive work behavior. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 11(1): 30-42.

Caldwell, C., Gruys, M. L., & Thornton, G. C. III. (2003). Public safety assessment centers: A steward’s perspective. Public Personnel Management, 32(2): 229-249.

Caldwell, C., Thornton, G. C. III, & Gruys, M. L. (2003). Ten classic assessment center errors: Challenges to selection validity. Public Personnel Management, 32(1): 73-88.

Ellingson, J. E., Gruys, M. L., & Sackett, P. R. (1998). Factors related to the satisfaction and performance of temporary employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(6): 913-921.

Sackett, P. R., Gruys, M. L., & Ellingson, J. E. (1998). Ability-personality interactions when predicting job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(4): 545-556.

Professional Affiliations

Academy of Management

American Psychological Association

Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP - APA Division 14)

Society of Human Resource Management

Curriculum Vita