William Becker appointed associate professor of management

William Becker has been appointed associate professor in the Department of Management at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

He is one of five new full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty members at Pamplin this fall. Their addition reflects the college’s commitment to hiring faculty to further strengthen its teaching, research, and business outreach, particularly in the areas of business analytics, innovation through entrepreneurship, and sustainable global prosperity.

Becker, who is based at Virginia Tech's National Capital Region campus, received his Ph.D. in management from the University of Arizona in 2010. He earned a master’s degree in economics from the University of Connecticut and a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering from the United States Naval Academy.

Becker’s research interests include work emotion, turnover, organizational neuroscience, and leadership.

His latest study, regarding employer expectations about after-hours emails, has been widely reported in the media.

His work has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Personnel Psychology. It has also been covered in stories by the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Time, Esquire, and NPR, among others.

Becker received a 2016 Emerald Literati award for a book chapter, “Using Physiological Methods to Study Emotions in Organizations,” and a 2014 Best Paper award, conflict management division, at the Academy of Management’s annual conference.

He has served on the editorial board of Journal of Business and Psychology and as co-editor of the neuroscience column in The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist.

Becker previously taught at Texas Christian University. Before starting his academic career, he was a high school teacher, a project engineer, and a U.S. Navy submarine officer.