Haslam College of Business Joseph Harrison

Joseph Harrison, an associate professor in Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business believes that truly understanding business leaders and firm strategy requires going beyond traditional research methods. “A lot of what we know about how executive leaders shape their firms came from studies using things like demographic characteristics to infer their preferences and tendencies,” he says. “This was a good starting point because gaining direct access to executives is so difficult — it’s all we really had to work with in the beginning. But these days, we can do better.”

Harrison’s work focuses on using advanced techniques like AI and machine learning to better measure complex human traits, particularly the personalities and cognitive traits of top executives. Central to his research is a machine learning-based tool he developed to assess the personality traits of CEOs based on their spoken language. Built on the Five-Factor Model of personality, the tool provides an unobtrusive way to explore how traits like extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism influence CEOs’ decisions and the value they create for their firms.

Harrison’s work, however, goes beyond studying CEO personalities. He’s passionate about improving the study of complex social and psychological processes within organizations more broadly. His research examines how executives’ cognitive frameworks shape their interpretation of environmental cues, how they communicate with the capital market and how the network ties of executives and directors affect outcomes both for these individuals and for their firms.

By leveraging novel techniques to better understand these phenomena, Harrison is advancing research in ways that impact both scholarship and practice. His work has been published in many of the top journals in his field and featured in outlets like Harvard Business Review and Fortune. Through the use of AI and machine learning, he is helping to shape the future of strategic leadership and organizational research.

Harrison’s passion for improving business decisions extends to the classroom. “It’s a big deal to me to be training the next generation of business leaders,” he says. “In five or ten years, my students won’t remember every detail we covered in class, but if I can inspire them to approach problems from new angles and consider how to improve ethical decision-making in their future organizations, these are skills that will serve them and allow them to serve others throughout their careers.”