The management department would like to highlight Phil Thompson.

Phil Thompson teaches organization behavior within the management department. He received his PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University and recently was the recipient of the Department of Management’s Certificate of Teaching Award.

Dr. Thompson didn’t always want to be a professor and enjoyed playing sports in High School. He was his high school’s football team’s quarterback and played 3 sports in college. He was a first-generation college student and attended undergrad at Beloit College where he earned a B.A. in Communications. When he finished his undergraduate degree, he worked in the Banking industry for close to 10 years after deciding to return to get his master’s degree. Shortly after, Dr. Thompson discovered the PhD project, which is a project aimed at showing underrepresented minorities what it’s like to be a business professor. The project aims at increasing diversity within business school faculty and is funded by many different organizations including KPMG. The project helps Black/African Americans, Latinx/Hispanic American and Native Americans attain their business PhDs and become business professors. Due to the PhD project, Dr. Thompson decided to pursue his PhD and wanted to become a business professor, specifically in the industrial psychology field.

Dr. Thompson’s favorite part about his job is engaging with students and doing research. He states some of the most important aspects of being a good instructor is being transparent and authentic with students while relating with them both inside and outside of the classroom. For Dr. Thompson it is important to be relatable and not to fit the general description of a professor while meeting the students where they’re at and supporting them.

Dr. Thompson’s current research consists of analyzing gender differences in the workplace. He is currently researching how our biases about gender impact the way supervisors and employees interact with each other. The research focuses on both supervisors and employee perspectives toward different genders of their coworkers and how that impacts the workplace. Dr. Thompson developed an interest in this research in the past year and states researchers are like thought entrepreneurs. Ideas can come from anywhere and researchers don’t have to be locked into one area or domain of research. Dr. Thompson also mentioned that some of his research ideas even came to him after watching Game of Thrones.

Outside the classroom, Dr. Thompson loves to play and watch sports. Dr. Thompson is a Virginia Tech season ticket holder for football and basketball and tries to make it to every varsity sport. Dr. Thompson also lived in Cleveland for 12 years and is an avid Lebron James fan. While living in Cleveland, he held partial season tickets for the Cleveland Cavaliers and has been to over 150 live games. Dr. Thompson also loves spending time with his 3 nephews.

Dr. Thompson decided to work at Virginia Tech because of the opportunity to work at a world class research institute and the great students and faculty here. He states he has had a wonderful experience in the four years he has been here and is proud to work at a research facility and business school that values diversity. Out of the 131 D1 research universities, there are only approx. 10 black male researchers with Virginia Tech having 3. Part of the reason for this is Virginia Tech’s Future Faculty Diversity Program, which is a program designed to increase underrepresented groups within Virginia Tech’s faculty. Dr. Thompson was one of the first professors hired from the program. 

When asked what advice he would give to incoming Pamplin freshmen, he stated “Set your goals to where you want to be instead of where you should be. Don’t limit your wants and dreams professionally. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself, follow what you truly want. “

Collaborate. Innovate. Integrate.