Shimul Melwani is the Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Business Program and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Kenan-Flagler Business School. She is passionate about relationships, emotions and diversity, and her research interests meet at the intersection of emotions and interpersonal processes in organizations. She is conducting groundbreaking research on the influence of gossip – the negative and positive consequences of initiating and participating in it – for individuals, dyads and groups in the workplace.

She also is examining the interpersonal influence of discrete emotions on organizationally relevant outcomes. By studying the interpersonal effects of discrete emotions, such as contempt, compassion and anger in a series of different work contexts, her research provides a richer picture of how emotions influence attributions, relationships and performance of both those expressing emotions as well as perceiving them. In related research, Dr. Melwani is exploring the role of implicit processes that occur outside of people’s conscious awareness on critical workplace outcomes such as creativity and performance.