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Tobias Dennerlein

Tobias Dennerlein

Assistant Professor
Organizational Behavior/Human Resources

Education

Ph.D. in Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam and HEC Lausanne
M.Sc. in Business and Economics (Dipl.-Kfm.), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Dr. Tobias Dennerlein is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management of the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University. He serves on the Editorial Review Board at Human Relations and as an ad-hoc reviewer for various highly ranked management journals, such as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of Management Studies. Dr. Dennerlein’s research examines how managers’ leadership styles or behaviors (e.g., empowering leadership) affect employee motivation and downstream behavior (e.g., job performance, creativity, unethical behavior). He uses both experimental and cross-sectional methods in his research and is open to collaborating with corporate partners to help them address their leadership- and people-related challenges.

Dr. Dennerlein’s research has been published in premier academic journals, such as the Journal of Applied Psychology. It has garnered attention in the popular press, including features in The Economist as well as on The Conversation and Forbes. Dr. Dennerlein regularly presents his work at internationally renowned conferences, including the Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Annual Conference.

Before joining Purdue, Dr. Dennerlein was an Assistant Professor at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, where he taught classes and workshops on leadership, teams, motivation, conflict, and power at the Executive and MBA levels.

Journal Articles

  • Smith, T. A.; Dennerlein, T.; Courtright, S. H.; Kirkman, B. L.; Zhang, P. (2025). "Why do bootlickers get empowered more than boat-rockers? The effects of voice and helping on empowering leadership through threat and goal congruence perceptions." Journal of Applied Psychology vol. Online First | Related Website |
  • Dennerlein, T.; Kirkman, B. L. (2023). "The forgotten side of empowering others: How lower social structural empowerment attenuates the effects of empowering leadership on employee psychological empowerment and performance." Journal of Applied Psychology vol. 108 (11), 1856-1880. | Related Website |
  • Dennerlein, T.; Kirkman, B. L. (2022). "The hidden dark side of empowering leadership: The moderating role of hindrance stressors in explaining when empowering employees can promote moral disengagement and unethical pro-organizational behavior." Journal of Applied Psychology vol. 107 (12), 2220–2242. | Related Website |
  • Koopman, J.; Scott, B. A.; Matta, F. K.; Conlon, D. E.; Dennerlein, T. (2019). "Ethical leadership as a substitute for justice enactment: An information-processing perspective." Journal of Applied Psychology vol. 104 (9), 1103–1116. | Related Website |

Contact

tdennerl@purdue.edu
Office: KRAN 329

Quick links

Personal website
ResearchGate Profile
Google Scholar Profile

Area(s) of Expertise

Leadership, Management, Motivation