Faculty and Research

Joshua Margolis is Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior unit. He has taught two courses on leadership in the MBA program, Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Leadership and Corporate Accountability. He has also taught the introductory ethics course Leadership, Values and Decision Making and in several Executive Education Programs.

Professor Margolis’ research focuses on the distinctive ethical challenges that arise in organizations and how managers can navigate these challenges with practical effectiveness and moral integrity, especially in perform-or-else settings. Professor Margolis has published his work in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Journal of Management; and along with James P. Walsh, he authored the book, People and Profits: the Search for a Link between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance. Professor Margolis is currently engaged in two research projects. One focuses on how professionals in a variety of setting perform “necessary evils” — difficult and often unsettling tasks that require harming other human beings in order to advance a worthy purpose. The other project examines global business standards.

Professor Margolis received his B.A. from Yale University and his A.M. (Sociology) and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, where he was also a Fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions. Joshua joined the HBS faculty in 2000 after spending three years on the faculty at the University of Michigan as a Fellow in the Society of Scholars.

Recent honors include the Robert F. Greenhill Award, and the Student Association Faculty Award for teaching excellence from the MBA Class of 2004 and the Class of 2005.