Don Vandewalle

Associate Professor

PhD, University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management

Management and Organizations

View CV
  • Bio

    Don Vandewalle is an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Southern Methodist University (SMU), and the past chair of the Management and Organizations Department at the Cox School of Business (2006-2014).  His research focuses on feedback, achievement motivation, and growth mindset theory.  Leading research journals featuring his research include the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of ManagementPersonnel Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making.  Five of his international conference papers have won "Best Paper Awards" from the Academy of Management and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

    Professor Vandewalle has earned the "Cox Distinguished MBA Teaching Award" the past seven years, the "Cox Outstanding MBA Teaching Award", the "Cox Most Valuable EMBA Professor Award", the "Cox Teaching Innovation Award", the "SMU President's Outstanding Faculty Award", the "SMU Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Award", and in 2010  he was the second Cox professor in the span of a decade inducted into SMU's Academy of Distinguished Teachers.  In 2012, he received the "SMU Distinguished University Citizen Award".

    Professor Vandewalle earned a PhD in organizational behavior and strategic management from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, an MBA from the University of Kansas, and a BA with honors from Park College.

  • Teaching

    BA 6325 Organizational Behavior (EMBA)
    MNO 6201 Organizational Behavior (MBA)
    MNO 4371 Leadership and Culture (BBA)
  • Research

    Feedback (Giving, Seeking, and Processing)
    Implicit Theories (Growth Mindset)
    Goal Orientation (Achievement Motivation)
    Leadership Development

  • Select Publications

    Vandewalle, D., Nerstad, C. & Dysvik, A. (2019) Goal Orientation: A Review of the Miles Traveled, and the Miles to Go. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 115–144.  http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/PcR29gxquwvq7FaNnMbg/full/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062547

    Pinkley, R. L., Conlon, D. E., Sawyer, J., Sleesman, D. J., Vandewalle, D., Kuenzi, M. (2019). The Power of Phantom Alternatives: How What Could Be Haunts What Is. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making. 151, 34-48. 

    Dineen, B. R., Vandewalle, D., Noe, R. A., Wu, L., Lockhart, D. (2018) Who Cares about Demands-Abilities Fit? Moderating Effects of Goal Orientation on Recruitment and Organizational Entry Outcomes. Personnel Psychology. 71, 201-224

    Vandewalle, D. (2012). A growth and fixed mindset exposition of the value of conceptual clarity. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice. 5, 301-305

    Heslin, P. A., & Vandewalle, D. (2011). Performance appraisal procedural justice: The role of manager's implicit person theory. Journal of Management. 37, 1694-1718

    Heslin, P. A., Carson, J. B. and Vandewalle, D., (2009) Practical Applications of Goal Setting Theory to Performance Management. Performance Management: Putting Research into Practice. J. W. Smithers and M. London eds. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass

    Heslin, P. A., & VandeWalle, D. (2008). Managers' implicit assumptions about personnel. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 219 – 223.

    Heslin, P. A., Vandewalle, D, & Latham, G. P. (2006) Keen to Help? Managers’ Implicit Person Theories and their Subsequent Employee Coaching. Personnel Psychology, 59, 871-902.

    Heslin, P. A., Latham, G. P., & VandeWalle, D. (2005). The effect of implicit person theory on performance appraisals. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 842-856.

    Cron, W., Slocum, J., Vandewalle, D, & Fu, Q. (2005). The role of goal on negative emotions and goal setting when initial performance falls short of one’s performance goal.” Human Performance, 18, 55-80.

    Vandewalle, D. (2003). “A goal orientation model of feedback seeking behavior.” Human Resource Management Review, 13, 581-604.

    Ashford, S. J., Blatt, R., & Vandewalle, D. (2003). “Reflections on the looking glass: A review of research on feedback-seeking behavior in organizations.” Journal of Management, 29, 773-799.