Biography

Dr. Ronald F. Piccolo is the Galloway Professor of Management and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the College of Business. He also serves as Executive Director for the Office for Risk Management and Insurance Education and Special Assistant to the Provost for Volusia County, where he is leading UCF’s development of educational programming in the epicenter of Florida’s insurance industry.

Piccolo previously served as the Chair of the Management Department and Interim Vice-President in the Office of Advancement. In 2021-22, he was a Special Advisor to UCF’s President to facilitate development of the university’s strategic plan. He started at UCF as an assistant professor of management from 2005-09. From 2009 to 2016, he served as the Cornell Professor of Management at Rollins College and Academic Director of the Center for Leadership Development in the Crummer Graduate School of Business.

Piccolo’s primary areas of research include leadership, job design, social information processing and subconscious motivation. He is an award-winning teacher whose research has been widely published, including in Forbes magazine, Monster.com, CIO.com, as well as in numerous textbooks and top academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personal Psychology and the Journal of Management. Dr. Piccolo has taught graduate-level courses in leadership, organizational behavior (OB), research methods and management strategy.

At Rollins College, he was recipient of the Cornell Distinguished Teaching Award (2015-2016) and the Cornell Distinguished Faculty Award (2011-2012) for outstanding teaching, research, and service, and was a keynote speaker (2012, 2013, 2014) on “Teaching Effectiveness” for the OB division of the Academy of Management. In 2018, he was recognized by the Academy of Management Learning and Education as one of the Top 100 Most Influential authors in organizational behavior. In 2019, he was recognized by The Leadership Quarterly as one of the most highly cited leadership scholars since 1990 and is currently among the top 20 most cited faculty members at UCF.

Dr. Piccolo earned a Ph.D. in management from the University of Florida, an M.B.A. from Rollins and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Stetson University. He has been a visiting scholar at Drexel University, Jacobs University in Bremen, Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany and the Amsterdam Business School.

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