PEOPLE · WORK · POSSIBILITIES
Serious questions.
Playful ways in.
I’m Jared. I study how people work together—and create experiences that help us ask better questions about it.
Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies
Reh School of Business · Clarkson University
a good leader?↗ FIKA COFFEEA café. A classroom.
A different kind of case.
Understand
people at work.
Leadership, relationships, and the everyday experience of belonging.
Explore the research ↗02Learn by
getting involved.
Messy decisions, evolving stories, and a fictional coffee company.
Step into the classroom ↗03Make ideas
useful together.
Start a conversation about leadership, learning, and your organization.
Find a starting point ↗01 / RESEARCH & ACADEMIC WORK
Work is personal.
Let’s understand it.
My work explores relationships between leaders and employees: how we exchange support, experience uncertainty, and find a sense of belonging at work.
Advancing work–life supportive contexts for the “haves” and “have nots”
Work–life support and the role of supervisors.
Belongingness and Distinctiveness
The compensating effects of personal resources.
With a frown or a smile
How leader affective states spark the leader–follower reciprocal exchange process.
Reducing Uncertainty and Podcasting Engagement
An HR classroom response to COVID-19.
02 / THE CLASSROOM, RECONSIDERED
Less sitting back.
More leaning in.
Learning starts with curiosity. Give people a meaningful situation, room to ask questions, and a decision that matters—and the concepts have somewhere to live.
“What would you do?”
is only the beginning.
The next questions are just as interesting: What do you need to know? Whose perspective is missing? What happens after your decision?
Read the story behind the approach ↗01Start with a real-feeling problem.+
Move from abstract concepts to situations with people, competing priorities, and incomplete information.
02Make a choice. Follow the consequences.+
In an evolving simulation, one decision becomes the starting point for the next. Students practice judgment as the story changes.
03Reflect, question, try again.+
Make the reasoning visible. Compare perspectives, connect experience to ideas, and take the next attempt seriously.
THE COFFEE IS FICTIONAL. THE DECISIONS FEEL REAL.
Welcome to FIKA.
A fictional coffee company. An evolving HR classroom simulation. FIKA puts students inside decisions about staffing, selection, compensation, and performance.
Choose questions, follow the team’s responses, and revisit your decision a week later. This original, scripted mini-case is separate from the full classroom simulation.
03 / CONSULTING & COLLABORATION
Good work starts
with a conversation.
Interested in stronger workplace relationships, leadership development, or learning through simulation? Let’s explore what we could do together.
Say hello jlawpenr@clarkson.eduPick a starting point.
A question is a perfectly good place to begin.