Dr. Secil Bayraktar
BA (Bogazici), PhD (Bogazici)
Associate Professor, Toulouse Business School (TBS)
Dr. Secil Bayraktar is an Associate Professor of Management at Toulouse Business School (TBS), France. She received her Ph.D. in 2013 from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, with a focus on organizational studies. Before joining TBS in 2018, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Victoria, Canada and as an Assistant Professor at Ozyegin University, Turkey. Prior to her academic career, she had seven years of corporate experience in marketing research, advertising, and consultancy sectors. Dr. Bayraktar has been teaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels on leadership, cross-cultural management, global talent management, research methods, human resources management, and leading in the entrepreneurship context. She supervises master, DBA, and PhD students. She also works closely with business managers, providing consultancy and executive trainings to numerous companies on innovation, organizational culture, high performing teams, leadership, growth mindset, and leading change.
Her research interests broadly include leadership, organizational change, cross cultural management, organizational climate, emotions in organizations, and employee well-being. She investigates people-related matters in organizations with the aim of enhancing well-being of employees in today’s organizations characterized by complexity, change, and global focus. To do that she focuses on both the employee and the leader perspectives, as well as the organizational and cultural factors that constrain or enable organizational and individual well-being.
Dr. Bayraktar’s research has been published in leading international journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Organizational Dynamics, Journal of International Management, Management Decision, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Organizational Change Management, European Journal of International Management, Multinational Business Review, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Thunderbird International Business Review.
In her research, she highly values collaborations with her international networks, mainly based in Canada, France, Korea, Spain, UK, Austria, Turkey, and USA, through both research visits in different institutions (e.g. Simon Fraser University Beedie School of Business, Canada; University of Victoria Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, Canada; Kedge Business School, France; Luiss Business School, Italy) and engaging in international projects. Since 2011, she has been actively involved as a researcher in large scope, multi-phase, multi-method cross cultural projects such as the Human Resources Climates project and the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) project. Both projects have been funded by the SSHRC grant in Canada. HR Climates Project (www.hrclimate.com) is a cross cultural research project with 7187 employees across 14 countries, which aims to understand the different contexts under which human resource management practices translate into effective organizational performance and satisfied and engaged employees. One of the papers from the HR Climates project has been the finalist for the Academy of Management International Management Division best paper award, has been published in the Journal of International Business Studies, and further has been included in the high impact JIBS paper webinar series.
The GLOBE project (http://globe.bus.sfu.ca) has become a leading research project since early 1990s in the field of culture and leadership. GLOBE has generated impactful research findings and has reached a worldwide reputation. Dr. Bayraktar has conducted research related to the earlier phases of the GLOBE project focusing on the MENA region. She is now the country co-investigator for France in the 4th phase of the project, GLOBE 2020.
Dr. Bayraktar’s doctoral dissertation received the Best Dissertation Award given by the Scientific Research Institute of Bogazici University. She has also been granted Emerald Literati Awards- outstanding reviewer for the Leadership & Organizational Development Journal; University of Victoria Postdoctoral Fellowship; Merit-based Doctoral Fellowship Award by Suzer Foundation, and Research Project Jury Special Award by the Turkish Association of Researchers. She is a member of Academy of Management and Academy of International Business. She is on the editorial board of Cross Cultural and Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Applied Behavioural Science.
She also has had a second career as a professional dancer, instructor, and choreographer in Latin and Ballroom dancing since 1998. She is inspired to be able to use her greatest passion, dance, as an effective tool in her role as a researcher and professor, integrating movement exercises into her leadership courses and leadership development trainings, and combining dance and organization studies in her research.
She has acted as the co-founder and trainer of an executive training and consultancy company, Smart Steps, which uses movement-, and rhythm-based exercises in executive trainings such as leadership, communication, teamwork, organizational change. She further has her research connecting dance and leadership on and off the dance floor published in Organizational Dynamics journal and she has a book chapter on using dance as an experiential tool in global leadership education.