YeJin Park Roberts

PhD candidate , Stern School of Business, New York University

She is a PhD Candidate at NYU Stern conducting research on how everyday relational dynamics can both expand and restrict human connection at work. First, she examines expressive social play as a distinct form of interaction that can strengthen team dynamics and foster belonging but also enable hostility if not well-managed. Second, she investigates relational miscalibration as an underlying reason people fail to form, leverage, maintain, or cleanly end social ties. Finally, she explores how entrenched values systems not normally associated with work, such as religion, interact with relationships to foster division or connection. She studies these questions using a variety of methods, including both field and lab experiments, longitudinal surveys, qualitative interviews, archival data, and computational text analysis. Ultimately, her goal is to develop a richer account of the conditions under which relationships become sources of connection rather than division. In doing so, she hopes to generate insights that help organizations become not only more effective, but also more connected, inclusive, and humane.