Biography

Julia Gluesing is a business and organizational anthropologist and Research Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Wayne State University with more than 40 years of professional business and academic experience. Julia served as the Associate Director of the Institute for Information Technology and Culture (IITC), and is an adjunct professor of Anthropology. Julia was a founder and co-director of the Global Executive Track Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, where she currently teaches Global Leadership, Qualitative Research Design and Methods, and a Global Perspectives in engineering management course and integrating the perspectives of international business, anthropology, economics and finance, and political science to focus on specific regions and cultures of the world. Julia also teaches the management of technology change and virtual teaming in global organizations and serves as a leadership project advisor in the Ford Engineering Management Masters Program (EMMP). She was the Principal Investigator from 2005 – 2010 on a National Science Foundation Grant, the “Digital Diffusion Dashboard,” to study the diffusion of innovation across the global enterprise by tapping into an organization’s the information technology infrastructure. Julia has been a Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on five previous National Science Foundation research grants. She has published professionally, most recently as an editor and contributing author of Mobile Work Mobile Lives: Cultural Accounts of Lived Experiences (Blackwell 2008) and a contributing author in Virtual Teams that Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness (Jossey-Bass 2003), Handbook of Managing Global Complexity (Blackwell 2003), and Crossing Cultures: Lessons from Master Teachers (Routledge 2004).

In 1992, Julia founded Cultural Connections, Inc., a research, consulting and education firm supporting global business development. At Ford Motor Company she served as a consultant, researcher and trainer to help members of vehicle program teams and functional teams develop strategies and skills for working globally. She has also conducted research in global work practices, cross-cultural and organizational communication for Nissan Motor Corporation, EDS Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Exxon Corporation, Bull H.N. Information Systems, General Motors, NSK Corporation, Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals, and Sheraton, Marriott, and Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. Prior to founding CCI, Julia was employed as a research manager and training consultant with Sandy Corporation, a leading communication and training firm serving Fortune 100 companies. Before joining Sandy, Julia spent 11 years in the hospitality industry, including six years with Westin Hotels, and three years as Marketing Coordinator for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau with responsibility for international marketing. She has served on the faculty in the Michigan State University School of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management and in the Department of Communication.

Ph.D. in Business and Industrial Anthropology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. Dissertation topic was global teaming in the product development context. M.A. from Michigan State University in Organizational & Intercultural Communication and Research; B. A. in French and Russian languages from the University of California, Phi Beta Kappa. Diplôme de Français Avancé from l'Univérsité de Montpelier, in Montpelier, France.

Education

Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 1995
MA Communication, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 1985
BA French and Russian, University of California, Davis, CA, 1971

Courses Taught

Qualitative Research Design and Methods – IE8951

Management of Technology Change – IE7830

Global Leadership of the Technical Organization – IE8970

Global Perspectives: Engineering and Manufacturing Management – IE8930

Research Interests

• Culture and Identity
• Global Collaboration and Networks
• Diffusion of Innovation
• Qualitative Methodology

Research Projects

Co-Founder of Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference (2009) and Local Organizer for 2017 COINsDetroit Conference – Brought together researchers and practitioners from around the world to focus on global collaboration networks for innovation. Obtained $25,000 in funding from Ford Motor Co. Keynote speaker was Marcy Klevorn, Group Vice President, Mobility, Ford Motor Co.

Consulting Researcher – 2012-2013 – Robert Bosch Health Care Systems, Palo Alto, California, to investigate the global teaming process of the company President and senior leadership team located in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US and make recommendations for improving team interactions to align with corporate strategic objectives. Conducted ethnographic and survey research in Germany and the US.

Co-Director, Evaluation Division: NIH – Institutional Clinical and Translational
Science Award (U54). Date Submitted: October 14, 2010. Amount: $1,798,319
(this proposal section only; total funding at $20 million for 5 years beginning July
1, 2011). U54 RFA-RM-10-001 Sokol (PI) 07/01/11 - 06/30/16 WSU-MSUHFHS-
Karmanos-VanAndel, Michigan Alliance for Clinical and Translational
Science (MACTS).

Consulting Researcher – 2010 – Virtual Teams Study, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, with
Margaret Palazzo, Project Manager, Informatics Disease Specific Innovations and
Outcomes Program. Start 6/14/2010. Pro Bono.

Co-Director – 2008-2011 -- Global Executive Track Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, a doctoral program customized to engineering executives. The program integrates disciplinary perspectives from anthropology, international business, and engineering and is team-taught in modules with an emphasis on regions of the world, theoretical perspectives and scientific methods, both qualitative and quantitative, that enable both the advancement of knowledge and practice in engineering education for global competitiveness.

Principal Investigator – 2005-2010 -- NSF HSD Program grant ($426,000, grant #SES-0527487) to examine the diffusion of innovations across global networked organizations gathering data from the information technology infrastructure to map innovation network structure and content in near real time, in collaboration with Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Chrysler, Visteon and WSU School of Medicine.

Principal Investigator – 1999-2002 -- NSF IOC Program grant ($321,000, grant #SBE-9976503) to Wayne State University, in collaboration with Ford Motor Co., Milliken, Motorola and Procter and Gamble as industry sponsors. The goals of this research are to investigate the relationship of information technology and global teaming processes, such as intersubjectivity and shared learning, in the development of global teams that are geographically dispersed.

Publications

Gluesing, Julia C. Global Teams. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Ed. Mark Aldenderfer. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Gluesing, J. 2018. Using Boundary Objects to Facilitate Culture Change and Integrate a Global Top Management Team. Journal of Business Anthropology, 7(1): 32-50. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.22439/jba.v7i1.5491

Peter Gloor, Kai Fischbach, Julia Gluesing, Ken Riopelle, Detlef Schoder. 2018. Creating the collective mind through virtual mirroring based learning, Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, https://doi-org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1108/DLO-10-2017-0081

Gluesing, J. C. 2017. Ethical Challenges and Considerations in Global Networked Organizations. In Ethics in the Anthropology of Business: Explorations in Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy. Tomothy DeWaal Malefyt and Robert J. Morais, (eds.), pp 70-86. New York: Routledge.

Gluesing, J. G., K. R. Riopelle, and C. Wasson. 2017. Environmental Governance in Multi-stakeholder contexts: An Integrated Methods Set for Examining Decision-making. In Networked Governance: New Research Perspectives, B. Hollstein, W. Matiaske, and K. Schnapp (eds.), pp. 211-246. Berlin: Springer.

D’Angelo, Rita, Ronald Weiss, David Wolfe, Ratna Chinnam, ,Alper Murat, ,Julia Gluesing, Toni Somers. 2017. American Journal of Clinical Pathology, 149(6): 484–498, https://doi-org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1093/ajcp/aqy014

Gluesing, J. 2016. Liminality, Anthropology, and the Global Organization. Journal of Business Anthropology, 1(1), 13-34. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.22439/jba.v1i1.4958

Itabashi-Campbell, Rachel and J. Gluesing. 2014. Engineering problem-solving in social contexts: ‘Collective wisdom’ and ‘ba’. In Engineering Practice in a Global Context: Understanding the Technical and the Social, Bill Williams, José Figueiredo, and James Trevelyan (eds.), pp. 129-158

Gluesing, J. 2013. A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understand Global Networked Organizations. In A Companion to Organizational Anthropology, First Edition, D. D. Caulkins and A. Jordan (eds.), pp. 167-192. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

Garcia, D., and Gluesing J. 2013. Qualitative Research Methods in International Organizational Change Research. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26(2): 423-444.

Gluesing, J. 2012. Being There: The Power of Conventional Ethnographic Methods. In Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Environments: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities, Brigitte Jordan, (eds.), pp. 23-37. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, Inc.

Rachel Itabashi-Campbell, Julia Gluesing, Sheri Perelli. 2012. Mindfulness and product failure management: an engineering epistemology. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 29(6): 642 – 665.

Gluesing, J. 2011. Diffusion of Innovation. In Leadership in Science and Technology: A Reference Handbook, William Bainbridge (ed.), pp. 123-131. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Danowski, J., J. Gluesing, and K. Riopelle. 2011. The revolution in diffusion caused by new media. In The Diffusion of Innovations: A Communication Science Perspective, Vishwanath, A. and Barnett, G. (eds.), pp. 123-144. New York: Peter Lang.

Gluesing, J. and Riopelle, K. (Guest Editors). 2009. Introduction: Collaboration innovation networks for competitive advantage. Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Systems, 8(2): 1-2.

McKether, W. L., Gluesing, J. and Riopelle, K. 2009. From Interviews to Social Network Analysis: An Approach for Revealing Social Networks Embedded in Narrative Data. Field Methods. OnlineFirst, published on February 13, 2009 as doi:10.1177/1525822X08329697.

Baba, M., J. C Gluesing, H. Ratner and K. Wagner. 2004. The Contexts of Knowing: Natural History of a Globally Distributed Team. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25: 547-587.

Professional Affiliations 

American Anthropological Association (AAA) 

Ethnographic Practice in Industry (EPIC)

International Organizational Network (ION)

Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA)

Awards and Honors

• Best Paper Award, International Management Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, August 2010.
• Most Innovative Session Award from Organizational Behavior Division as collaborator in Showcase Symposium at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, August 2000.
• Elected to Phi Kappa Phi Society for academic excellence in graduate studies (GPA 4.0) at Michigan State University (1985).
• Elected Phi Beta Kappa Society for academic excellence in language studies as an undergraduate student at University of California, Davis (1971).

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