Obituary: Dr. Stanley M. Gully

Ronald S. Landis, Illinois Institute of Technology; & Jose M. Cortina, Virginia Commonwealth University

Dr. Stanley M. Gully, a professor of human resource management at Penn State University, died unexpectedly on October 9, 2017, in State College, PA. He was 55 years old.

Stan was an outstanding industrial and organizational psychologist. Stan’s research interests and contributions included work at the interface between training and individual differences. His main influence in this area was the development and testing of theoretical models that integrate personal and situational factors that promote different types of self-regulatory processes and learning. He also published influential work in the areas of leadership and team effectiveness, meta-analyses on cohesion and team efficacy, as well as general contributions to the quantitative research methods literature.

His refereed articles and chapters have been cited more than 4,900 times. He has coauthored multiple editions of textbooks on strategic staffing, organizational behavior, and human resource management, all of which have been well received. His publications include a range of articles in top journals such as Personnel Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. In addition, he coauthored a series of staffing books for SHRM and coedited the Business Expert Press series, producing 12 volumes on topics such as managing expatriates, cross-cultural management, and managing employee turnover.

Stan received his bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University and his MS and PhD in industrial-organizational psychology from Michigan State University. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2014 and was ranked by the Academy of Management as one of the top 50 most influential scholars who received their degrees since 1991. Prior to joining the faculty in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State in 2014, Stan was a faculty member at Rutgers University (1998–2014) and George Mason University (1996–1998).

As outstanding of a professional career that he had, Stan was an even better person. He enlivened every room that he entered and was always quick to offer kind words, well-timed humor, and a deep sense of compassion and concern. His impact on his family, friends, colleagues, and students will continue to be deep and profound. The world is lessened with Stan’s untimely passing, and we should all feel challenged to bring just a fraction of the light to others that he brought in his time with us.