Rebecca Jestice, Ph.D.

About me

My scholarly interests include an exploration of how virtual worlds can aid the development of leadership and team skills. I also study such diverse topics as fair trade, sustainable technology, appreciative inquiry as well as courses like Social Media and Marketing and Financial Accounting.

I love paper and papercrafts—origami, collage, book art—anything involving paper. I also love collecting vintage postcards from the places I have traveled to and lived.

I am an Earlham alum. My liberal arts education and experiences at Earlham really opened up the world for me and set me on the path to my Ph.D. and eventual career as a teacher and researcher. Based on my own experiences as an Earlham student, I was so excited to return to a community where the pursuit of learning is nurtured and so rewarding. Also, although not a Quaker myself, I love the Quaker tradition at Earlham. I can’t imagine being elsewhere!

Education

• Ph.D., SUNY, Binghamton
• M.S., School for International Training
• B.A., Earlham College

Professional memberships

• Academy of Management
• Association for Information Systems
• Net Impact

Research projects

Collaborative student research project

Currently I am collaborating with Aletha Stahl in the French program and 7 students in a research course. We are exploring the use of virtual worlds in education. Students will be creating learning modules in a virtual world for French and Management courses that we can use right here on campus. We are working together as a research team, starting from educational theory, learning about virtual worlds, developing the modules based on our research, and finally, testing and assessing them.

Scholarly interest

I am interested in the topics of leadership and virtual worlds’ use in organizations & education. Specifically, I am interested in how virtual worlds can be used to aid the development of leadership and team skills. Other areas of interest include fair trade, sustainable technology, technology & society, and appreciative inquiry.

Published works

Selected Publications

Kahai, S.S., Jestice, R.J., & Huang, R. (2013) Effects of transformational and transactional leadership on cognitive effort and outcomes during collaborative learning within a virtual world. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(6), 969-985. 

Kahai, S.S., Huang, R., & Jestice, R.J. (2012) Interaction effect of leadership and communication media feedback positivity in virtual teams. Group & Organization Management, 37(6), 716-751. This paper was selected by the journal as an Editor’s Choice in the “Virtual Teams” category to highlight the most noteworthy selections.

Huang, R., Kahai, S., Jestice, R. (2010) The contingent effects of leadership on team  collaboration in virtual teams. Computers in Human Behavior, 26 (5), 1098-1110.

Kahai, S.S., Carroll, E., & Jestice, R. (2007) Team collaboration in virtual worlds. The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, (38) 4, 61-68. 

Conference Papers and Presentations

Kahai, S., Huang, R., & Jestice, R. (August, 2011) Antecedents and Consequences of  Cognitive Effort During Collaboration in a Virtual World. Paper presented at the  Academy of Management Meeting, San Antonio, Texas.

Jestice, R., Kahai, S., (August, 2010) The Effectiveness of Virtual Worlds for Education:  An Empirical Study. Paper presented at the Americas Conference on Information  Systems, Lima, Peru.