A Steamy Affair at Stanford Business School: Some Lessons?

Stanford’s Business School dean is stepping down after his messy affair with a professor has created a big distraction. Deborah Gruenfeld and James Phills were married and on the Stanford faculty, but they split-up a little before (or was it after?) the dean, Garth Saloner, became romantically involved with the wife. The Wall Street Journal reports today on the lawsuit by former Prof. Phills against Stanford. He alleges that after the dean-professor relationship warmed up, he was odd-man out and his employment was terminated. The WSJ reports:  “The court papers include emails and messages between the dean and his girlfriend [ahem, professorial colleague] that could prove embarrassing for the dean and the school.” Readers can draw their own lessons. One not-so-obvious lesson is how some professors don’t learn from their academic research. It turns out that Prof. Gruenfeld teaches one course titled, “Acting with Power,” and has published a paper titled, “How Power Corrupts Relationships: Cynical Attributions for Others' Generous Acts.” The article is here. Prof. Gruenfeld’s paper is here.