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An endowed professorship is a prestigious faculty position permanently funded by a donation. Endowed faculty positions strengthen Boise State, benefit important research and create countless opportunities for students. But who are these endowed professors, and what are their plans for helping students thrive?
Liam Maher, associate professor in the Department of Management, was recently seated as the College of Business and Economics Distinguished Research Professor. This position, made possible through strategic use of philanthropic resources directed by the college dean, recognizes faculty who have shown a strong record of research far beyond normal job expectations.
We sat down with Maher to discuss his area of study and how his endowed professorship role benefits future business leaders.
Q: What does your research focus on, and what business challenges do you help solve?
A: My research focuses on social influence, understanding what makes people effective at influencing others and susceptible to being influenced themselves. Within that, I study topics like leadership, organizational politics, power, impression management and conflict management. Ultimately, I’m interested in how social influence can be used to create more meaningful work, improve employee well-being and enhance performance.
In practice, my goal is to use data to uncover principles that help people navigate organizational life more effectively. Additionally, almost everyone has had a bad boss at some point. I want to help enable building workplaces where people not only perform well but also feel good about the work they do.
Q: The COBE Distinguished Research Professorship is made possible by donors. How does this endowed funding impact your research?
A: As scientists, our ideas are only as strong as the data that support them. Without data, we’re just people with opinions about how the world works. High-quality datasets, especially in organizational research, are expensive to collect. As we advance, our measures and studies get more sophisticated, and so the costs continue to rise. This support allows me to gather and analyze the rigorous data needed to test new ideas and it helps ensure that our conclusions aren’t based on intuition or trend but on evidence.
Q: How do you translate findings from your research into knowledge or skills you share with students?
A: I often weave the findings from my studies into class discussions when they connect naturally to the topics we’re covering. My goal isn’t to have students memorize facts or theories, but to help them think like scientists, to question assumptions, look for evidence and skeptically probe the world around them. Sometimes that means taking them through the logic of designing a study so they can see how ideas are tested and refined. Whether they go into business, research or any other field, that kind of analytical curiosity is what I most hope they take with them.
Q: Tell us about your student mentorship and how this research environment helps prepare students for successful careers.
A: For a long time, I thought knowledge just fell from the sky. It was not until graduate school that I began to truly understand how research is created, its limits, its applications and the rigor that goes into developing it. That experience shaped how I mentor students today. I want them to understand that knowledge is built, not inherited, and that critical thinking and curiosity are the foundation of a successful career and meaningful life.
Over the years, I have had students go on to become business owners, military officers, executives, content creators and strong individual contributors across a range of fields. What connects their success is a shared understanding of themselves and how to be socially effective with others. I have also been fortunate to mentor students who are deeply interested in research and higher learning. Several have gone on to Ph.D., MBA, and JD programs, and I take a lot of pride in playing even a small role in that journey.
Q: What’s the most notable research opportunity that you aim to investigate over the next couple years?
A: It’s hard to note just one. I’ll be continuing research on social influence and meaningful work, but I’m also focused on the future of work. We need to ask what social influence looks like in gig, remote and hybrid settings since they operate differently from traditional organizations.
Additionally, as AI becomes more powerful and integrated into work, how will it reshape influence and interactions? Will it reduce organizational politics by standardizing decisions, or make the political stakes higher and more concentrated among those who pull the levers to calibrate the technology?
I also like to read broadly and pursue questions that strike me as interesting, even if they fall outside my traditional wheelhouse. One recent project was inspired by a South Park episode exploring how nostalgic emotions in the workplace affect creativity and job performance.
Looking ahead, I think the study of work and social behavior will evolve alongside technology. I spend a lot of time thinking about what living a meaningful life will look like in the future.