Research at the Forefront of Team Science

For over 15 years, Kyle’s work has examined how teams communicate, collaborate, and perform effectively, producing findings published in the world's leading organizational behavior journals.

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Areas of Expertise

Psychological Safety and Voice

My primary area of research examines how and why employees speak up at work, and what determines whether their contributions gain traction.

A central focus has been on what makes a high-quality suggestion, which we have identified as encompassing a strong rationale, feasibility, organizational relevance, and novelty, and how these qualities shape outcomes for both employees and their organizations.

I also study the team and leadership conditions that enable meaningful participation, including how teams develop a climate that encourages employee voice and how mental health challenges shape employees' willingness to contribute at work.

Team Dynamics: Resilience & Conflict

Another core research interest focuses on team dynamics, specifically regarding conflict and resilience, particularly in high-stakes contexts, including healthcare and entrepreneurial teams.

My research has explored how the way team members express conflict shapes others’ interpretations and responses, and what this means for whether conflict escalates or gets resolved constructively.

Regarding resilience, I focus on how teams remain adaptive under pressure and recover from, and even grow despite, adversity.

For example, in a qualitative study of entrepreneurial teams, we investigated the team compositions and behaviors that enable new ventures to remain resilient over time, pointing to the importance of previously overlooked concepts, including skill differentiation, role specification, and adaptive alignment.

Mental Health at Work

My research has increasingly focused on employee mental health, including how fluctuations in mental health affect the extent to which employees participate at work.

More recently, I have shifted to examining how leaders navigate their own mental health at work, including the conditions under which they choose to disclose or withhold personal struggles, and the consequences of those decisions for themselves and their teams.

Select Publications

Brykman, K. M., Cloutier, A., Samosh, D., & Carleton, E. (2024). Too depressed and anxious to speak up: The relationships between weekly fluctuations in mental health and silence at work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Brykman, K. M., & Raver, J. L. (2023). Persuading managers to enact ideas in organizations: The role of voice message quality, peer endorsement, and peer opposition. Journal of Organizational Behavior.
(JOB’s Runner-Up Best Paper of 2023).

Brykman, K. M., & O’Neill, T. A. (2023). How conflict expressions affect recipients’ conflict management behaviors. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Brykman, K. M., & Maerz, A. D. (2023). How leaders inspire team voice: The role of voice climate and implicit voice theories. Journal of Business and Psychology.

Hartmann, S., Backmann, J., Newman, A., Brykman, K. M., & Pidduck, R. J. (2022). Psychological resilience of entrepreneurs: A review and implications for entrepreneurs and small and new ventures. Journal of Small Business Management.

Brykman, K. M., & King, D. D. (2021). A resource model of team resilience capacity and learning. Group & Organization Management, 46(4) 737-772.

Brykman, K. M., & Raver, J. L. (2021). To speak up effectively or often? The effects of voice quality and voice frequency on peers’ and managers’ evaluations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(4), 504-526.

Brykman, K. M., & O’Neil, T. A. (2020). Beyond aggregation: How voice disparity relates to team conflict, satisfaction, and performance. Small Group Research, 52(3), 288-315.

Grants & Awards

Brykman. K. M. (2023). Vice President of Research & Innovation (VPRI) Early Career Research Chair in Business. University of Windsor. $40,000.

Brykman, K. M. (2023). Odette New Researcher Achievement Award (ONRA). Odette School of Business. $1,5000.

Brykman. K. M. (2023).Professor of the Year – Management & Labour Studies. Odette School of Business.

Brykman, K. M., & Hartmann, S. (2021-2023). Entrepreneurial Team Resilience. Insight Development Grant. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), $51,788.

Brykman, K. M. (2021-2023). The Antecedents to Voice Quality. Research Innovation Fund (RIF), Odette School of Business, $6,000.

Barot, P. (intern) & Brykman, K. M. (supervisor) (2020). Employee Mental Health and Voice. Mitacs Research Training Award, $6,000

Brykman, K. M. (2020-2022). Employee Mental Health and Voice. Research Innovation Fund (RIF), Odette School of Business, $6,000.

Brykman, K. M., & Shlosser, F. (2020-2021). Organizational Resilience and Employee Engagement in Response to COVID-19. Rapid Response to COVID-19: WE-SPARK Health Institute and the University of Windsor’s Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, $5,000.

Collaborator, Windsor City Network (2016-2021). Preston,V. PI, Belkhodja, C., Gabriel, C., Lochhead, C.,Douglas, D., Dyson, D., Zikic, J., Hennebry, J., Shields, J., Veronis, L., Hynie, M., Mandell, N., Bhuyan, R., Ghosh, S. and collaborators. Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada - Immigration et resilience en milieu urbaine (BMRC-IMRU): Discovering Strengths and Building Capacity, Partnership Grant. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, SSHR C#896-2016-1004, $2,499,525.