Rachel Arnett, PhD
Assistant Professor, The Wharton School
​Rachel Arnett is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is in the Organizational Behavior subgroup of the Management Department and is a Claude Marion Endowed Faculty Scholar.
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Rachel specializes in how employees navigate identities, cultivate inclusion, and achieve success at work. She collaborates with organizations through field experiments, surveys, and qualitative research to provide actionable insights for more inclusive workplaces.
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A passionate educator, Rachel teaches negotiations at Wharton and is a four-time recipient of the Wharton Teaching Excellence Award and was named among Poets & Quants' Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors in 2022. Rachel completed her doctoral studies in Organizational Behavior at Harvard University, following a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and experience in working in brand strategy.​
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Research
Rachel’s research focuses on how to effectively navigate social identities, manage difficult conversations, and achieve career success.
Navigating
Social Identity
Rachel’s first area of research focuses on how employees cultivate relationships and inclusion through the ways they reveal or conceal aspects of their social identities in professional settings. Her research sheds light on the ways that employees from different backgrounds can leverage their social identities as a source of connection and advancement, as opposed to division and stigmatization.
Speaking Up &
Difficult Conversations
In her second research focus, Rachel examines the challenges people face when engaging in difficult conversations, such as discussing inclusion or negotiating. She sheds light on a path forward by examining the individual strategies that employees can adopt and the conditions organizations can create to enable the benefits of speaking up and engaging in these difficult conversations to outweigh the risks.
Achieving
Career Success
Rachel’s third area of research explores how social identities shape career paths, leadership attainment, and professional choices. She examines the challenges different social identity groups face in overcoming barriers to leadership and balancing professional goals with personal commitments, using diverse methods to deepen insights into these dynamics.
Publications
"Uniting through difference: Rich cultural-identity expression as a conduit to inclusion."
Organization Science
"A curation approach to identity management: The costs of combining identity expression and suppression."
Accepted at Administrative Science Quarterly.
"Sacrificing status for social harmony: Concealing relatively high status identities from one’s peers."
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
"Not Such a Complainer Anymore: Bias Confrontation that Signals a Growth Mindset Can Undercut Backlash."
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Education
Harvard University / Harvard Business School
Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior
Harvard University
Master of Arts
University of Pennsylvania
Bachelor of Arts
Awards and Grants
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Runner Up for Outstanding Publication in OB Award, Academy of Management OB Division 2024
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Poets & Quants Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors 2022
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Wharton School Teaching Award
2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
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Wharton Dean’s Fund
2019, 2020, 2022, 2026
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Wharton-INSEAD Alliance Research Award
2018
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Most Innovative Student Paper Award, Academy of Management Organizational Behavior Division 2015