About

I study how leadership, followership, harmful organizational practices, inclusion, and algorithmic governance shape organizational life.

My research examines how authority, agency, and responsibility are created in organizational life: through audience roles, everyday routines, professional expertise, technologies, and the conditions under which people speak or remain silent.

Across these projects, I look at follower roles and the co-production of leadership, toxicity normalization, expert authority, generative AI as a resource governance problem, and the dynamics of inclusion, recognition, and voice.

The questions I care about rarely sit inside one field, so I draw on management studies, cognitive and social psychology, formal modelling, economics, sociology, and political science.

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Short bio

Dr. Aybike Mergen is an Assistant Professor of Management at Özyeğin University Business School. She holds a Ph.D. in Management & Strategy from Koç University, where she was a visiting scholar at York University's Schulich School of Business. She also holds master's degrees in Economics from Tilburg University and Political Science from Sabancı University, and previously worked in management consultancy at EY and Deloitte. Her work appears in journals including the Journal of Management and the Journal of Business Ethics. In 2025–2026, she received the Özyeğin University Outstanding Achievement in Research Award, Faculty of Business.