ROBERT WILLIAM EISENBERGER

Robert William Eisenberger, a college professor, researcher, author, traveler, and avid tennis player, passed away peacefully after a short illness on May 2, 2022. He was 79 years old. He was born in New York to Irving Eisenberger and Ruth (Segal) Eisenberger. He was highly dedicated and passionate about his work, including breaking new ground in the field of psychology. He had progressive political ideas and was accepting of a wide variety of cultural differences in his personal and professional communities.

Bob greatly appreciated his life, including all the family, friends, colleagues, and students who valued his kindness, support, and quick wit. He was always up for humor from others, while dishing out a lot of his own.

The following are excerpts0 of a narrative provided by a group of his colleagues at the University of Houston:

“First on the faculty at the State University of New York at Albany (1971-1978) and then at the University of Delaware (1978-2009), he was Professor of Psychology and Management & Leadership at the University of Houston (2010-2022).

“Bob is best known for his foundational work on perceived organizational support (POS)—the extent to which employees believe their work organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. He and a team of graduate students conducted the original research on this topic in the mid-1980’s including creation of the well-known and widely used POS measure and supporting theory. Research on POS blossomed exponentially over the next few decades. As a testament to the utility and popularity of POS, there have been literally 1000s of publications on POS including several metaanalyses, and Bob’s work has been cited over 50,000 times – placing him in the top 1% of all scholars in Business and Management. Bob’s work in the area of POS continues even after his passing; papers with students and colleagues are under review. He worked on and published numerous, high-impact journal articles and a highly-regarded book on POS. He sought not only to understand the benefits of POS but also to teach organizations and managers to better support workers.

“Many scholars are fortunate if they achieve even a fraction of what Bob achieved in the POS research area.

His early work on learned helplessness and learned industriousness, intrinsic motivation and creativity, was also impactful. Bob was a fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association. He was also elected to the Society of Organizational Behavior in 2014.

“Bob’s theoretical and practical brilliance, tenacity, and perseverance will live on in the many colleagues, graduate students (now professors and practitioners), and undergraduate students that he supervised and mentored over the years. His work legacy is alive and well in his many ‘offspring.’ In his work, Bob was true to himself, open to feedback, self-deprecatingly humorous, and thoughtful. He could not be rushed, and he held himself and others to high standards of excellence. Sound arguments were needed to convince Bob that a paper was ready to send out for publication consideration or that a research idea would be fruitful. Bob’s emails were affectionately signed ‘Cordially, Bob.’ We and his many professional friends and colleagues will miss his humor, his humility, his mind, his work ethic and his support for all the people and things (like POS) that he cared so dearly about. He embodied what he researched and leaves a legacy of supporting students, colleagues, friends as well as laughter from his quirky sense of humor.”

Bob will be greatly missed by his wife Joanne Eisenberger 53 years, brother Ken Eisenberger, bother-in-law Ronald Martinez, and sisterin-law Janice Sharp. He was preceded in death by his parents and younger sister Laura Eisenberger.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ukraine Emergency Appeal at https://donate.redcrossredcrescent.org/ua/donate/~my-donation?_cv=1