Dr. Kristie Abston

Associate Professor

Dr. Kristie Abston
(615) 898-2342
Room N142, Business & Aerospace Building (BAS)
MTSU Box 75, Murfreesboro, TN 37132

Degree Information

  • PHD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2009)
  • MS, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2004)
  • BS, East Tennessee State University (1995)

Areas of Expertise

Human Resource Management: performance management, staffing, total rewards, and training and development

Organizational Behavior: change management, innovation, organizational commitment, and organizational culture

Experiential Learning: gamification, live cases, role plays, and simulations  

 

 

Biography

Kristie teaches primarily human resource management (HRM) courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was a first-generation college student who grew up in rural Tennessee, and she is passionate about helping students from all backgrounds develop HRM expertise so that they will be more effective in their careers. Her students have won competitions, including the Small Business Institute Project of the Year and the Society of Human Resource Management Case Competition. Kristie’...

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Kristie teaches primarily human resource management (HRM) courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was a first-generation college student who grew up in rural Tennessee, and she is passionate about helping students from all backgrounds develop HRM expertise so that they will be more effective in their careers. Her students have won competitions, including the Small Business Institute Project of the Year and the Society of Human Resource Management Case Competition. Kristie’s own HRM career started in 1997 after a brief stint as a lab technician at Milliken Chemical, and she has been a certified HRM professional since 2000. She has held generalist and training and development positions in manufacturing companies, and she has consulted in banking, health care, hospitality, manufacturing, and nonprofit organizations.

Prior to coming to MTSU in 2017, Kristie was a faculty member at Tusculum College (now Tusculum University) and at the University of West Florida. Her research interests include employee patronage and branding, high impact teaching practices, human resource management in small businesses, organizational commitment, and turnover. She has published 15 blind peer-reviewed journal articles, including several coauthored with other Jones College faculty members, in journals such as American Business Review, Compensation & Benefits Review, Global Journal of Accounting and Finance, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Management. She has presented at over 20 regional, national, and international conferences since 2004. Kristie is a fellow of the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning (ABSEL) and the Southeast Case Research Association (SECRA) and has served as president of both organizations. She currently serves on the editorial review boards for Compensation & Benefits Review, Global Journal of Management and Marketing, and Southeast Case Research Journal.

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Special Projects

Kristie currently serves as a USAA/SHRM Veterans Ambassador. The mission is to reduce the employment challenges that veterans (and members of the military community) face by training business leaders and hiring managers on the business case for hiring and retaining this untapped pool of talent. Visit Veterans at Work or contact Kristie to learn more about this program.