Profile of Author Joanne B. Ciulla

— -- Going beyond the numbers, Joanne B. Ciulla looks not only at the changing relationship between worker and employer, but at the evolution of Americans' view of what role work plays in their lives.

She is a founding faculty member of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, where she teaches ethics, leadership, critical thinking and conflict resolution.

Her book The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work draws on sources from Aristotle to Dilbert to examine ethics and attitudes in the workplace.

She finds that too often Americans have allowed what they do for a living to define who they are as individuals, and indicates that while that may be good for employers, it can be dangerous for workers, when companies see them as expendable cogs in a machine.

The conclusions she draws may not be as bleak as those reached by other writers who have looked at work in America, but her work is no less thought-provoking for its even, insightful approach.