Shepherd Careers Forum ’07

Dr. Shoshana Dobrow is an Assistant Professor of Management Systems at Fordham University’s Business School and professional bassoonist. She earned her A.B. in Biological Anthropology, A.M. in Social Psychology, and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University.

Dr. Dobrow’s research aims to understand the longitudinal dynamics of career phenomena. She studies individuals' careers, and particularly the subjective side of careers, across professional and organizational boundaries and over the course of time. Her research addresses the question of why people make seemingly irrational decisions to pursue extraordinarily competitive, challenging career paths. Specifically, she investigates the nature of a subjective orientation—the sense of calling—that may compel some people to pursue paradoxical career paths. She is conducting an ongoing longitudinal study (begun in 2001) of hundreds of young musicians in which she develops a conceptual definition and survey measure of calling,
as well as investigating the antecedents and consequences of calling. She is also engaged in research on the dynamics of developmental mentoring networks over time.

She currently teaches Principles of Management in Fordham’s College of Business Administration. She is also a professional bassoonist, a former student at the Shepherd School of Music, and is currently a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She has performed with numerous other orchestras in the Boston area and in New York, including on Broadway and at Carnegie Hall.

Shoshana Dobrow's involvement in the Forum is supported by the Rice University Humanities Research Center