Tove Helland Hammer, a Cornell University professor emerita who became the first woman to lead the ILR Review and spent nearly five decades teaching organizational behavior, died Sept. 12 in Ithaca. She was 80.
Hammer joined Cornell's ILR School as an instructor in 1973 and retired in 2022. She taught in its organizational behavior department for 47 years, chaired it twice and was named a full professor in 1990, according to a Cornell remembrance.
In 1994, she became the first female senior editor of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, now called the ILR Review. She held the position until 2011, a 17-year tenure Cornell described as the longest for a senior editor of the journal.
Rosemary Batt, who succeeded Hammer as editor, recalled her as a demanding but constructive editor who helped guide Batt's early scholarly work through peer review. Batt said she learned from Hammer's scholarship and generosity as well as her editorial judgment.
Research on work and health
Hammer's early research examined leadership, supervision, career mobility, employee ownership and labor representation on corporate boards. From the 1990s, she concentrated on how workplaces affect employees' mental and physical health.
Her field studies looked at how expectations about performance, social support and rewards shape work-family conflict, bullying, harassment and job stress. Cornell said she was elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 1988, and of the American Psychological Society in 1991.
Hammer also served on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly and the Journal of Applied Psychology. She held visiting appointments in Norway and spent sabbaticals at institutions in London and Paris. In 2017, she was named to the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.
A Cornell career that began as a student
Born in Tønsberg, Norway, in 1945, Hammer came to Cornell in 1965 on a Teagle Foundation scholarship. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1969, then completed a master's degree and doctorate at the University of Maryland by 1973.
At Cornell she met David Hammer, a graduate student she married in 1968. He is a nuclear energy engineering professor at the university.
Vanessa Bohns, now chair of the ILR School's organizational behavior department, said Hammer mentored junior faculty and welcomed faculty members, students and their families into her home. Bohns said Hammer's way of communicating and engaging with colleagues continues to shape her own approach as chair.
Hammer remained in touch with former students as their careers took them around the world, colleague Pam Tolbert said. Tolbert recalled Hammer saying that students were ultimately among an academic's most important legacies.
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