The following tribute, written by Prof. Nurit Zaidman, appeared in the in the British Journal of Management (BJM) article Stress and Burnout in Bicultural Teams in Hi-tech Industry by Ayala Malach-Pines and Nurit Zaidman, The Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Department of Business Administration, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Corresponding author email: zeidman@som.bgu.ac.il
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ProfessorAyala Malach-Pines​ was a clinical, social and organizational psychologist. She received her BA from the Hebrew University and her MA and PhD from Boston University. She wrote, taught and consulted about topics that are in the heart of existence of each one of us: love, jealousy, stress, burnout, gender and the meaning of life. Professor Malach-Pines was a faculty member, Chair of the Department of Business Administration and Dean of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Ayala’s parents were born in Poland and escaped the Nazi persecutors through Russia, ending up in Kyrgyzstan, where Ayala was born. When Ayala was 5 years old, she and her parents arrived in Israel. Her parents opened a bookbinding shop and a bookstore in the backyard of their house. Ayala was immersed in books and reading from early childhood and, later, in her extensive writing. Her contribution to research is documented in 11 books that she wrote, 3 books that she edited (with Professor Ozbilgin), 103 published papers and 35 book chapters. Her legacy is carried on by her 22 graduate students and by us, her colleagues, who were inspired by her daily presence.

Her research interest reflects not only a vast scope of research topics, but also a genuine curiosity and interest in people. She studied people from a breathtaking range of lifestyles and occupations: prostitutes, managers, nurses, blue-collar women, teachers, entrepreneurs, elite female athletes, prison personnel, small-business owners, police officers, high-technology entrepreneurs, engineers and global team members.

In the area of management, Ayala’s main research interests were: stress and burnout; career choice; working women; entrepreneurs and managers; and recently also global multicultural teams. She promoted and practised an interdisciplinary approach in her research, often collaborating with researchers coming from diverse disciplines and methodologies. She was a pioneer in the study of burnout, and her contribution in this area is well recognized worldwide. Inspired by the existential theory, Malach-Pines and Keinan (2005) demonstrated that people report low levels of burnout, even when working in highly stressful situations, when they feel that their work is important and meaningful. In recent research, Professor Malach-Pines and colleagues tested the existential perspective on burnout of expatriates (Silbiger and Malach-Pines, 2014) and as presented in the manuscript below in bicultural teams.

Sadly and unexpectedly, Professor Ayala Malach-Pines passed away in September 2012.


to view short film (in Hebrew) in memory of Prof. Ayala Malach-Pines​