Action Learning at MIT Sloan

Organization Studies

MIT Leadership Center

Africa; China; Organizational change; Organizational learning

Peter Senge is a Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Sustainability at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

The Journal of Business Strategy (September/October 1999) named Senge one of the 24 people who has had the greatest influence on business strategy over the last 100 years. The Financial Times (2000) named him one of the world’s top management gurus, and BusinessWeek (October 2001) rated Senge one of the top 10 management gurus. Senge has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding of economic and organizational change. He studies decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the ability of employees to work productively toward common goals, and the managerial and institutional changes needed to build more sustainable enterprises—those businesses that foster social and natural as well as economic well-being. Senge’s work articulates a cornerstone position of human values in the workplace: namely, that vision, purpose, reflectiveness, and systems thinking are essential if organizations are to realize their potential. He has worked with leaders in business, education, civil society, healthcare, and government.

Senge is the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), a global community of corporations, researchers, and consultants dedicated to the “interdependent development of people and their institutions.” He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990). With colleagues Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith, and Art Kleiner, he is the co-author of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1994) and a second fieldbook The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (March 1999), co-authored by George Roth. In September 2000, Senge co-authored a fieldbook on education, the award-winning Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education (2000). The Fifth Discipline hit a nerve within the business and education communities by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Since its publication, more than one million copies have been sold worldwide. In 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook was developed in response to questions from readers of The Fifth Discipline who wanted more help with tools, methods, and practical experiences in developing enhanced learning capabilities within their own companies. The Dance of Change is based on more recent experiences of companies developing learning capabilities over many years, and the strategies leaders develop to deal with the many challenges this work entails. He also has authored many articles published in both academic journals and the business press on systems thinking in management, and has co-authored Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future.

Senge holds a BS in engineering from Stanford University as well as an SM in social systems modeling and a PhD in management from MIT.

Web Site: http://www.solonline.org/

The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. Doubleday Currency. [2008]

In Praise of the Incomplete Leader. Harvard Business Review, February 2007, Vol. 85, No. 2.

Name: Shiba Nemat-Nasser
Tel: (617) 253-4950
E-mail: shiba@mit.edu

Information Technology

Center for Information Systems Research
MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
MIT Center for Digital Business
MIT Leadership Center

Communication practices; E-mail; Groupware; Knowledge management; Knowledge sharing; Leadership; Mobile computing; Organizational change; Organizational communication

Wanda Orlikowski is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Management and a Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Orlikowski actively investigates the dynamic relationship between information technologies and organizations, with particular emphasis on structures, cultures, work practices, and change. She has examined the use of groupware technologies in organizations, as well as the social and technological aspects of working virtually. Orlikowski recently led a multiyear National Science Foundation project on the social and economic implications of using Internet technologies within firms. She is currently studying the role and implications of social media technologies in distributed collaboration.

Orlikowski holds a BComm and an MComm in business information systems from the University of Witwatersrand and an MPhil and a PhD in information systems from New York University.

Web Site: http://ccs.mit.edu/wanda.html

“In Praise of the Incomplete Leader”. Harvard Business Review, February 2007, Vol. 85, No. 2.

“The Six Key Dimensions of Understanding Media,” Sloan Management Review, 2008, Vol. 42, No. 2.

“Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory,” Organization Science, 2011, Vol. 22, No. 5.

“Boundary Relations: Technological Objects and the Restructuring of Workplace Boundaries,” Organization Science, 2012, forthcoming

Name: David V Merrill
Tel: (617) 253-3341
E-mail: dvm@mit.edu

Information Technology

Action based learning; Business education; Change management; Cross-cultural awareness; Cultural differences; Design of leadership development; Education; Employee motivation; Europe; High technology companies; International management; Ireland; Leadership; Management effectiveness, measuring; Management of engineers and scientists; Managerial communication; Managerial vision; Managing change; Motivation; Optimization; Organizational change; Organizational culture; Organizational learning; Silicon Valley; Socially responsible business; Sustainability

Sinead O’Flanagan is a Senior Lecturer in Leadership at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

O’Flanagan also holds a research position at the Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway. She studies the pedagogy of leadership development in graduate education. Her current research analyzes the practices used in groundbreaking experiential-based leadership development courses. In particular, she examines how individuals create or extract meaning from the learning process itself, and explores the conditions that enable new ways of thinking for participants.

O’Flanagan has developed various experiential learning courses, including co-developing MIT’s Leadership Lab (L-Lab) with colleagues Wanda Orlikowski, Peter Senge, and Jason Jay. L-Lab teaches students about leading sustainable businesses by combining classroom instruction with mini-internship projects, where students work with thought-leading sustainability practitioners in organizations throughout the world. O’Flanagan has co-taught leadership courses through acting, using stage performance to examine risk taking and other modern leadership challenges.

Formerly based in Silicon Valley, California, and London, England, O’Flanagan has guided companies through major organizational change and restructuring initiatives. She has served as an executive consultant and a leadership development coach in numerous corporations, including IHS Energy, Intel, Nortel, Pfizer Health Solutions, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems.

O’Flanagan is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and the National University of Ireland.

Name: Viggo C. Fish
Tel: (617) 324-6246
E-mail: vcfish@mit.edu

Organization Studies

Cross-sectoral collaboration; Hybrid organizations; Overcoming organizational barriers to energy efficiency

Jason Jay is a Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the MIT Sloan Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society.

He teaches courses on sustainable business as part of the Sustainability Certificate, and gets students and alumni engaged in hands-on projects with leading companies and organizations. Jason is an active leader of sustainability initiatives across MIT. Through the MIT Sustainable Societies Research Group, he brings together scholars from across the Institute to examine the invention, implementation, and transformation required for a sustainable society. He has helped improve the energy and environmental footprint of the MIT campus by founding the MIT Generator and the Greening MIT community engagement campaign, and serving as founding member of the Campus Energy “Walk the Talk” Task Force.

Jason’s own research focuses on cross-sectoral collaboration and hybrid organizations aiming to promote more sustainable business practices. His dissertation focused on “Paradoxes of Hybrid Organizing” that arise when organizations combine institutional logics from business, government, and civil society organizations. This work builds on in-depth ethnographic research on cross-sectoral partnerships such as the Cambridge Energy Alliance. As a research partner of the Sustainable Food Lab, Dr. Jay has also written case studies of company-NGO collaboration to foster sustainable and equitable food value chains.

Prior to MIT, Jason ran an Internet startup, traveled around the world, taught kindergarten in a progressive preschool, and worked as a consultant with Dialogos International, where he consulted on leadership development and organizational change for major international corporations and NGO's including BP, the World Bank, and the Instituto Libertad y Democracia.

Jason holds an AB in psychology, an MEd from Harvard University, and a PhD in organization studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Navigating paradox as a mechanism of change in hybrid organizations.  Forthcoming in Academy of Management Journal. [2012]