Ronald E. Purser
Ronald Edward Purser (1956, Chicago, Illinois) is Professor of Management at San Francisco State University, is known for his works in the areas of organization development, Future Search Conferences, Socio-technical systems, Social Creativity, and critical studies of time and temporality.
Biography
Purser was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up on the South Side in an Italian and Jewish neighborhood. Both his father and grandfather worked in for the railroads. He became interested in electronics and amateur radio in his teens, worked as an industrial electrician for the Pullman-Standard Car Plant, which exposed him to the harsh realities of labor-management conflicts. He became interested in psychology, first attending Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1979), but soon lost interest in the narrow focus of experimental (rat) psychology. He worked for a brief period in the SIU Psychology Department's Sleep Laboratory. Much of his academic yearnings were for depth and humanistic psychology. In 1981, he transferred to Sonoma State University's Humanistic Psychology program in Rohnert Park, CA. It is at this time that he also came into contact with Buddhist teachers, namely the works of Tarthang Tulku and his senior student at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, CA. He worked for a number of years at Canyon Manor Residential Psychiatric hospital in Novato, California. After discovering the field of Organizational Behavior, he went on to study at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where he earned his doctorate under Dr. William Pasmore. His apprenticeship in socio-technical systems method for organizational redesign and change led him into contact with Eric Trist, Fred and Merrelyn Emery, and Calvin Pava. His doctoral field work was conducted at Polaroid's Film Research Division in Waltham, Mass in 1988-1989. After graduating, he accepted his first academic position at the Center for Organization Development at Loyola University of Chicago in 1990. He published his first book with Merrelyn Emery, The Search Conference in 1996.
He was past Chair of Organizational Development and Change division of the Academy of Management.
== Publications == Books
Emery, M., and Purser, R. (1996). The Search Conference. San Francisco: Joseey Bass.
Purser, R., and Montuori, A. (1999). Social Creativity, Volumes 1 & 2. Cresskill, NJ:Hampton Press.
Purser, R., and Cabana, S. (1998). The Self-Managing Organization. New York:The Free Press.
Hassan, R., and Purser, R. (2007). 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society. Palo Alto:Stanford University Press.
Purser, R., Montuori, A., and Harris-Boundy, J. (forthcoming). Creativity in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Select Articles
Purser, R.E. (2007). Large group interventions: A review of theory and practice. In T. Cummings (Ed.), Handbook of Organization Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Purser, R. (2002). Contested presents: Critical perspectives on real-time management. In B. Adam & R. Whipp (Eds.), Making Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Montuori, A. & Purser, R.E. (2001). Humanistic psychology in the workplace. In K. Schneider (Ed.), The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology. Sage Publishing.
Purser, R.E. (1999). The human relations myth unveiled: Deconstructing the history and origins of work teams. In M. Beyerlein (ed.) Work Teams: Past, Present and Future. Kluwer Academic Press. Purser, R. & Petranker, J. (2005). Unfreezing the future: Exploring the dynamic of time in organizational change. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, June.
Purser, R.E., Bluedorn, A., & Petranker, J. (2004). The causes and time of flow in organizational change. In R. Woodman & W. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, Vol. 14. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Purser, R. (2000). Virtualization of consciousness or conscious virtualization: What path will virtual reality take? In Jerry Biberman & Abbass Alkhafaji (Eds.) Business Research Yearbook, Global Business Perspectives, Vol VII. New York: University Press of America., pp. -.
Purser, R. (2000). The coming crisis in real-time environments: A dromological analysis. In S. Havolvick (Ed.), Best Paper Proceedings of the 2000 Academy of Management Meeting, Toronto, CA. (CD-ROM).
Purser, R.E. (1997). From global management to global appreciation: A transformative epistemology for aperspectival worlds. Organization and Environment. Vol. 10, No.4, 361-383.
Purser, R. (1997) Probing the reflexivity-action nexus: An alternative research paradigm for studying nonsynoptic systems change. Best Paper Proceedings of the 1997 Academy of Management Meeting, Boston, MA.
Purser, R. (1996). Designing post-industrial organizations for ecological sustainability. World Futures, Vol. 46, 203-222.
Purser, R., Park, C.K., Montuori, A. (1995). Limits to anthropocentrism: Towards an ecocentric organization paradigm? Academy of Management Review, 20 (4), 1053-1089. (Special Topic Forum on Ecologically Sustainable Organizations).
Montuori, A., and Purser, R. (1995). Deconstructing the lone genius myth: Towards a socio-ecological view of creativity. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 35(3), 69-112.
Purser,R.E.,(1994). "Shallow" vs. "Deep" organization development and environmental sustainability. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 7(4), 8-18. (Guest Editorial).
Purser, R., and Kumar, N. (1994). The reported advantage: What journalists say chief executives do to facilitate innovation in their firms. Creativity and Innovation Management 3 (1), 33-42.
Purser, R., and Montuori, A. (1994). Miles Davis in the classroom: Using the jazz ensemble metaphor for enhancing team learning. Journal of Management Education 18 (1), 21-31.
Purser, R. (1986). Time in organizations: The invisible dimension, GDI Implus, (a Swiss Management journal) German translation, April, 41-46.