Jeffrey Pfeffer
Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of thirteen books including The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First; Managing with Power; The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action; Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People; Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management; and What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management, as well as more than 150 articles and book chapters. Pfeffer’s latest book, entitled Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t was published in 2010 by Harper Business.
Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Pfeffer has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, Copenhagen Business School, and for the past 8 years a visitor at IESE in Barcelona.
From 2003-2007, Pfeffer wrote a monthly column, “The Human Factor,” for the 600,000-person circulation business magazine, Business 2.0 and from 2007-2010, he wrote a monthly column providing career advice for Capital, a leading business and economics magazine in Turkey. Pfeffer also was a regular blogger for the Corner Office section of BNET (CBS Interactive), and currently writes for the Harvard Business Review website, Bloomberg Business Week online, Inc., and for the “On Leadership” section of The Washington Post. Pfeffer has appeared in segments on CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and CNBC as well as television and radio programs in Korea and Japan and has been quoted and featured in news articles from countries around the globe.
Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Quantum Leap Healthcare. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream, all human capital software companies, Audible Magic, an internet company, SonoSite, a company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines, and the San Francisco Playhouse, a non-profit theater. Pfeffer has presented seminars in 38 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.
Jeffrey Pfeffer has won the Richard I. Irwin Award presented by the Academy of Management for scholarly contributions to management and numerous awards for his articles and books. He is listed in the top 25 management thinkers by Thinkers 50, and as one of the Most Influential HR International Thinkers by HR Magazine. In November, 2011, he was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.