Dr. 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: Politics and Influence in Organizations, 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, a collection of 27 essays about management topics, as well as more than 120 articles and book chapters. Pfeffer’s latest book, entitled Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t was published in September, 2010 by HarperCollins.
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, and a frequent 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 to 2010, wrote a monthly column providing career advice for Capital, a leading business and economics magazine in Turkey. Pfeffer currently actively contributes to the Harvard Business Review blog, CNET (CBS Interactive), and Politico. Pfeffer has appeared in segments on CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, Bloomberg TV, Fox and Friends, and CNBC as well as television programs in Korea, and has been quoted and featured in news articles from countries around the globe.
Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of the nonprofits Quantum Leap Healthcare and The San Francisco Playhouse. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream, all human capital software companies, Audible Magic, an internet company, and SonoSite, a company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines. Pfeffer has presented seminars in 34 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 articles and books.