Biography of Dr. Edgar Schein

He was Chief of the Social Psychology Section of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research while serving in the U.S. Army as Captain from 1952 to 1956. He joined MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1956 and was made a Professor of Organizational Psychology and Management in 1964.

From 1968 to 1971 Schein was the Undergraduate Planning Professor for MIT, and in 1972 he became the Chairman of the Organization Studies Group of the MIT Sloan School, a position he held until 1982. He was honored in 1978 when he was named the Sloan Fellows Professor of Management, a Chair he held until 1990. At the present he is Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and continues at the Sloan School half-time as a Senior Lecturer.

Schein has been a prolific researcher, writer, teacher and consultant. Besides his numerous articles in professional journals he has authored fourteen books including Organizational Psychology (3d edit., 1980), Career Dynamics (1978), Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985, 1992), and Process Consultation Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (1969, 1987, 1988), Process Consultation Revisited (1999), and The Corporate Culture Survival Guide (1999). He is Co-editor with the late Richard Beckhard of the Addison Wesley Series on Organization Development which has published over 30 titles since its inception in 1969.

His consultation focuses on organizational culture, organization development, process consultation, and career dynamics, and among his past and current clients are major corporations both in the U.S. and overseas such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Ciba-Geigy, Apple, Citibank, General Foods, Procter & Gamble, ICI, Saab Combitech, Steinbergs, Alcoa, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Exxon, Shell, AMOCO, Con Edison, and the Economic Development Board of Singapore.

Schein has received many honors and awards for his writing and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Academy of Management. He is married, has three children, and seven grandchildren. He and his wife Mary live in Cambridge, Mass.