Ronald Purser
(NOTE: I do not check messages on Academia.edu).
Ronald Purser is the Lam Larson Distinguished Research Professor of Management in the College of Business at San Francisco State University and faculty member at Dharma College. Prior to this, he was a tenured professor and Graduate Program Director at the Center for Organization Development at Loyola University of Chicago. Dr. Purser earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and his B.A. in Psychology from Sonoma State University. He is past Division Chair of the Organization Development and Change division of the Academy of Management.
His professional writings and publications currently focus on the application of Buddhist psychology and mindfulness practices to management, and organizations. His recent articles include Revisiting Mindfulness: A Buddhist-Based Conceptualization (with J. Milillo at Harvard); Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance; Zen and the Creative Management of Dilemmas (with A. Low); Deconstructing Lack: A Buddhist Perspective on Egocentric Organizations; and A Buddhist-Lacanian Perspective on Lack. More recently, Prof. Purser writings have been exploring the challenges and issues of introducing mindfulness into secular contexts, particularly with regards to its encounter with modernity, Western consumer capitalism, and individualism. His article, "Beyond McMindfulness" (with D. Loy) in the Huffington Post, went viral in 2013.
In 1981, he began attending classes and retreats at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. His formal Zen training started at the Cleveland Zen Center in 1985 under Koshin Ogui Sensei, who had been Shunryu Suzuki’s personal assistant in the early 1960’s. After returning to San Francisco in 1997, he continued to study and practice with Zen teachers and Tibetan lamas, is now an ordained Dharma instructor in the Korean Zen Buddhist Taego order.
Dr. Purser is co-author five books including, The Search Conference (Jossey-Bass, 1996), Social Creativity, Volumes 1 & 2 (Hampton Press, 1999), The Self-Managing Organization (The Free Press, 1998), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and over 60 academic journal articles and book chapters in such outlets as the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, Tamara, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and The Humanistic Psychologist
His past scholarship has focused on temporality in organizations, virtuality and cyberspace, social creativity, organizations and the natural environment, Buddhist social theory, psychoanalysis and organizations, sociotechnical systems redesign of knowledge work, organizational learning and democratic self-management . Dr. Purser has been a recipient of numerous U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation grant awards. .
He is currently on the executive boards of the Compassion, Mindfulness and Consciousness (CM) International Association, Center for Creative Inquiry, and President of Timeless Wisdom--both non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organizations.
Prior to his academic career, he was a journeyman industrial electrician at a number of factories in Chicago, including the historic Pullman-Standard plant. He was a member of the IBEW. His other interests and hobbies include playing electric guitar (blues), qigong, tai chi, weight-lifting and Zen and Tibetan Buddhist meditation.
Phone: 415 338-2380
Address: 1600 Holloway Avenue
BUS 349
College of Business
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132
Ronald Purser is the Lam Larson Distinguished Research Professor of Management in the College of Business at San Francisco State University and faculty member at Dharma College. Prior to this, he was a tenured professor and Graduate Program Director at the Center for Organization Development at Loyola University of Chicago. Dr. Purser earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and his B.A. in Psychology from Sonoma State University. He is past Division Chair of the Organization Development and Change division of the Academy of Management.
His professional writings and publications currently focus on the application of Buddhist psychology and mindfulness practices to management, and organizations. His recent articles include Revisiting Mindfulness: A Buddhist-Based Conceptualization (with J. Milillo at Harvard); Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance; Zen and the Creative Management of Dilemmas (with A. Low); Deconstructing Lack: A Buddhist Perspective on Egocentric Organizations; and A Buddhist-Lacanian Perspective on Lack. More recently, Prof. Purser writings have been exploring the challenges and issues of introducing mindfulness into secular contexts, particularly with regards to its encounter with modernity, Western consumer capitalism, and individualism. His article, "Beyond McMindfulness" (with D. Loy) in the Huffington Post, went viral in 2013.
In 1981, he began attending classes and retreats at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. His formal Zen training started at the Cleveland Zen Center in 1985 under Koshin Ogui Sensei, who had been Shunryu Suzuki’s personal assistant in the early 1960’s. After returning to San Francisco in 1997, he continued to study and practice with Zen teachers and Tibetan lamas, is now an ordained Dharma instructor in the Korean Zen Buddhist Taego order.
Dr. Purser is co-author five books including, The Search Conference (Jossey-Bass, 1996), Social Creativity, Volumes 1 & 2 (Hampton Press, 1999), The Self-Managing Organization (The Free Press, 1998), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and over 60 academic journal articles and book chapters in such outlets as the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, Tamara, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and The Humanistic Psychologist
His past scholarship has focused on temporality in organizations, virtuality and cyberspace, social creativity, organizations and the natural environment, Buddhist social theory, psychoanalysis and organizations, sociotechnical systems redesign of knowledge work, organizational learning and democratic self-management . Dr. Purser has been a recipient of numerous U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation grant awards. .
He is currently on the executive boards of the Compassion, Mindfulness and Consciousness (CM) International Association, Center for Creative Inquiry, and President of Timeless Wisdom--both non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organizations.
Prior to his academic career, he was a journeyman industrial electrician at a number of factories in Chicago, including the historic Pullman-Standard plant. He was a member of the IBEW. His other interests and hobbies include playing electric guitar (blues), qigong, tai chi, weight-lifting and Zen and Tibetan Buddhist meditation.
Phone: 415 338-2380
Address: 1600 Holloway Avenue
BUS 349
College of Business
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132
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Books by Ronald Purser
"Social Creativity Volume Two challenges many widely held assumptions about creativity in organizations while offering exciting alternatives. A must read for those seeking to increase innovation in their organizations."
~John R. Alden, Senior Manager, Procter & Gamble
"Purser and Montuori have assembled a stimulating and intellectually grounded set of essays central to the long term viability of human societies--how can organizations foster the creativity required to generate paths through the turbulent times we are facing? The conceptualization of creativity as a collective, social phenomenon is a real contribution."
~Susan Albers Mohrman, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Effective Organizations (USC)
"This comprehensive work is essential reading for leaders at any level of an organization dedicated to increasing the creative capacity of their work force."~Suzanne Merritt, Senior Creatologist, Founder of the Polaroid Creativity Laboratory
"A panoramic overview of what is 'social,' and therefore actionable, about creativity. Everyone concerned with the design and leadership of organizations should take heed."
~John Kao, Harvard Business School and author of Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity
Contents: Introduction: Social Creativity in Organizations, Ronald E. Purser and Alfonso Montuori.
PART ONE: CREATIVE ORGANIZING: ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.
Control, Chaos, Control: A Cybernetic View of Creativity, Charles M. Hampden-Turner.
Hemisphericity and Creativity: Group Process and the Dream Factory, David Loye.
Creative Organizations: The Relevance of Chaos and Psychodynamic Systems, Ralph Stacey.
PART TWO: CREATIVE PERCEPTION: COGNITION AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES.
The Perceptual Logic of Creativity, Fred Emery.
Barriers to Organizational Creativity, Linda M. Kilbourne and Richard W. Woodman.
Group Creativity, Paul B. Paulus, Vincent Brown, and Anita H. Ortega.
PART THREE: CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENTS: ASSESSMENT AND PREDICTION.
On the Roles of the Industrial Researcher in Relation to Creativity: The Core of the Stein Technical Audit, Morris I. Stein.
The Impact of Downsizing on Organizational Creativity and Innovation, Regina Conti and Teresa M. Amabile.
PART FOUR: CREATIVE PARADIGMS: EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES AND MANAGEMENT ASSUMPTIONS.
Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Creativity, Tudor Rickards and Christian De Cock.
Playing the Spaces between the Notes: From Competence of Creativity in Executive Development, Richard Harrison.
PART FIVE: CREATIVE ECOLOGIES: CONSTRAINTS AND POSSIBILITIES.
Social Creativity as a Heroic Path in World Crisis, Michael L. Ray.
Organizing as if Creativity Really Mattered, Alfonso Montuori.
Author Index.
Subject Index.
http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HP&Product_Code=1-57273-131-1&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
~Kenneth Gergen, author of The Saturated Self and Realities and Relationships
"A refreshing atom blast shattering outdated definitions of creativity limited to the image of the lone genius. The editors have provided a 'crash course' in systems-oriented thinking that opens up the possibility for a more contextual and systemic perspective of the creative process. Anyone interested in creativity must read this work."
~Suzi Gablik, author of The Reenchantment of Art and Conversations Before the End of Time
"A thoughtful and provocative collection of studies ... continues a bold initiative in an emerging field of social thought."
~Robert Grudin, author of The Grace of Great Things and Dialogue
"I can think of no other book that brings together a group of thinkers better able to illuminate and reconstitute the conceptual foundations of how the modern idea of creativity is understood. Sensing the increasing gulf between the commodified meaning and uses of creativity, and the conceptually rich and varied ways that seminal thinkers have been considering it, Montuori and Purser have given both the academic community and the public a truly transformative book."
~C.A. Bowers, author of The Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public Schools
"A topnotch collection of thoughtful essays on the complex relationships between creativity and the social order."
~Philip Slater, author or The Pursuit of Loneliness and A Dream Deferred
"Open the brain of the genius seeking the roots of creativity and discover a story whose main characters are not neurons, but other people, economic circumstances and social institutions. In this excellent volume, Montuori and Purser have made a convincing case on behalf of a social understanding of creativity and genius. This volume challenges those for whom genius resides inside the individual by demonstrating the role of the broader social, economic, and historical conditions not simply in shaping an otherwise hidden creativity, but in defining its very character."
~Edward E. Sampson, author of Celebrating the Other
Contents:
Social Creativity: Introduction, Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser.
PART ONE: ROOTS OF CREATIVITY.
All Creation is a Collaboration, Frank Barron.
The Narrative Imagination, Richard Kearney.
PART TWO: CREATIVITY AND MODERNITY.
The Two Faces of Creativity, Morris Berman.
Creativity, Romanticism, and the Rise of Consumerism, Tony Stigliano.
PART THREE: LANGUAGE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF THE ORDINARY.
Knowledge Creating as Dialogic Accomplishment: A Constructionist Perspective, Frank J. Barrett.
Ordinary Creativity, Mary Catherine Bateson.
PART FOUR: CREATIVITY AT WORK.
The Social Construction of Creative Lives, Carol A. Mockros and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Reconstructing Genius, James Ogilvy.
PART FIVE: CULTURE AND PERSONALITY.
Creativity Need Not be Social, Mark Runco.
The Creative Society: Genius vis-a-vis the Zeitgeist, Dean Keith Simonton.
PART SIX: EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON CREATIVITY.
Social Roots of Creativity, Vilmos Csanyi.
The "Genius Hypothesis": Exploratory Concepts for a Scientific Understanding of Unusual Creativity, Ervin Laszlo.
Author Index.
Subject Index.
http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HP&Product_Code=1-57273-129-X&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
—Allen C. Bluedorn, author of The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience, University of Missouri-Columbia
“The authors gathered here are among the leading theorists of the new shift in dimensional thought. Original, provocative, and sophisticated, their arguments will have a profound impact on social theorists and the emerging generation of digital scholars.”
—Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne
Papers by Ronald Purser
"Social Creativity Volume Two challenges many widely held assumptions about creativity in organizations while offering exciting alternatives. A must read for those seeking to increase innovation in their organizations."
~John R. Alden, Senior Manager, Procter & Gamble
"Purser and Montuori have assembled a stimulating and intellectually grounded set of essays central to the long term viability of human societies--how can organizations foster the creativity required to generate paths through the turbulent times we are facing? The conceptualization of creativity as a collective, social phenomenon is a real contribution."
~Susan Albers Mohrman, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Effective Organizations (USC)
"This comprehensive work is essential reading for leaders at any level of an organization dedicated to increasing the creative capacity of their work force."~Suzanne Merritt, Senior Creatologist, Founder of the Polaroid Creativity Laboratory
"A panoramic overview of what is 'social,' and therefore actionable, about creativity. Everyone concerned with the design and leadership of organizations should take heed."
~John Kao, Harvard Business School and author of Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity
Contents: Introduction: Social Creativity in Organizations, Ronald E. Purser and Alfonso Montuori.
PART ONE: CREATIVE ORGANIZING: ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.
Control, Chaos, Control: A Cybernetic View of Creativity, Charles M. Hampden-Turner.
Hemisphericity and Creativity: Group Process and the Dream Factory, David Loye.
Creative Organizations: The Relevance of Chaos and Psychodynamic Systems, Ralph Stacey.
PART TWO: CREATIVE PERCEPTION: COGNITION AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES.
The Perceptual Logic of Creativity, Fred Emery.
Barriers to Organizational Creativity, Linda M. Kilbourne and Richard W. Woodman.
Group Creativity, Paul B. Paulus, Vincent Brown, and Anita H. Ortega.
PART THREE: CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENTS: ASSESSMENT AND PREDICTION.
On the Roles of the Industrial Researcher in Relation to Creativity: The Core of the Stein Technical Audit, Morris I. Stein.
The Impact of Downsizing on Organizational Creativity and Innovation, Regina Conti and Teresa M. Amabile.
PART FOUR: CREATIVE PARADIGMS: EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES AND MANAGEMENT ASSUMPTIONS.
Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Creativity, Tudor Rickards and Christian De Cock.
Playing the Spaces between the Notes: From Competence of Creativity in Executive Development, Richard Harrison.
PART FIVE: CREATIVE ECOLOGIES: CONSTRAINTS AND POSSIBILITIES.
Social Creativity as a Heroic Path in World Crisis, Michael L. Ray.
Organizing as if Creativity Really Mattered, Alfonso Montuori.
Author Index.
Subject Index.
http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HP&Product_Code=1-57273-131-1&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
~Kenneth Gergen, author of The Saturated Self and Realities and Relationships
"A refreshing atom blast shattering outdated definitions of creativity limited to the image of the lone genius. The editors have provided a 'crash course' in systems-oriented thinking that opens up the possibility for a more contextual and systemic perspective of the creative process. Anyone interested in creativity must read this work."
~Suzi Gablik, author of The Reenchantment of Art and Conversations Before the End of Time
"A thoughtful and provocative collection of studies ... continues a bold initiative in an emerging field of social thought."
~Robert Grudin, author of The Grace of Great Things and Dialogue
"I can think of no other book that brings together a group of thinkers better able to illuminate and reconstitute the conceptual foundations of how the modern idea of creativity is understood. Sensing the increasing gulf between the commodified meaning and uses of creativity, and the conceptually rich and varied ways that seminal thinkers have been considering it, Montuori and Purser have given both the academic community and the public a truly transformative book."
~C.A. Bowers, author of The Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public Schools
"A topnotch collection of thoughtful essays on the complex relationships between creativity and the social order."
~Philip Slater, author or The Pursuit of Loneliness and A Dream Deferred
"Open the brain of the genius seeking the roots of creativity and discover a story whose main characters are not neurons, but other people, economic circumstances and social institutions. In this excellent volume, Montuori and Purser have made a convincing case on behalf of a social understanding of creativity and genius. This volume challenges those for whom genius resides inside the individual by demonstrating the role of the broader social, economic, and historical conditions not simply in shaping an otherwise hidden creativity, but in defining its very character."
~Edward E. Sampson, author of Celebrating the Other
Contents:
Social Creativity: Introduction, Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser.
PART ONE: ROOTS OF CREATIVITY.
All Creation is a Collaboration, Frank Barron.
The Narrative Imagination, Richard Kearney.
PART TWO: CREATIVITY AND MODERNITY.
The Two Faces of Creativity, Morris Berman.
Creativity, Romanticism, and the Rise of Consumerism, Tony Stigliano.
PART THREE: LANGUAGE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF THE ORDINARY.
Knowledge Creating as Dialogic Accomplishment: A Constructionist Perspective, Frank J. Barrett.
Ordinary Creativity, Mary Catherine Bateson.
PART FOUR: CREATIVITY AT WORK.
The Social Construction of Creative Lives, Carol A. Mockros and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Reconstructing Genius, James Ogilvy.
PART FIVE: CULTURE AND PERSONALITY.
Creativity Need Not be Social, Mark Runco.
The Creative Society: Genius vis-a-vis the Zeitgeist, Dean Keith Simonton.
PART SIX: EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON CREATIVITY.
Social Roots of Creativity, Vilmos Csanyi.
The "Genius Hypothesis": Exploratory Concepts for a Scientific Understanding of Unusual Creativity, Ervin Laszlo.
Author Index.
Subject Index.
http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HP&Product_Code=1-57273-129-X&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
—Allen C. Bluedorn, author of The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience, University of Missouri-Columbia
“The authors gathered here are among the leading theorists of the new shift in dimensional thought. Original, provocative, and sophisticated, their arguments will have a profound impact on social theorists and the emerging generation of digital scholars.”
—Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne
Read here: http://www.salon.com/2015/09/27/corporate_mindfulness_is_bullsht_zen_or_no_zen_youre_working_harder_and_being_paid_less/