Jeffrey Pfeffer
Bio
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 16 books including:
• Leadership B.S.: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
• The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First
• Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don’t
• The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action
• Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management
• Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It
• 7 Rules of Power: Surprising—But True—Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career
• And more than 160 articles and book chapters.
Dr. Pfeffer received his BS and MS degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his PhD from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught for six years 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 14 years, a visitor at IESE in Barcelona.
Pfeffer currently hosts the Pfeffer on Power podcast, available on all podcast platforms and YouTube. From 2003–2007, Pfeffer wrote a monthly column, “The Human Factor,” for the 650,000-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 has also written for Fortune.com, BNET, the Washington Post, BloombergBusinessWeek.com, BBC’s Capital, Learning Corner for CornerstoneOnDemand, and is an Influencer on LinkedIn.
Pfeffer currently serves on the advisory boards for Collective Health, Medeloop, Quorso, and Veridian, and on the boards 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 (WSTM), all human capital software companies, Audible Magic, an internet company, SonoSite (SONO), a NASDAQ company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines, Longeveron (LGVN), a biotech company, and Berlin Packaging, a Chicago-based supplier of packaging services.
Pfeffer has presented seminars in 40 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 D. Irwin Award presented by the Academy of Management for scholarly contributions to management and numerous awards for his articles and books. He is in the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame and has been listed 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.
Stanford University Affiliations
- Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences 1998–1999
Academic Degrees
- PhD in Business Administration, Organizational Behavior, Stanford University, 1972
- MS in Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University, 1968
- BS in Administration and Management Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1968
Academic Appointments
- At Stanford University since 1979
- Tommie Goh Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship, Singapore Management University, Winter 2006
- Visiting Professor, IESE Business School, Spring 2006
- Advanced Institute of Management Visiting Professor, London Business School, Fall 2005
- Thomas Henry Carroll-Ford Foundation Visiting Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, 1981–1982
- Assistant-Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1973–1979
- Assistant Professor, University of Illinois, 1971–1973
Awards and Honors
- BP Faculty Fellow in Global Management for 2021–2022
- Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Faculty Fellow for 2015–2016
- Honorary Doctorate, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, 2011
- Richard D. Irwin Scholarly Contributions to Management Award, Academy of Management, 1989
- Terry Book Award, Academy of Management, 1984
Service to the Profession
- Fellow, Academy of Management
- Member, Industrial Relations Research Association
Editorial Board
- Administrative Science Quarterly