Edgar Schein

Edgar Henry Schein (born 1928), a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He is generally credited with inventing the term "corporate culture". (The Oxford English Dictionary traces the phrase "corporate culture" as far back as "1966 Acad. Managem. Jrnl. 9 362/2".)

Schein's organizational culture model


Schein's model of organizational culture originated in the 1980s. Schein (2004) identifies three distinct levels in organizational cultures:


 * 1) artifacts and behaviours
 * 2) espoused values
 * 3) assumptions

The three levels refer to the layers of corporate culture.


 * Artifacts include any tangible or verbally identifiable elements in an organization. Architecture, furniture, dress code, office jokes, and history all exemplify organizational artifacts.


 * Values are the organization's stated or desired cultural elements. This is most often a written or stated tone that the CEO or President hope to exude throughout the office environment.  Examples of this would be employee professionalism, or a "family first" mantra.


 * Assumptions are the actual values that the culture represents, not necessarily correlated to the values. These assumptions are typically so well integrated in the office dynamic that they are hard to recognize from within.

The model has undergone various modifications, such as the Raz update of Schein's organizational culture model (2006), and others.

Coercive persuasion
Schein has written on the issues surrounding coercive persuasion, comparing and contrasting brainwashing as a use for "goals that we deplore and goals that we accept."

Education

 * Ph.D., social psychology, Harvard University, 1952
 * Master's Degree, Psychology, Stanford University, 1949
 * University of Chicago

Publications

 * Brainwashing and Totalitarianization in Modern Society (1959)
 * Coercive Persuasion: A socio-psychological analysis of the "brainwashing" of American civilian prisoners by the Chinese Communists (1961), W. W. Norton (publishers)
 * Organizational Psychology (1980) ISBN 0-13-641332-3
 * Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985) ISBN 1-55542-487-2
 * Process Consultation Revisited (1999) ISBN 0-201-34596-X

Awards, honors

 * Awards
 * Lifetime Achievement Award in Workplace Learning and Performance of the American Society of Training and Development, February 3, 2000
 * Everett Cherrington Hughes Award for Career Scholarship, Careers Division of the Academy of Management, August 8, 2000
 * Marion Gislason Award for Leadership in Executive Development, Boston University School of Management Executive Development Roundtable, December 11, 2002
 * Professional
 * Fellow, American Psychological Association
 * Fellow, Academy of Management
 * Board Member
 * Advisory Board, Institute for Nuclear Power Operations
 * Board Member, Massachusetts Audubon Society
 * Board Member, Boston Lyric Opera