Ronald Fry

Case Western Reserve University

Ron is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University and former Chairman of the Department of Organizational Behavior, consistently ranked one of the best in the world by the Financial Times. He has been honored with the University Award for Outstanding Teacher in the Professional Schools and the Weatherhead School’s Lifetime Service Award. He received his MS and PhD from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after completing a BS in Engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The OB Department at CWRU pioneered the first PhD program in Organizational Behavior (1963) and then the first Master of Science degree program in Organizational Development (1975). Ron led the re- design of the Masters program into the current Masters in Positive OD or MPOD and served as Department Chair for seven years. He has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management’s Organization Development & Change (ODC) Division, including serving as PDW Chair, Program Chair, and Division Chair. He also directed Weatherhead’s EMBA program to national, Top Ten rankings during 12 years as Program Director.

With 11 books and over 45 articles and chapters, Ron is widely published in the areas of Organizational Development, Appreciative Inquiry, Team Building, Change Management, Executive Development and the role and functioning of the CEO. He is a co-creator of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) theory and method, and continues to both apply and study the applications of AI in the field. His most recent books are Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity (Taos Publishing), with Frank Barrett, and Appreciative Team Building with Diana Whitney, Jay Cherney and Amanda Trsten- Bloom (iUniverse). He has also co-edited Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Transformation: Reports from the field (Quorum) and the Handbook of Transformative Cooperation (Stanford University Press).

With Professor David Cooperrider, Ron has been co-editor of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. He has conducted the Weatherhead International Certificate Program in Appreciative Inquiry for Business and Society Benefit in Brazil, Belgium, China, India, Australia, Indonesia, France, Sweden and the USA. He directed a world inquiry project to find and disseminate business innovations for mutual benefit of business and society. This inquiry has now grown into a global mobilization of business school students (see Aim2Flourish.com ) at the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at the Weatherhead School. He has facilitated and studied large scale, multi-stakeholder change processes in a variety of systems including General Electric, World Vision, ArcelorMittal, Roadway Express, Akzonobel, Lubrizol, Sustainable Cleveland 2019, Smuckers, Belgian Learning Network for Talent Development, Fairmount Minerals, Swagelok, Mid-Ohio Foodbank, Genesis Health Systems, Los Angeles Fire Department, Lowes Foods, SAB Miller Latin America, Trinidad Ministry of Justice, Catholic Diocese of Monterey, and the US Navy.