Sign up for Virtual Chats here. | View Academic Calendar 2022-23 here. | Admissions for TLP Class of 2024 are now open. Click here to apply | Admissions to BTech program are open. Deadline May 31, 2023. Click here to apply 

Kenwyn Smith

Current Position

Professor, Organizational Behaviour,

University of Pennsylvania

Visiting Faculty, Plaksha Technology Leaders Program

Bio

Dr. Smith, Professor of Organizational Behavior, teaches leadership, group and intergroup dynamics, organizational politics, and change management to students in multiple graduate programs at Penn. During his years on this campus, Kenwyn directed The Center of Workplace Studies, served as Faculty Master of Ware College House, (where he was responsible 24/7 for the well-being of 500 Penn undergraduate students), and created Penn’s Graduate Program in Nonprofit Leadership, a partnership among multiple schools and currently housed in the School of Social Policy and Practice. He served as its inaugural director until 2012.

During his career Kenwyn has helped found a number of volunteer-based, nonprofit organizations, has worked on six continents and has been involved in educating students from over 100 countries, both at Penn and in nations as diverse as China and India, Argentina and Australia.



Research Interests

Changing race and gender dynamics in the corporate setting

The socio-political-cultural causes of homelessness in the USA

Incarcerated fathers

The development of a paradoxical theory of organizational life

MANNA: the birth and growth of an aids organization

Moving from the scarcity to the abundance paradigm

Interrupting contemporary non-pharmacological emergent addictions before they become full-blown pathologies

Applying truth and reconciliation commissions to organizations

 

Publications:

 

The Abundance-Scarcity Paradox

Freed to Be Fathers: Lessons From Men Doing Time

Yearning for Home in Troubled Times

MANNA In the Wilderness: Ten Lessons in Abundance

Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics

The Self in Social Inquiry: Researching Methods

Groups In Conflict: Prisons in Disguise