Abstract
Edward Emmett Lawler, III, has been a central figure in the development of the fields of organizational behavior, management, and organization development. His early work generated and tested theoretical frameworks about motivation and performance, and he was a leader in investigating how organizational practices impact employee and organizational outcomes, including work design, compensation, performance management, and participation and involvement. The Quality of Worklife studies at the University of Michigan that he co-led with Stan Seashore provided a model and developed a methodology for studying and understanding organizations as dynamic systems and for creating knowledge about organizations by intentionally changing them. From this work, he developed his highly influential high-involvement management framework.
During a career that has spanned 50 years, he has influenced both the theory and practice of organizing for effectiveness during a period when organizations have had to change fundamentally to adapt to the emerging dynamic, digitalized, global economy. Lawler has been a scholar of how organizations are changing to be effective in their changing contexts more than he has been a scholar of change processes. His emphasis on doing useful research led to partnerships with companies to address and learn from the challenges they face and to ensuring that the knowledge created is accessible to both academia and practice. His work has helped shape the development and increasing strategic orientation of the human resource function. He founded and for almost 40 years has led the Center for Effective Organizations (CEO), a research center at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, which he designed to carry out useful research. He and his colleagues at CEO have contributed to the development of methodologies for doing useful research and to the debates in the Academy about the legitimacy of such approaches.
This chapter describes Lawler’s evolution as a scholar, the many contributions that he has made to the understanding of how organizations can change to be more effective, and the immense impact he has had on practice and academia.
References
Lawler, E. E. (1967). Attitude surveys as predictors of employee behavior: The missing link. Personnel Administrator, 30(5), 22–24.
Lawler, E. E. (1969). Job design and employee motivation. Personnel Psychology, 22, 426–434.
Lawler, E. E. (1971). Pay and organizational effectiveness: A psychological view. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lawler, E. E. (1973). Motivation in work organizations. Monterey: Brooks/Cole.
Lawler, E. E. (1974). For a more effective organization – Match the job to the man. Organizational Dynamics, 3(1), 19–29.
Lawler, E. E. (1977). Adaptive experiments: An approach to organizational behavior research. Academy of Management Review, 2, 576–585.
Lawler, E. E. (1978). The new plant revolution. Organizational Dynamics, 6(3), 2–12.
Lawler, E. E. (1981). Pay and organization development. Reading: Addison Wesley.
Lawler, E. E. (1986). High-involvement management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E. (1990). Strategic pay. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E. (1992). The ultimate advantage: Creating the high-involvement organization. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E. (2014). Individualizing organizations: Progress and possibilities. In E. E. Lawler & S. A. Mohrman (Eds.), Special issue: Effective organizations in the new environment. Organizational Dynamics, 43(3), 157–167.
Lawler, E. E. (2017). Reinventing talent management: Principles and practices for the new world of work. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler.
Lawler, E. E., & Finegold, D. (2000). Individualizing the organization: Past, present, and future. Organizational Dynamics, 29(1), 1–15.
Lawler, E. E., & Mohrman, S. A. (2014). Designing organizations for sustainable effectiveness: A new paradigm for organizations and academic researchers. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 1(1), 14–34.
Lawler, E. E., & Worley, C. G. (2006). Built to change: How to achieve sustained organizational effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E., & Worley, C. G. (2011). Management reset: Organizing for sustainable effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E., Nadler, D., & Cammann, C. (1980). Organizational assessment. New York: Wiley Interscience.
Lawler, E. E., Mohrman, A. M., Mohrman, S. A., Ledford, G. E., Cummings, T. G., & Associates. (1985). Doing research that is useful for theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E., Mohrman, A. M., Mohrman, S. A., Ledford, G. E., Cummings, T. G. (1999). Doing research that is useful for theory and practice (new edition). Lanham: Lexington Press.
Mirvis, P., & Lawler, E. E. (2010). Rigor and relevance in organizational research: Experience, reflection and a look ahead. In S. A. Mohrman, E. E. Lawler, & Associates (Eds.), Useful research: Advancing theory and practice (pp. 112–135). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Mohrman, A. M., Mohrman, S. A., Ledford, G. E., Cummings, T. G., Lawler, E. E., & Associates. (1989a). Large-scale organizational change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Mohrman, A. M., Resnick-West, S. M., & Lawler, E. E. (1989b). Designing performance appraisal systems: Aligning appraisals and organizational realities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Mohrman, S. A., Lawler, E. E., & Associates. (2011). Useful research: Advancing theory and practice. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
O’Toole, J., et al. (1973). Work in America: Report of a special task force to the secretary of health, education, and welfare. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Porter, L. W., & Lawler, E. E. (1968). Managerial attitudes and performance. Homewood: Irwin-Dorsey.
Seashore, S. E., Lawler, E. E., Mirvis, P., & Cammann, C. (1983). Assessing organizational change. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
Worley, C. G., Williams, T., & Lawler, E. E. (2014). The agility factor: Building adaptable organizations for superior performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Further Reading
Conger, J. A., Lawler, E. E., & Finegold, D. (2001). Corporate boards: New strategies for adding value at the top. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lawler, E. E., & Boudreau, J. W. (2015). Global trends in human resource management: A twenty-year analysis. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Ledford, G. E., Benson, G., & Lawler, E. E. (2016). Aligning research and the current practice of performance management. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 9(2), 253–260.
Mohrman, S. A., O’Toole, J., & Lawler, E. E. (2015). Corporate stewardship: Achieving sustainable effectiveness. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing.
O’Toole, J., & Lawler, E. E. (2006). The new American workplace. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Shani, A. B., Mohrman, S. A., Pasmore, W. A., Stymne, B., & Adler, N. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of collaborative management research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Press.
Van de Ven, A. H. (2007) Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizaational and social research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Mohrman, S.A. (2017). Edward Emmet Lawler, III: Scholar, Change Agent, Sports Fanatic, and a Hell of a Nice Guy. In: Szabla, D., Pasmore, W., Barnes, M., Gipson, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_11-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_11-2
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Lawler, III, Edward Emmet: Scholar, Change Agent, Sports Fanatic, and a Hell of a Nice Guy- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_11-3
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Edward Emmet Lawler, III: Scholar, Change Agent, Sports Fanatic, and a Hell of a Nice Guy
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_11-2
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Edward Emmet Lawler, III: Scholar, Change Agent, Sports Fanatic, and a Hell of a Nice Guy- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_11-1