Kenwyn Smith

Dr. Kenwyn Smith is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a scholar-practitioner who teaches leadership, intra-group and inter-group dynamics, organizational politics and change management to students in multiple Penn graduate programs. During his years at Penn Kenwyn has directed the Center for Workplace Studies, functioned as Faculty Master of Ware College House, created Penn’s Graduate Program in Nonprofit Leadership (a partnership among multiple schools), and until 2012 served as its inaugural director. Dr. Smith has conducted research in a wide range of organizations and communities: from prisons to schools, from businesses to health care institutions, from state enterprises to social entrepreneurial activities, from oppressed black townships in South Africa to agencies creating sustainable livelihoods in rural India, from pharmaceuticals in Belgium to financial services in urban America, from the World Bank to a community in Philadelphia wrestling with the anguish of people living with HIV/AIDS. During his professional life he has help found a number of volunteer-based, nonprofit organizations, has worked on six continents and has been involved in the education of students from over 100 countries, both at Penn and around the world. His best known books are Paradoxes of Group Life (co-authored with David N. Berg), MANNA in the Wilderness of AIDS: Ten Lessons in Abundance, Yearning for Home in Troubled Times and Groups in Conflict: Prisons in Disguise. His latest book is The Abundance-Scarcity Paradox. Approaching the end of his years in academia, Kenwyn is currently working on four books. They are Teamwork is Destroying Organizations; The Heart of Leadership: Lessons from Lincoln, Gandhi and Mandela; Emergent Millennial Addictions; and Healing Economics.