Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D.

Distinguished Scholar in Residence Emeritus
School of Public Affairs
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016-8022

Email: marshak@american.edu
Phone: 703-629-7504

Robert J. Marshak is Distinguished Scholar in Residence Emeritus in the School of Public Affairs at American University, Washington, DC. Bob has also led a global consulting practice specializing in organizational change for more than 35 years. Previously he served almost 10 years in senior executive management and policy analysis positions in the US Government. In addition to his association with the Taos Institute, Bob is an emeritus member of NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and a member of the US Academy of Management and Organization Development Network. Among his many honors and awards, he received the Organization Development Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Educator Award from the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management.

Dr. Marshak earned his Ph.D. from American University, Washington, DC and his undergraduate degree from Duke University. He is the author of Covert Processes at Work: Managing the Five Hidden Dimensions of Organizational Change (2006, Berrett-Koehler Publishers), Organizational Change: Views from the Edge (2009, The Lewin Center) and co-editor with Gervase Bushe of Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change (2015, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) as well as more than 90 articles and book chapters on organizational consulting and change. He received the 2017 Awards for Best Articles in the Organization Development Practitioner and Organization Development Journal, the 2009 Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for the Best Article in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and his research on discourse and organization development was recognized by the US Academy of Management with Best Paper Awards in 2004 and 2009. Bob has served as Acting Chair of the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University, Acting Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Secretary of the Organization Development Network, and Vice-Chair of the Board of NTL Institute.

Bob was born and lives in the United States. During military service in the early 1970s he was trained and certified by the Defense Language Institute in the Korean language before living in South Korea for a year. His consulting practice has included organizational consulting, coaching, and training assignments in Brazil, Canada, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Over the years, Bob has also worked with thousands of participants in OD and change leadership programs at NTL Institute, American University, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, University of Texas at Dallas, US National Labor College, Korea University, and the Singapore Training and Development Association. For NTL Institute he designed and served as Dean for residential workshops in conflict management, organizational change, and dealing with covert processes. He has also served as Dean for NTL Certificate programs in Organization Development and Change Management conducted in Korea, Singapore and India. Bob is widely recognized for his pioneering work on covert processes in organizational change, East Asian change philosophy, the use of metaphors and symbolic meaning in organizational change, being one of the co-creators of Dialogic Organization Development and as a thought leader in the field of organization development and change. A chapter about him and his work appears in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, 2017.