Patricia Arenas Bautista, Ph.D.
Centro de Investigaciones Psicologicas y Sociologicas (CIPS)
La Habana, Cuba
Email: arenas@infomed.sld.cu
Patricia Arenas Bautista facilitates “Cultures of Participation” for
businesses and community groups as a psychologist, organization
development (OD) researcher, consultant, and coach. She founded the
Human Change Group at the Havana-based Center for Psychological and
Sociological Studies (CIPS), where she served in various leadership
capacities over the past 25 years. While officially “retired,” Patricia
continues to lead a network of over 200 OD professionals throughout
Cuba, and she facilitates a nation-wide Appreciative Inquiry Learning
Community, addressing such systemic issues as the clean-up of the Bay of
Havana, university curriculum reform, and a national campaign to
eradicate homophobia. Partnering with The Taos Institute and The
Vallarta Institute, Patricia coordinates the Human Change website where
she posts Spanish translations of OD Practitioner articles, publications
from OD practitioners in Cuba and throughout Latin America, and
information on the annual International Workplace Empowerment and
Communications Conference that she facilitates (www.cips.cu/gch/index.php).
Patricia is a former director of the Society of Cuban Psychologists and
lead of its OD Section. She has published numerous books and scholarly
articles and is a regular presenter at conferences around the world. Her
boundary-breaking book, Cultures of Participation at Work in Cuba and
the US, is a compilation of workplace participation articles co-authored
with 12 US and Cuban OD professionals, including OD pioneers Edgar
Schein, Diana Whitney, Angela Casana Mata and Roberto Corral Ruso.