Tojo Thatchenkery
Professor, Organization Development and Knowledge Management

thatchen@gmu.edu
phone: 703.993.3808
fax: 703.993.8215
George Mason School of Public Policy
3401 Fairfax Drive – MS 3B1
Arlington, VA 22201

Education

PhD in Organizational Behavior, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
M.A. in Organizational Psychology, University of Delhi, India
B.A. in Psychology, University of Delhi, India

Biography

Tojo Thatchenkery is Professor of Organization Development and Knowledge Management at the School of Public Policy. He is also a member of the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science (www.ntl.org) and the Taos Institute (www.taosinstitute.net). Dr. Thatchenkery has over twenty years of experience in teaching at various Public Policy, MBA, Organization Development, and executive programs in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Dr. Thatchenkery founded the Masters in New Professional Studies program at George Mason University (with Professor Hugh Sockett) and served as its director since its inception in 1995 until 2001. He also founded the Organizational Learning Laboratory at the George W. Johnson Learning Center and served as its director from 1995 to 2000. During this time the facility was featured as one of the leading laboratories for organizational learning and knowledge management by the Academy of Management and the Project Management Journal and served clients such as Fannie Mae.

Dr. Thatchenkery's research has been funded by agencies such as the United States National Science Foundation and the U.S. National Security Agency. One of his recent books "Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn" was chosen by the Harvard Business Review as one of its recommended books for 2006 (www.appreciativeintelligence.com). "Appreciative Inquiry and Knowledge Management: A Social Constructionist Perspective," released in April 2007 and "Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge: Leveraging Knowledge Management for Strategic Change" (2005) both describe a new methodology developed by Dr. Thatchenkery that uses affirmative processes to unlock the power of knowledge management for organizational transformation. He has also used the appreciative lens to study contemporary themes such as globalization and offshoring which has resulted in the recent release of another book (co-edited), Information Communication Technology and Economic Development: Learning from the Indian Experience (2006).

For more than fifteen years Dr. Thatchenkery has been researching, consulting, and teaching in two areas, appreciative organizational design and ethnic social capital. Examples of the former include Appreciative Inquiry which he has teaching to graduate students at George Mason University since 1993. He has written extensively on appreciative processes in organizations, which include his doctoral dissertation, numerous refereed publications, and books. His second line of research and consulting focuses on Asian Americans and organizational mobility. Starting with his (co-edited) special issue of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences in 1997 on this topic, he is one of the first researchers to analyze the human and social capital dynamics unique to Asian Americans in federal agencies and corporate America. Dr. Thatchenkery regularly consults and offers workshops to public and private sector organizations on this topic.

Dr. Thatchenkery is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences and the Journal of Organizational Change Management. He is also the book review editor of the Journal of Organizational Change Management and the past Program Chair of the Research Methods Division of the 16000-member strong Academy of Management. Dr. Thatchenkery has extensive consulting experience in change management, organizational design, and knowledge management. Past and current clients include IBM, Fannie Mae, Booz Allen Hamilton, PNC Bank, Lucent Technologies, General Mills, British Petroleum, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, United States Department of Agriculture, EPA, and the Tata Consulting Services.

Tojo lives in Chantilly, Virginia with his wife and daughter and can be reached through thatchen@gmu.edu or www.appreciativeintelligence.com

Areas of Expertise
Organization development
Knowledge management
Ethnicity, organizational mobility, and diversity
Globalization, offshoring, and information communication technology