Gib Akin 

Professor of Commerce

Office phone: 434-924-3847
e-mail: gakin@virginia.edu

Education:

Ph.D., Organizational Behavior, University of California at Los Angeles
B.A., Liberal Arts, Shimer College

Areas of Expertise:

Professor Akin teaches and researches organizational behavior at the McIntire School and has held an appointment as a visiting fellow at the University of Salford, in England. He was educated at Shimer College and UCLA, receiving a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from UCLA's Graduate School of Management. Before undertaking graduate work, he spent 10 years in the data processing industry as a systems engineer and account representative with IBM and as director of Administrative Systems for UCLA. 

Professor Akin offers courses in interpersonal and small group dynamics and in cultural approaches to organization analysis and change. He also has taught qualitative research methods in the Sociology Department and supervised doctoral research in management, sociology, psychology, and education. He is currently experimenting with providing team building for student teams in the Integrated Core Experience program, McIntire's third-year curriculum. His own continuing research focuses on the meaning of work, the creation of high-performance work cultures, and models of managerial learning. Most recently, he has championed new approaches to creative writing on work, management, and organizations.

Professional Activities:

Constructivist and cultural approaches to work, organizational change, and managerial learning developed by Professor Akin have been applied in numerous organizations. A partial list of clients includes Corning, DuPont, Westinghouse, the U.S. Courts, the Virginia Department of Transportation, Centel, and the University of Virginia Hospitals. Professor Akin is a regular contributor to programs of the Federal Executive Institute. He is well known as a group facilitator and for his work with narratives and metaphors in the practice of organizational development. His popular new teambuilding workbook is published by McGraw-Hill.

With articles, monographs, and videos on organizational culture, change, and managerial learning, Professor Akin is a popular lecturer and seminar leader. He has served as associate editor of Journal of Management Education and is now on its editorial board and that of Journal of Organizational Change Management. He is a member of the Academy of Management, the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, and the American Psychological Association.

Selected Publications:

"Learning About Work from Joe Cool," Journal of Management Inquiry, 1999. 

Team Building Workbook, McGraw-Hill, 1999. 

"Putting Metaphors to Work for Change in Organizations," Organizational Dynamics, 1999 (with I. Palmer).

"Racy Talk at Work," Management Learning, 1995. 

"Self-Directed Learning in Management," Journal of Management Education, August 1991. 

"Jazz Bands and Missionaries: OD through Stories and Metaphor," Journal of Managerial Psychology, 1990. 

"Varieties of Managerial Learning," Organizational Dynamics, Autumn 1987. 

"Finding the Culture of Productivity," Organizational Dynamics, Winter 1986.