Ronald Purser is Professor of Management in the College of Business and the Educational Doctorate in Leadership program in the College of Education at San Francisco State University. Prior to this, he was a tenured professor and Graduate Program Director at the Center for Organization Development at Loyola University of Chicago. Dr. Purser earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and his B.A. in Psychology from Sonoma State University. He is past Division Chair of the Organization Development and Change division of the Academy of Management.

His professional writings and publications currently focus on the application of Buddhist psychology and mindfulness practices to management, and organizations.  His recent articles include Revisiting Mindfulness: A Buddhist-Based Conceptualization (with J. Milillo at Harvard); Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance; Zen and the Creative Management of Dilemmas (with A. Low); Deconstructing Lack: A Buddhist Perspective on Egocentric Organizations; and A Buddhist-Lacanian Perspective on Lack. More recently, Prof. Purser writings have been exploring the challenges and issues of introducing mindfulness into secular contexts, particularly with regards to its encounter with modernity, Western consumer capitalism, and individualism. His article, "Beyond McMindfulness" (with D. Loy) in the Huffington Post, went viral in 2013.

In 1981, he began attending classes and retreats at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. His formal Zen training started at the Cleveland Zen Center in 1985 under Koshin Ogui Sensei, who had been Shunryu Suzuki’s personal assistant in the early 1960’s. After returning to San Francisco in 1997, he continued to study and practice with Zen teachers and Tibetan lamas, is now an ordained Dharma instructor in the Korean Zen Buddhist Taego order. 

Dr. Purser is co-author five books including, The Search Conference (Jossey-Bass, 1996), Social Creativity, Volumes 1 & 2 (Hampton Press, 1999), The Self-Managing Organization (The Free Press, 1998), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society (Stanford University Press, 2007), and over 60 academic journal articles and book chapters in such outlets as the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, Tamara, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and The Humanistic Psychologist

His past scholarship has focused on temporality in organizations, virtuality and cyberspace, social creativity, organizations and the natural environment, Buddhist social theory, psychoanalysis and organizations, sociotechnical systems redesign of knowledge work, organizational learning and democratic self-management . Dr. Purser has been a recipient of numerous U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation grant awards. .

He is currently on the executive boards of the Compassion, Mindfulness and Consciousness (CM) International Association, Center for Creative Inquiry, and President of Timeless Wisdom--both non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organizations.

Prior to his academic career, he was a journeyman industrial electrician at a number of factories in Chicago, including the historic Pullman-Standard plant. He was a member of the IBEW. His other interests and hobbies include playing electric guitar (blues), qigong, tai chi, weight-lifting and Zen and Tibetan Buddhist meditation.
Phone: 415 338-2380
Address: 1600 Holloway Avenue
BUS 349
College of Business
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132