Paul R. Lawrence is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior Emeritus at Harvard Business School. During his forty-four years on the Harvard faculty, he taught in all the School’s programs and served as chairman of the Organizational Behavior unit and of both the MBA program and the Advanced Management Program for senior executives.  He did undergraduate work in sociology and economics at Albion College and earned his MBA and doctorate at Harvard Business School.

Lawrence has published 25 books and numerous articles focusing on the human aspects of management.  In particular he has studied organizational change, organizational design, and the relationship between the structural characteristics of complex organizations and the technical, market and other conditions of their immediate environment.  His best-known titles (with coauthors) are Organization and Environment, The Changing of Organizational Behavior Patterns, Renewing American Industry, and Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices (written with Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria)