James D. Ludema, Ph.D., Organizational Behavior, Case Western Reserve University) is a professor in the Ph.D. program in Organization Development at Benedictine University. Previously, he was senior lecturer and executive director of the Social Innovations in Global Management Program at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.
Ludema is the author of more than 20 articles, book chapters and books, including best paper selections. His work has appeared in Human Relations, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Research in Organizational Change and Development, Handbook of Action Research, Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, and Organization Development Journal, among others. His most recent book is "The Appreciative Inquiry Summit: A Practitioner's Guide for Leading Large Group Change" with Diana Whitney, Bernard J. Mohr, and Thomas J. Griffin (Berrett-Koehler, 2003).
His research focuses on appreciative inquiry, organization change and design, positive organizational scholarship, business as an agent of world benefit, and whole system methodologies for strategic change. His work has been funded by various agencies including the National Science Foundation. Ludema is an active member of the Academy of Management and sits on the editorial board of the Action Research Journal. He was an invited distinguished scholar to the first conference on Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan (2001) and the first conference on Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case Western Reserve University (2003).
Ludema is an internationally-recognized organizational consultant and a principal in the Corporation for Positive Change, a global firm that includes the world's leading thinkers and practitioners of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). For more than a decade, has been an innovator and thought leader in the field of Appreciative Inquiry, teaching it in the doctoral program at Benedictine University, offering public workshops and keynote addresses, and serving as a lead organizer of the First (2001) and Second (2004) International Conference on AI.
His practice focuses on the use of Appreciative Inquiry for large-scale corporate change initiatives, including strategy development, leadership development, core business redesign, culture change, customer service, and mergers and acquisitions. He has worked in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America with organizations in the corporate, non-profit and government sectors, including Merck, BP, McDonald's, John Deere, Ameritech, US Cellular, Northern Telecom, Square D Company, Essef Corporation, Bell and Howell, Kaiser Permanente, World Vision, the City of Minneapolis, and many local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
