Janice Klein

Janice Klein is a Senior Lecturer in Organizational Change at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Klein currently teaches leadership in the Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) and System and Design Management (SDM) programs. Her recent research, summarized in True Change: How Outsiders on the Inside Get Things Done in Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 2004), explores knowledge transfer and the application of new ideas and concepts at the workplace. In addition, she leads a multidisciplinary research team investigating virtual collaboration and the development and maintenance of high-performance globally dispersed teams. Klein’s earlier research has focused on aligning operations and human resource strategies in the areas of job design, team leadership, employee empowerment, and organizational change.

She is a graduate of General Electric Company’s Manufacturing Management Program. During her years at GE (1972–1981), she held various manufacturing and human resource management positions. In addition, she coordinated several organizational change efforts aimed at increasing employee involvement. Klein has consulted on teams and organizational change with United Technologies, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, and Goodyear. Her publications include, “Why Supervisors Resist Employee Involvement” (Harvard Business Review, August/September 1984), “The Human Costs of Manufacturing Reform” (Harvard Business Review, March/April, 1989), and “Job Design” (The Handbook of Technology Management, 1998). Her textbook, Revitalizing Manufacturing: Text and Cases (Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1990), focuses on the implementation of new manufacturing systems and technologies.

Klein holds a BS in industrial engineering from Iowa State University, an MBA from Boston University, and a PhD in industrial relations from the MIT Sloan School of Management.