Kwaku is ranked the Number 2 innovation management scholar in the world. He has received an award as the Best Professor in Marketing and Innovation Management at Asia’s Best Business Schools Awards by CMO in Singapore. With his two co-authors, he won the Thomas Hustad Best Paper award in November 2015 for research published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, the world’s leading journal in innovation management.

He has won multiple Best Paper awards at the American Marketing Association, including the prestigious Best Paper contribution to knowledge in innovation and technology for his paper published in the Journal of Marketing in October 2005. He was appointed a member of the International Expert Panel for the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) in November 2015; a position in which he evaluates and recommends for funding academic research proposals on innovation and entrepreneurship. For several years he was on the Review Panel for the Australian Research Council and Hong Kong Government Competitive Research Grants.

Kwaku is the first, and to date, the only African scholar ever to have served on the Editorial Review Board of the American Journal of Marketing, the world’s leading marketing journal (July 2006 – June
2014). He won the Outstanding Reviewer Award of the Journal Marketing in 2007. He is on the Senior Advisory and Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and the European Journal of Marketing and on the review panel of several other academic journals.

Source: SBS

Barbara Lee Fredrickson (born June 15, 1964)^[1] is an American professor in the department of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology. She is also the Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (PEPLab) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fredrickson is a social psychologist who conducts research in emotions and positive psychology. Her main work is related to her broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, which suggests that positive emotions lead to novel, expansive, or exploratory behavior, and that, over time, these actions lead to meaningful, long-term resources such as knowledge and social relationships. She is the author of Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life (2009), a general-audience book that draws on her own research and that of other social scientists. The book's thesis is largely drawn from her work with Marcial Losada, claiming a mathematical ratio for happiness. The ratio, however, was, "based on a series of erroneous and, for the most part, completely illusory 'applications' of mathematics."^[2] Fredrickson was unable to reproduce the math behind her research published with Losada and has yet to disavow or apologize for the fraud.^[3]

She also released a new book in January 2013, Love 2.0, which discusses the supreme emotion of love, micro-moments of connection as well as how love can affect your biological and cellular make-up over time.

Fredrickson earned a bachelors in psychology from Carleton College in 1986 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1990. She was a professor at the University of Michigan for 10 years before moving to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Source: Wikipedia

Edgar Henry Schein (born March 5, 1928), a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture.^[1] He is the son of former University of Chicago professor Marcel Schein.

Schein's model of organizational culture originated in the 1980s. Schein (2004) identifies three distinct levels in organizational cultures:

1. artifacts and behaviours
2. espoused values
3. assumptions

The three levels refer to the degree to which the different cultural phenomena are visible to the observer.

• Artifacts include any tangible, overt or verbally identifiable elements in any organization. Architecture, furniture, dress code, office jokes, all exemplify organizational artifacts. Artifacts are the visible elements in a culture and they can be recognized by people not part of the culture.
• Espoused values are the organization's stated values and rules of behavior. It is how the members represent the organization both to themselves and to others. This is often expressed in official philosophies and public statements of identity. It can sometimes often be a projection for the future, of what the members hope to become. Examples of this would be employee professionalism, or a "family first" mantra. Trouble may arise if espoused values by leaders are not in line with the deeper tacit assumptions of the culture.^[2]
• Shared basic assumptions are the deeply embedded, taken-for-granted behaviours which are usually unconscious, but constitute the essence of culture. These assumptions are typically so well integrated in the office dynamic that they are hard to recognize from within.^[3]

Source: Wikipedia

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (/ˈmiːhaɪ ˈtʃiːksɛntmiːˌhɑːjiː/, Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály, pronounced [ˈt͡ʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj] (listen); born 29 September 1934) is a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognised and named the psychological concept of flow, a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.^[1][2] He is the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.^[3]

Csikszentmihalyi is noted for his work in the study of happiness and creativity, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 290 articles ^[9] or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.^[10] Csikszentmihalyi once said: "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason."^[11] His works are influential and are widely cited.^[12]

In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."^[16]

Source: Wikipedia

Rosabeth Moss Kanter (born March 15, 1943)^[3] is the Ernest L. Arbuckle professor of business at Harvard Business School.^[4] She is also director and chair of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative.^[5]

Business.com described Rosabeth Kanter's theory of management as establishing a framework managers can utilize to enhance the efficiency of corporate organizations. One of her theories suggested the manner by which a company operates influences attitudes of the work force. Kanter says employees show a variety of behaviors depending on whether structural support was in position. Her view is power emanates from informal and formal sources. Employees must have access to available resources to accomplish the organization’s objectives. It is also essential to promote the staff's skills and comprehension.^[29]

One article in Management Today cited Rosabeth Kanter as “probably the first woman to attain indisputable management guru status.” Aside from her expertise in change management, Kanter has interests in corporate strategies, self-confidence, and demographic shift. She has a fondness for conducting detailed research therefore earning the pseudonym, “The Thinking Woman’s Michael Porter.^[30]”

An article published in the San Diego Tribune on May 29, 2018, mentioned the Harvard professor’s idea the happiest employees can solve the most difficult problems and make a positive change in the lives of people. Teachers must adopt this stance if they want to stay in the teaching profession for many years.^[31]

In an interview with the Business Insider in 2015, Professor Kanter deplored the “miserable state of America’s infrastructure which impaired the economy and affected American citizens. According to the management expert, the blame must be put on federal and local politicians as well as Americans who elect them. Kanter emphasized the need for citizens to pay their taxes in sales, tourism, and usage. Likewise, it is imperative to market investments in infrastructure effectively. However, it is not the government’s job alone in building and promoting infrastructure. Entrepreneurs, technology, and collaboration between the public and private sectors are also important.

Source: Wikipedia

Clayton Magleby Christensen (April 6, 1952 – January 23, 2020) was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", first introduced in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma, which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century,^[1][2] and which led The Economist to term him "the most influential management thinker of his time."^[3] 

One of the main concepts depicted in this book is also his most disseminated and famous one: disruptive innovation. The concept has been growing in interest over time since 2004, according to Google Trends' data. However, due to constant misinterpretation, Christensen often wrote articles trying to explain the concept even further. Some of his other books are focused on specific industries and discuss social issues such as education and health care. Disrupting Class (2008) looks at the root causes of why schools struggle and offers solutions, while The Innovator's Prescription (2009) examines how to fix the American healthcare system. The latter two books have received numerous awards as the best books on education and health care in their respective years of publication. The Innovator's Prescription was also awarded the 2010 James A. Hamilton Award, by the College of Healthcare Executives.^[11]

At HBS, he taught an elective course he designed called "Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise", which teaches how to build and manage an enduring, successful company or transform an existing organization, and also in many of the school's executive education programs. Christensen was awarded a full professorship with tenure in 1998, and held eight honorary doctorates and an honorary chaired professorship at the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan.^[11]

Source: Wikipedia

Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning. He is known as the author of the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990, rev. 2006).

Senge emerged in the 1990s as a major figure in organizational development with the book The Fifth Discipline, in which he developed the notion of a learning organization. This conceptualizes organizations as dynamic systems (as defined in Systemics), in states of continuous adaptation and improvement.

In 1997, Harvard Business Review identified The Fifth Discipline as one of the seminal management books of the previous 75 years.^[7] For this work, he was named "Strategist of the Century" by Journal of Business Strategy, which said that he was one of a very few people who "had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today."^[7]

The book's premise is that too many businesses are engaged in endless search for a heroic leader who can inspire people to change. This effort creates grand strategies that are never fully developed. The effort to change creates resistance that finally overcomes the effort.^[8]

Senge believes that real firms in real markets face both opportunities and natural limits to their development. Most efforts to change are hampered by resistance created by the cultural habits of the prevailing system. No amount of expert advice is useful. It's essential to develop reflection and inquiry skills so that the real problems can be discussed. ^[8]

According to Senge, there are four challenges in initiating changes.

• There must be a compelling case for change.
• There must be time to change.
• There must be help during the change process.
• As the perceived barriers to change are removed, it is important that some new problem, not before considered important or perhaps not even recognized, doesn't become a critical barrier.

Source: Wikipedia

Teresa M. Amabile (born June 15, 1950) is an American academic who is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School.

Amabile is primarily known for her research and writing on creativity, dating to the late 1970s. Originally educated as a chemist, Amabile received her doctorate in psychology from Stanford University in 1977. She now studies how everyday life inside organizations can influence people and their performance. Her research encompasses creativity, productivity, innovation, and inner work life – the confluence of emotions, perceptions, and motivation that people experience as they react to events at work.^[1]

Amabile's most recent discoveries appear in her book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work.^[2] Published in August 2011 by Harvard Business Review Press, the book is co-authored with Amabile’s husband and collaborator, Steven Kramer, Ph.D.

Amabile has published over 100 scholarly articles and chapters, in outlets including top journals in psychology (such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and American Psychologist) and in management (Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal). She is also the author of The Work Preference Inventory and KEYS to Creativity and Innovation. Amabile has used insights from her research in working with various groups in business, government, and education, including Procter & Gamble, Novartis International AG, Motorola, IDEO, and the Creative Education Foundation. She has presented her theories, research results, and practical implications in dozens of forums, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Young Presidents’ Organization annual university, and the Front End of Innovation annual conference.

At Harvard Business School, Amabile has taught MBA and executive courses on managing for creativity, leadership, and ethics. Previously, at Brandeis University, she taught social psychology, organizational psychology, the psychology of creativity, and statistics. She served as the host-instructor of the 26-part series, Against All Odds: Inside Statistics, originally broadcast on PBS.^[3]

Source: Wikipedia