Fred Emery

Frederick "Fred" Edmund Emery (27 August 1925 – 10 April 1997) was an Australian psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in the field of organizational development (OD), particularly in the development of theory around participative work design structures such as self-managing teams. He was widely regarded as one of the finest social scientists of his generation. His contribution to the theory and practice of organizational life will remain important well into the 21st century, particularly amongst those who feel uncomfortable with hierarchical bureaucracy and want to replace it with something more human and democratic.

Emery was born in Narrogin, Western Australia, as the son of a drover. He left school as Dux of Fremantle Boys' High in Western Australia, aged only fourteen. He gained his honours degree in science from the University of Western Australia in 1946, and joined the teaching staff of the Department in 1947. He subsequently spent nine years on the staff of the Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, where he obtained his PhD in 1953. During 1951–52, he held a UNESCO Fellowship in social sciences and was attached to the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the UK.

A psychologist by training, his academic appointment at Melbourne University was where he made significant contributions to rural sociology, CPA, and the effects of film and television viewing.

He left Australia in 1957 and went to London to join the staff of the Tavistock Institute, where the majority of his early work was then done. He had worked with Eric Trist on the recently discovered concept of sociotechnical systems in 1951–52 when he was UNESCO Research Fellow. This was where he wished to be and he returned to the to continue to work with Trist. He subsequently published 'The Characteristics of Sociotechnical Systems' in 1959.

Constantly drawn towards testing social science theory in field settings, he and Eric Trist, one of his closest intellectual collaborators, and other colleagues, established "open socio-technical systems theory" as an alternative paradigm for organisational design – field-tested on a national scale in Norway, in partnership with Einar Thorsrud.

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