Harold L. Wilensky - Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry

About the Author

Harold L. Wilensky (19232011) was a professor of sociology and political science for more than fifty years at the University of California, Berkeley. Wilensky made major contributions to understanding the impact of industrial transformation on the structure, culture, and politics of modern society. He was a pioneer in the study of the welfare state and social policy, the intellectual life of labor unions, and the structural and ideological roots of intelligence failures in government and industry.

He was educated at Antioch College and received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. He served in the United States military in various capacities, including service in the European Theater in World War II, and worked with unions and in voting rights before joining the faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley (the latter in the departments of sociology and, later, political science).

Wilensky produced 75 articles and 13 books that are regarded as interdisciplinary, innovative, rigorous, substantively rich, and focused on important real-world issues. Among his books are American Political Economy in Global Perspective (2012), Rich Democracies (2002), Industrial Society and Social Welfare (1958), The Welfare State and Equality (1975), and Intellectuals in Labor Unions (1956). The prize-winning book Organizational Intelligence (1967) focused on the structural and ideological roots of intelligence failures in government and industry.

Wilensky was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was twice a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. At Berkeley, he was a research project director at the Institute for International Studies. He served on the executive committees of the Institute of Industrial Relations and the Survey Research Center. He was on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review, Industrial Relations, the Journal of Human Resources, and Social Problems.

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