Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D. Dean's Professor of Leadership and Motivation (Emeritus) R.H. Smith School of Business University of Maryland

Edwin A. Locke is Dean's Professor of Leadership and Motivation (Emeritus) at the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his BA from Harvard in 1960 and his Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology from Cornell University in 1964

He has published over 300 chapters, notes and articles in professional journals, on such subjects as work motivation, job satisfaction, incentives, and the philosophy of science. He is also the author or editor of 11 books, including Study Methods and Study Motivation (Second Renaissance Books, 1998), Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique that Works (Prentice Hall, 1984, with G. Latham), A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance (Prentice Hall, 1990, with G. Latham), Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior (Blackwell, 2000; 2nd edition Wiley, 2009), The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators (AMACOM, 2000; 2nd edition Ayn Rand Bookstore, 2008), Post Modernism and Management: Pos, Cons and the Alternative (Elsevier Science, 2003), and The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Reason and Passion (Platform Press, 2011, with E. Kenner). His goal setting theory (developed with Gary Latham) was rated as #1 in importance among 73 management theories.

Dr. Locke has been elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, of the American Psychological Society, and of the Academy of Management. He has won prestigious scholarly awards from the Association for Psychological Science, the Academy of Management and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He is interested in the application of the philosophy of Objectivism to the behavioral sciences and role of induction in scientific theory-building.