Mary Finney has been teaching with a focus on sustainability in undergraduate and graduate courses: Org. Behavior; Leadership; Team Building; Business Ethics; Career Development; Org. Communication, Women in International Development, Human Resources, Action Learning in Mgmt; Business and Social Entrepreneurship; Org. Change; Management of Self - at Hiram College, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ U, Regis U, Naropa U, and for the past 10 years at Ohio University. Mary lived and worked in India as a young adult and has conducted organizational research in India for more than three decades. More recently she taught Organizational Behavior in two MBA programs in Bangalore, India for Ohio University and Marshall University. Mary was a team leader on two major, long-term projects at ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½: Social Innovations for Global Management (SIGMA) and Global Excellence in Management (GEM). Both projects were designed to support capacity building in organizations that’s mission and goals were to make the world a better place: non-profit, governmental and for-profit organizations working on hunger, poverty, education, sustainability, disaster, health and well-being for poorest regions throughout the world.
She was a Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. Johns University in Collegeville, MN. Her research focuses on: 1) transformational inquiry and change through collaborative learning and partnership development; 2) the renewable, teachable spirit of organizations, leaders, change agents and scholar-activists; 3) appreciative, aesthetic inquiry through action-research and the deepening of the contemplative/reflective sense-making processes; and 4) teaching of sustainability and flourishing across the curriculum in Management Schools. She has worked as a team member, consultant and facilitator for the two largest interfaith organizations in the world: United Religions Initiative (URI) and The Parliament for World Religions.
Mary co-founded and co-led two chapters of the Society for International Development. She has served on the Consortium for International Development’s (CID) - Women in International Development Board. She was an administrative leader in the International Development Office at Washington State University (WSU); co-led cross-campus programs for internationalizing of the university. At WSU she also led organizational development and leadership workshops for the International Development Consortium (CID) - eleven major western land grant universities working together on international development projects and the systemic process of internationalizing their universities. Mary served on the Executive Board of the International Development Conference in Washington D.C. She co-founded a state-wide network and project: Ohio in the World and designed and conducted international development education projects locally and nationally. She is an organizational development consultant to non-profit, businesses, government and universities throughout the USA and globally. She is a past board member of Rural Action: a ten county, sustainability-focused non-profit organization in S.E. Ohio (Appalachia).
She is now serving in the four-year leadership track of the Academy of Management’s - Management, Spirituality and Religion (MSR) Interest Group and is currently serving as the MSR Program Chair for the 2016 AOM Annual Meetings. Mary is currently teaching the Sustainable Mindset & the AIM2Flourish curriculum in Management courses at Ohio University. She is a member of the Leading for Well-Being Consortium, the Humanistic Management Network, Aim2Flourish Faculty Network, and a member of LEAP! - a UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Working Group on the Sustainability Mindset - a global network of business school professors promoting an evolutionary shift in consciousness. She is a long-term member of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. She received her PhD from the Organizational Behavior Department, Weatherhead School of Management, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½. She studied at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland for thirteen years and completed the three-year post-graduate Gestalt certificate program. Mary is a certified yoga teacher.