Jo A. Tyler, Ed.D.

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Associate Professor Emerita of Training and Development, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education

Prior to joining Penn State Harrisburg, Jo held progressive roles as an organization development practitioner for several manufacturing firms in the Fortune 500 including Armstrong World Industries, Pratt & Whitney, Otis Elevator, and Hewlett-Packard. Her most recent role as a “corporate insider” was vice president of Organization and Management Development for Armstrong World Industries in which she was responsible for balancing the need to sustain critical cultural elements with the need for system-wide shifts both the overall culture and strategy. Within this context, her worldwide responsibilities and areas of innovation included strategy training and development, performance/career management and succession planning, process improvement, including GE-based approaches to process improvement such as Work Out and Six Sigma, organizational redesign, and employee satisfaction measurement.

Jo has travelled extensively for business throughout Europe and the Far East. Her international activities have included a three-year expatriate assignment as the manager of Training and Development for the UK and Ireland with Otis Plc in London, the honor of being a loaned executive for four years to Otis South Africa to deliver development workshops to NGO leadership and volunteers in a number of townships, and three years as the general manager for China Training with Pratt & Whitney. She has a deep appreciation for diversity and multicultural inclusion in organizations and in the classroom, and delights in the opportunities it offers. Jo is also a storyteller. In her keynotes, workshops, and customized performances, Jo draws deeply on her own diversity of experience, focusing on the details that make the personal universal, and possibilities inherent in taking risks.

In addition to her teaching, research, and program responsibilities at Penn State Harrisburg, Jo provides organizational and management consulting services to both for-profit and non-profit organizations of all shapes and sizes. She has expertise in learning and change strategies, executive coaching, workshop design and delivery, and group process facilitation for innovation, transcending conflict, and problem solving. She is particularly interested in the influence and interplay of stories, storytelling and organizational narratives, and has published articles and book chapters on storytelling and other topics related to organizational development. Jo has also taught as an adjunct at the graduate level for Columbia University Teachers College, and undergraduate writing courses at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design.

  • Storytelling in Organizations
  • The Role of Visual Art in Organizations
  • Organization Development, Learning, and Change
  • Transformative Learning
  • Expansive and Reflective Teaching and Facilitation
  • Play

Tyler, J.A. (2017). What really happens when adults play?: A call for examining the intersection of psychosocial spaces, group energy, and purposeful play. International Journal of Game-Based Learning. 7(3). 1-10. DOI: 10.4018/IJGBL.2017070101

Tyler, J.A., Lombardozzi, C. (2017). Ways of thinking, being and doing: The scholar-practitioner mindset for successfully innovating HRD. Advances in Developing Human Resources. 19(3). 232-246. DOI: 10.1177/1523422317710909

Lombardozzi, C., Tyler, J.A. (2017). Through a kaleidoscope: Dimensions of scholarly practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources. 19(3). 247-261. DOI: 10.1177/1523422317710896

Tyler, J.A. (2015). From spoke to hub: Transforming organizational vision and strategy with story and visual art. Adult Education Quarterly. 65(4). 326-342.

Gedro, J. & Tyler, J.A. (2014). Managing the Workforce: Sexual Orientation and HRD. In Chalofsky, N, Rocco, T., & Morris, L. (Eds.) The Handbook of HRD: Theory and application. Jossey-Bass. 314-325.

Tyler, J.A. (2013). Sociable stories, socialized narratives, and social cognitive theory: Strategic telling and listening in organizations. In M. Paludi (Ed.) The Psychology for Business Success Volume Four: Implementing Best Practices in Human Resources. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. 73-90.

Tyler, J.A. (2013). Opening the learning space: Giving primacy to students' stories of experience. In Wang, V.C.X. Wang (Ed.) Handbook of research on teaching and learning in K-20 education. IGI Global. 201-213.

Tyler, J.A. & Swartz. A. (2012). Storytelling and transformative learning. In Taylor, E.W. & Cranton, P. (Eds.) The handbook of transformative learning. Jossey-Bass. 455-470.

Tyler, J.A. (2012). Helping Diversity Matter: Fostering Liminal Spaces for Authentic Interaction. In Boje, D.M., Burnes, B., & Hassard, J. (Eds.) The Routledge companion to organizational change. Routledge Press. 476-491.

Tyler, J.A. (2011). Living story and antenarrative in organizational accidents. In Boje, D.M. (Ed.), Storytelling and the future of organizations: An antenarrative handbook. New York: Routledge. 137- 147.

Tyler, J. A. (2011). Story aliveness. In D. Boje & K. Baskin (Eds.), Dance to the music of story: Storytelling and complexity. ISCE Publishing. 62-78.

Tyler, J.A. & Mullen, F. (2011). Telling tales in school: Storytelling for self-reflection and pedagogical improvement in clinical legal education. Clinical Law Review. 18(1). 283-337.

Tyler, J.A. (2010). Can You Hear Me Now? Reclaiming Rare Listening as a Means of Re-enchantment. Journal of Organizational Change Management. 24(1).

Tyler, J.A. (2010). Bifurcation and Liberation: Deconstructing the story of a turn-of-the-century lesbian (part two). New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resources Development. 24(1) 24-42.

Tyler, J.A. (2009). Charting the course: How storytelling fosters communicative learning in the workplace. In Mezirow, J. & Taylor, E. (Eds.) Transformative Learning in Action: A Practitioner Handbook. 136-147.

Tyler, J.A. (2009). Moving beyond the binaries: Exploring the liminal possibilities of the scholar-practitioner borderlands. Advances in Developing Human Resources. 11(4)523-535.

Tyler, J.A. (2009). Bifurcation and Liberation: Deconstructing the story of a turn-of-the century lesbian (part one). New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. 23(3) 32-50.

Boje, D.M. & Tyler, J.A. (2009). Story and narrative noticing: Workaholism auto ethnographies, Journal of Business Ethics. 8(4). 173-194.

Tyler, J.A. & Boje, D.M. (2008). Sorting the relationship of tacit knowledge to story and narrative knowing. In Jemielniak, D., Kozminski, L., and Kociatkiewicz, J. (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Knowledge-Intensive Organizations. 81-97

Tyler, J.A. & Rosen, G. (2008). The story holds its heart: Living story expression in reflexive storytelling. Storytelling, Self, Society. 4(2). 102-121.

Tyler, J.A. (2007). Incorporating storytelling into practice: How HRD practitioners foster strategic storytelling. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 18(4), 559-587.

Tyler, J.A. (2007). Cats and turtles, grinches and pachyderms: Mythical inspirations for organizational realities in Dr. Seuss. In Kostera, M. (Ed.), Mythical inspirations for organizational realities. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. 53-62.

Tyler, J.A. (2006). Only the shadow knows: Increasing organizational polyphony with liminal storytelling. Tamara: Journal of Critical Post-Modern Organizational Science - Sensemaking, Storytelling, and the Power of Relatedness. 5(4), 109-134.

Tyler, J.A. (2006). Re-searching research models: What is emergent, elastic, and non-linear all over? Human Resource Development Review. 5(4) 494-505.

Tyler, J.A. (2006). Introduction to the special issue: Storytelling in organizations. Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies. 2(2),1-4.

B.S.; M.S.; Ed.D. (Columbia)