Affiliation:
1. Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
2. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Abstract
Clayton Paul Alderfer died on October 30, 2015. In addition to the people he left behind (family, friends, colleagues, and former students), Clay also bequeathed a richly varied scholarly legacy. This article introduces the reader to Alderfer’s life and work. Since Alderfer believed that one’s work is influenced by one’s stage of life, his work is presented in chronological order from early adulthood through late adulthood. What emerges is a picture of how the major intellectual themes he worked on—need theory, embedded intergroup relations, organizational diagnosis, and race relations—developed over the course of his adult life. Alderfer is presented in his own words, sentences and paragraphs excerpted from his published legacy, to minimize interpretation and maximize the reader’s exposure to the man and his ideas.