John O'Shaughnessy

John O'Shaughnessy (1927 – 11 April 2023) was a British academic and business writer.

Before entering academia, O'Shaughnessy was a marketing manager and industrial consultant. He taught at the Judge Institute of Management Studies at University of Cambridge and then at Cranfield School of Management. From 1967, he was a lecturer at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York, where he retired as an emeritus professor of business.

Early life O'Shaughnessy was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, England in 1927. He served in the education branch of the Royal Air Force in India, Pakistan, Iraq, and Egypt. Quoting Abraham Kaplan, he often joked that academics trained in a specific social science tradition were like a small boy given a hammer who finds "that everything he encounters needs pounding." His books have been translated into eight languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, German, Dutch, Japanese and Russian). Morris B. Holbrook wrote of his “brilliantly compendious, beautifully integrated books” which, together with his conversation, “burst with intellectual energy, creative impulses, and unbounded curiosity.”

Personal life John O'Shaughnessy was married for 64 years to Marjorie Jackson (1930–2018) by whom he had two sons, Nicholas and Andrew O'Shaughnessy.

O'Shaughnessy died in The Villages, Florida on 11 April 2023, at the age of 95.

Publications O'Shaughnessy published fourteen books on business topics, two of which, on organization, going back to 1965, were reissued. He published in many marketing journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Marketing Science.

Books published by John O’Shaughnessy include:

Business Organization, Allen and Unwin, U.K. 1966. Humanities Press, New York (translations: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, German). Work Study Applied to a Sales Force, British Institute of Management, 1965 (translation: Dutch). Analyzing and Controlling Business Procedures, Cassels U.K., 1969 (translation: Japanese). Evaluate Your Sales Force, British Institute of Management, 1971. Inquiry and Decision, Allen and Unwin U.K. 1972, Barnes and Noble, New York (translation: Polish). Patterns of Business Organization, Allen and Unwin, and Halsted Press, Division of John Wiley & Sons, New York 1976. Translation: Russian). Four impressions/reprintings. Competitive Marketing: A Strategic Approach, George Allen and Unwin, Boston/London, 1984. English Language Book Society (ELBS) selection, 1986. (translation: Spanish). Third Edition (1995) published by Routledge plus a teacher's manual. Russian translation. Why People Buy, Oxford University Press, 1987 (translation: Polish, Spanish). Explaining Buyer Behavior: Central Concepts and Philosophy of Science Issues. Oxford University Press, 1992. The Marketing Power of Emotion (with N.J. O’Shaughnessy), 2003, Oxford University Press (translation: Chinese edition). Persuasion in Advertising (with N.J. O’Shaughnessy), 2004, Routledge (translations: Chinese and Korean editions). The Undermining of Beliefs in the Autonomy and Rationality of Consumers with (N.J. O’Shaughnessy), 2007, Routledge. Interpretation in Social Life, Social Science and Marketing (2009). London, Routledge. Consumer Behavior: Perspectives, Findings & Explanations (2013). Palgrave, Macmillan.