When, on November 29th 1990, the then Australian Treasurer Paul Keating faced a financial crisis that would severely damage major sections of the Australian economy he said “[t]his was the recession we had to have”.  Later, when queried about the […]

In the last decade, we have seen an increasing call for more interdisciplinary research.  This call has pervaded funding agencies – some of which now explicitly require ‘interdisciplinary’ teams in many funding proposals – journals, faculty hiring and promotion, and […]

In a discussion related to a Strategic Review of my school’s research function, the issue of individual and organizational ambition arose.  I thought this was an interesting discussion and think it reflects well on the key to the research strategy […]

The last few months have clearly been trying on the nerves and confidence of many British academics.  The vote for Brexit, and the divide it revealed between younger and more well-educated voters and those older and less well-educated, has reverberated […]

Business scholars constantly face criticism from the media and practitioners as to the “application value” of their research. Even many academics can be heard bemoaning the fact that our research is not just “ignored” by managers but is lacking in any “relevance” to management practice. Such viewpoints neither reflect the value that management scholarship plays in the daily operations of business schools nor does they account for the value that business academics play by be outsiders removed from the daily lives of managers. What is the role of scholarship in business schools?

The recent decline of the majority of Australian universities in the World University Rankings has university vice chancellors passing on the blame to the government and the system underlying the rankings. According to Prof Glyn Davis of The University of […]

Over the years I have interacted with a host of former AGSM (Australian Graduate School of Management) alums who queried me about the whereabouts of many of their former instructors.  While the “brand” of the AGSM remains and is still […]

In the last several weeks we have seen a number of universities beginning a significant push into the philanthropic space.  Some of this has been pre-planned as part of a longer term strategy.  For others it has been more of […]

According to many of my colleagues design thinking is all the rage and set to revolutionize the way we think about innovation.  However, despite hearing about it a various forums, attending a design thinking in education workshop, and seeing the […]

Across three continents we have seen questions being raised about the compensation paid to the heads of academic institutions.  This has mostly played out in the USA and the UK where the impact of the financial crisis and the downturn […]