Personal profile

Research interests

Prior to becoming an academic I had been a banker (retail and mergers and acquisitions), an official of a national trade union organization, and responsible for research at a leading international accountancy body. I completed my doctorate in accounting part-time at the London School of Economics. That diverse background has fuelled my intellectual interest and is reflected in the wide range of journals I have published in - including: Accounting Forum; Accounting, Organizations & Society; Journal of International Business Studies; Journal of Organizational Change Management; Human Relations Organization Studies; and The Political Quarterly. My research seeks to understand the specifics (evolution and consequences) of contemporary business organizations and the wider political-economy. I’m particularly interested in explanations of the dynamic-historical changes within economies/societies which do not resort to bland deterministic or teleological notions. Thus, for example, I have written critically about the explanatory and conceptual weaknesses of concepts such as ‘national culture’, ‘post-bureaucracy’, ‘modernization’, ‘globalisation’, ‘psychological reductionism’ and ‘certainty’. I’m interested in supervising research which first and foremost is inspired by open-minded curiosity – empirically grounded and theoretically rich analysis of business/economic behaviour, processes, and/or institutions. I’m not interested in what merely legitimates what the researcher somehow already ‘knew’ before researching/writing their dissertation. Although research which is predominantly quantitative has, of course, a contribution, indeed there are questions which uniquely can only be effectively addressed with such methods, my focus is on qualitative research. 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Accounting, PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science

Award Date: 8 Feb 1995

External positions

Visiting Professor , Stockholms universitet

Keywords

  • Accountancy
  • Financial Analysis, Financial Reporting
  • European business studies
  • Culture, Bureaucracy, Financial Markets