Faculty

Fran Ackermann gained a BA degree from the University of Western Australia, and a doctorate from University of Strathclyde.

Her research has concentrated on the role of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) for strategic management - work entailing collaboration with senior personnel in the Home Office, various Publishing companies, Scottish Natural Heritage, Northern Ireland Health and Social Services etc. She is also interested in the link between Decision Support Systems and GDSS (in particular the implementation of strategy and appropriate performance measurement) and the role computers can play in helping decision makers work with complex issues and manage knowledge.

She currently runs the European Working Group on Group Decision and Negotiation and is associate editor for both MISQ and Group Decision and Negotiation. With Colin Eden, Terry Williams and Susan Howick she is part of a team investigating risk on large scale projects.

Valerie Belton gained degrees in mathematics and OR from Durham and Lancaster Universities respectively.

She then took up a post with the Civil Aviation Authority, before completing a Doctorate at Cambridge .

Prior to joining Strathclyde she held a lectureship in the OR Department at the University of Kent .

She is well-known for her work on Multi-Criteria Decision-Making, was President of the International Society for MCDM from 2000- 2004 and is Editor of JMCDA. Another key research interest is student-centred teaching and learning, particularly the role of reflection. She is currently President of the UK Operational Research Society (2004-2006). Her main “relaxation” is in the form of the classical OR problem of route choice – orienteering on foot or mountain bike.

MBA (Strathclyde)

A lecturer in management, Ron joined the former Strathclyde Graduate Business School in 1991, and has taught on the UK and International MBA programmes in Asia, the Gulf and Europe, and IDGS programmes in Thailand and Hong Kong. He has also held concurrent visiting academic positions at institutions in Poland, Switzerland and Singapore.

Resident in Abu Dhabi since 2005, he is responsible for the operations and development of the Business School's campuses in the United Arab Emirates, which in addition to the MBA, offer an expanding range of postgraduate degree courses. Alongside the UAE, Ron also has responsibility for the International MBA centres in Oman, and Bahrain. Before moving to the UAE, he spent 6 years in Singapore and 3 years in Shanghai managing the International MBA centres in Asia.

Ron's research interest focuses on institutional learning and sense-making processes in organisations for explicating and accommodating contextual uncertainty and ambiguity in strategic planning. In particular, he is interested in scenario thinking and associated future studies techniques, and the process issues and cognitive barriers which affect sense making and impede individual and group learning in these techniques.

Alongside his academic activities, Ron has broad consulting experience, having designed and led numerous scenario and strategy projects with national and regional governments, non-governmental organisations, and a range of multinational and medium-sized companies in over fifteen countries, in a variety of industry sectors ranging from Airports & Airlines to Pharmaceuticals and Railways. 

A founding member of the Centre for Scenario Planning & Future Studies at Strathclyde Business School, Ron is a member of the World Futures Society and Futurists Network, and a co-author of the book “The Sixth Sense: Accelerating Organisational Learning with Scenarios”, published by Wiley in 2002.

He has served on the Boards of several companies and has been an invited speaker/panelist at various senior management conferences, including the Economist CFO Roundtable, Asia Network and CEO Asia Roundtable conferences. 

Prior to joining Strathclyde Ron qualified as an accountant and spent 18 year working in senior positions in large multinationals in the Oil & Gas, Mining and Publishing industries in Canada, the US and the UK.

Colin Eden , BSc in Engineering, University of Leicester, PhD in Management Science, University of Southampton

Colin started his working life as an Operational Researcher in the engineering industry following his PhD, subsequently becoming Operational Research Manager. This was followed by a period as a Management Consultant specialising in small business problems.

He then moved to become Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, and Reader at the University of Bath School of Management. Followed by a move to be Professor of Management Science and Head of Department at the University of Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow from 1987-1999.

He has been a Director of the Scottish Examination Board, appointed by the Scottish Secretary of State and an Adviser to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Until 2006 he was Director of the University of Strathclyde Graduate School of Business. Currently Colin is Director of SBS' International Division responsible for its 10 overseas centres.

He has received research grants from the Leverhulme Trust, British Telecom, ICL, the Northern Ireland Office, SSRC, EPSRC, Bombardier Inc, and ESRC.

Colin is internationally known within the field of Management Science, Management, and Research Method through his research and publications in the field. His teaching contributions are to the MBA programme within the field of Strategic Management.

His major research interests are into the processes of making strategy; the relationship between operational decision making practices and their strategic consequences; the use of group decision support in the analysis and making of strategy; managerial and organisational cognition; 'soft OR' modelling approaches and methodologies, including particular emphasis on the role of cognitive mapping; the process and practice of 'action research'; and the modelling of the behaviour of large projects disruptions and delays, including issues of the dynamics of productivity changes, and learning curves.

He has published over 150 articles in general management, management science, and project management journals. He has published 8 books, the most recent being:

Eden, C and Ackermann, F 1998. Making Strategy: the journey of strategic management. Sage, London ;

Bryson, J., Ackermann, F., Eden, C., and Finn, C., 2004. Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping for Practical Business Results, Wiley, Chichester ; and

Ackermann, F., Eden, C., and with Brown, I. , 2005. The Practice of Making Strategy, Sage, London .

Currently Professor in Finance, Subject Co-ordinator for Finance subject of the MBA programme and Course Director MSc. Finance.

Before joining the Department of Accounting & Finance, he held the position of visiting lecturer at Mediterranean Institute of Management, Cyprus; Associate Professor of Finance – Indiana University and University of Massachusetts. He also lectured in Management Economics at the University of Stirling and also at the University of Strathclyde .

Currently teaches on a wide range of classes in finance, accounting and economics at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Also supervised several PhD dissertations and numerous MSc and MBA dissertations. Has also delivered various short courses and executive programmes in the United Kingdom and numerous countries across the world. Holds the position of Project Director : EU Institutional Development Project, IFM Tanzania.

Has undertaken major consultancy and advisory work for many years, with companies and organisations such as :

Consultant to the "Committee of Inquiry on Small Firms" Department of Trade and Industry , UK Government

Consultant to the "Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions", (Wilson Committee), Treasury , UK Government

Consultant to National Planning Office, Jordanian Government British Council Mission to India to consider financial management issues in Public Sector Enterprises

British Council – Overseas Development Administration Mission to Algeria to advise on setting up of Graduate Management School

Consultant to Ministry of Commerce, Government of Oman

British Council – Overseas Development Administration Mission to Egypt to advise on setting up of Public Enterprise Management Centre and consider privatisation

proposals

Research Interests  

“Explaining Current Volatility in the UK Stock Market”, (with Mohamed Omran) under review with Applied Finance. “Volatility of Investment Trust Returns” with Samuel Agyei-Ampomah (under review with the Journal of Banking and Finance).

Recent Publications

“The Growth of the Scottish Financial Sector” (with P R Draper) in “Inward Investment, Business Finance and Regional Development”, Ed. S Hill & B Morgan,MacMillan 1998.

“Privatisation” (with DH Kule, N. Levine, N Mancellaris and D Pitt) chapter in “ Albania 's Economy in Transition and Turmoil” Ed. A Clunies Ross and Petar Sudar, Ashgate Publishing Company 1998

“The Cost of Capital in Practice”, (with P R Draper, K Paudyal and S Unni ), Research Study, CIMA, 1999.

Richard Grey is a lecturer in the Department of Accounting & Finance responsible for teaching on both the MSc Finance and MBA programmes.

Before joining the Department in 1995, he was in a consultancy role with RG Associates, a Glasgow company responsible for advising a national charity on an expansion plan including negotiating loan finance, fund-raising and project management. At the same time he was giving tutorials in Accounting to students from the University of Strathclyde . From 1982 to 1993 he was employed in various roles with BP Exploration, Glasgow . Prior to this he worked for Ernst & Whinney (Now Ernst & Young), London where he trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

He is currently the academic reviewer for ICAS responsible for accreditation visits to other Scottish universities. He is a past member of the Executive Committee of the Scottish Centre for Research in Investment and Finance,

Research interests are in the area of management accounting and the effects of organisational change on accounting. These interests are derived from the professional expertise gained during some 15 years in the profession and industry.

Has carried out a comparative review (unpublished and confidential) for International Thomson Publishing (ITP) of the two major competing UK and US management accounting texts: - Management and Cost Accounting by Horngren, Foster, Bhimani and Datar (Prentice Hall) and Management and Cost Accounting by Drury (ITP).

Susan Hart is Vice Dean (Research) at Strathclyde Business School .

Between 2002 and 2004, she was both Professor of Marketing and Head of the Department, as well as Acting Dean of the Strathclyde Business School . Previous posts held were Professor of Marketing and Head of Department at the University of Stirling from 1995-98, and Professor of Marketing at Heriot-Watt University from 1993-95.

In addition, Susan Hart has worked for a variety of private sector companies, ranging from multinational to small manufacturers in consumer and industrial enterprises.

Recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Product Innovation Management and Industrial Marketing Management . A member of the Executive Committee of the Academy of Marketing and the Senate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing , as well as a Fellow of the Marketing Society . She edits the Journal of Marketing Management , the most frequently cited journal in the UK 's Research Assessment Exercise in 2001.

Her research interests include: product development and innovation; marketing and competitive success; marketing performance measurement and CRM. She has been awarded research grants by the Leverhulme Trust , Economic and Social Research Council , Science and Engineering Research Council , Design Council , Scotland , the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Scottish Enterprise .

Current Projects

• 'Marketing in Smart Successful Scotland ', with Professor Gillian Hogg. Funded by Scottish Enterprise .
• 'Marketing and the Innovative Firm', with Professor Gillian Hogg. Funded by Scottish Enterprise .
• 'CRM: Benchmarking Global Practice', with CRM-Forum.com.
• 'Customer satisfaction in Economic Development', with Scottish Enterprise .

Chris Huxham gained a BSc in Mathematics at the University of Sussex , an MSc in Operational Research and a D.Phil in Strategic Decision Making at the University of Sussex.

Known worldwide as an expert in collaborative working, Chris Huxham is regularly called upon to share her expertise with practitioners and academics alike, at seminars and conferences across the globe. For more than 15 years, Chris's award winning research has focussed on developing a practical understanding of how to manage collaborative ventures between organizations, such as partnerships, alliances and networks, in order to achieve collaborative advantage. She has been active in developing action research as a rigorous research methodology, so the theoretical insight that she has developed is both derived from, and informs, her interventions in organizations.

In the course of her research she has worked as a facilitator, sounding board and advisor to policy makers, managers and participants in many, varied collaborative situations involving the public, community and commercial sectors.

Chris teaches in the areas of Management and Strategy and Managing Partnerships and Alliances. She is a professor of Management and, since October 2003, a Senior Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM). She is Deputy Chair of the British Academy of Management. Before being awarded the prestigious Senior AIM Fellowship she had previously fulfilled the roles of Director of Research and Director of MBA Programmes. Chris joined the University of Strathclyde 's Department of Management Science in 1984 and moved to the former USGSB in 1996. Her early career (1979-1984) was as a lecturer in the University of Aston Management Centre .

Chris is co-ordinator of the Managing strand of the Management, Strategy and the International Environment module of the MBA Programme and of the elective class on Managing Partnerships and Alliances. She supervises projects in the area of inter-organisational collaboration (alliances, partnerships, networks, etc.).

Tom is a Senior Lecturer in Management and has taught on MBA UK and International programmes since 1982.

He has special responsibility in the school as Academic Director of International Programmes (based in the UK ).

After spending his formative years in industry Tom gained extensive experience in cost estimating, operations scheduling, CAD and research and development of information systems such as ERP for international projects. He gained experience of project management of large plant construction and commissioning in the Gulf region.

Sponsored to University by the Weir Group PLC, he later entered information systems research in the University, joining the academic staff in 1981. His research has concentrated on ERP systems, TOC and performance measurement and Project Management. He was awarded a PhD in 1990. He was also deputy course supervisor for the Technology and Business Studies with over two hundred students prior to joining the Graduate Business School in 1992.

He has published several papers in operations scheduling and has carried out teaching and constancy work with a number of organisations including Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish and Southern Energy, Motorola, NEC, IBM, Scot Rail; NEL; and Clydesdale Bank. Tom specialises in giving seminars from shop floor to director level. He has been an invited speaker for Glasgow Development Agency Investors in People seminars; Department of Industry. He has been a lecturer in the Open University systems group and Plymouth Business School .

His current research interests are in the development of the value chain in providing customer service and in performance measurement including the measurement of customer service.

BSc (Physics, Auckland ), MSc(Hons) (Physics, Auckland ), PhD (Management, Auckland )

Barbara spent the first 20 years of her working life as a research scientist and environmental consultant, specialising in geothermal and groundwater hydrology. Along the way she picked up hands-on experience in the management of technology and large projects, as well as corporate level management and governance. A New Zealander by birth, she spent much of this period working in various locations around the world including Israel , Turkey , Kenya , England , USA , the Philippines , and Australia .

In the early 1990s, when the New Zealand government set about reforming and restructuring its public good science sector, Barbara recognised a 'not-to-be-missed' opportunity to study transformational change in science organisations. This became the focus of her PhD research, which has subsequently appeared in journal articles on science policy, the strategic design of science organisations, and shared cognition in innovating organisations.

Since then, Barbara's research interests have continued to evolve around theoretical concepts such as sensemaking, organisational learning and change, technological innovation, complexity theory, and human creativity. Prior to her move to Glasgow , she was Principal Investigator in a 6-year, government-funded research programme that explored the learning practices of small, technology-driven enterprises.

Barbara is the Department of  Management's Director of Research, and contributes to MBA teaching on the following courses:

• Exploring the Business Environment
• Managing
• Elective on Understanding Change in Organisations
• Research Methods

She also supervises MBA and PhD students in research projects concerned with issues of organisational learning, change and innovation.

Barbara serves as a Reviewer for Organization Studies, Human Relations, Management Learning, and Long Range Planning. She is also a member of the European Group for Organizational Studies, the British Academy of Management, and the Northern Personal Construct Psychology Research Group.

Barbara has provided consulting services to:

• Companies in the energy sector
• SMEs in the manufacturing sector
• Public sector organisations
• Public utility companies

She has also served as a Non-executive Director on the Boards of two New Zealand companies.

CURRENT WORK

Barbara's current work is primarily theoretical, but is directly informed by issues of managerial practice. Her field of inquiry concerns the social and dynamic nature of the self in its various cognitive, emotional and active expressions. In particular, she is interested in the implications of this multi-faceted view of the self for creative action in organisations.