Professor Peter McKiernan, Department of Management, has been invited to give the key note addresses at two international conferences.Professor Peter McKiernan, Department of Management, has been invited to give the key note addresses at two international conferences.
The first one (August 9-11) is the First Global Chinese Management Studies Conference in Singapore, and Professor McKiernan will speak about 'Expected Surprises' - a study into why subtle signals of impending crisis are often there for all to see but, for some reason, people refuse to see them. This may be because they have a certain way of viewing the world governed by a particular knowledge base or that they rely too much on others, on the 'herd' or on technology to see things for themselves.
He will be using the case examples of the 9/11 crisis, the Lehman Bank failure and the current crisis in the European Automobile Industry to illustrate his points. The theme fits into a major research thrust within Strathclyde Business School into Futures and Scenario Planning. Professor Robert Chia, also of the Department of Management, will also feature at the conference, as author of one of the papers at the conference.
The second keynote address will take place at the Annual Conference of the European Association of Research Directors (in Business and Management) sponsored by the EFMD and EURAM in Reims in October. This is their second conference - the first one was organised by Professor Tim Bedford (Management Science) here at SBS and one of the keynote speakers was Professor Colin Eden, illustrating the strong intellectual role Strathclyde has in this Association.
Professor McKiernan will speak about how Business Schools are being driven towards a form of 'mimicry' on a global scale due to institutional pressures from accreditation agencies and sponsors of league tables. To perform well in these eyes, Schools need to do the same things, for example, with similar things in their curricula, possess homogenous processes and protocols with regard to learner assessment and staff development and so on. Professor McKiernan will argue that, "It is time to put strategic choice back on the Business School agenda and begin to celebrate variety once again."
Professor McKiernan joined SBS in July from the University of St Andrews School of Management. For almost 20 years, he held a full professorship in management there and is the immediate past Dean of their school of Management.
A prize-winning and active researcher in analysis of changing political, economic and social trends, their impact on strategic formulation and implementation for businesses, Professor McKiernan has also gained extensive business experience on every continent. He has acted as strategy coach and trainer to companies such as Aegon UK, BT, BP, Ford of Europe, IBM, Marks & Spencer and a host of SMES. It is his academic research and global business experience which sees his being invited as keynote speaker to conferences such as the above.