Cats awake very early so completed comments on dissertation draft and finished reading paper for review. Inbox still contains two requests to complete forms which will take some time and a request to provide a letter of recommendation to enable scholars to use the ICAEW library which will involve seeking out the new rebranded university stationery on Monday.
How shall I use my extra hour this weekend? Work or sleep?
Saturday 29 October 2011
Friday
Late last night a tweet from James McRitchie who runs the excellent site corpgov.net alerted me to a fascinating paper in BJM critiquing agency theory. One of the inter library loans which took me to the library this week is a similar critique from a US scholar which I have only had a chance to skim. Good to see this challenge to the dominant approach. James' link was to an HTML version of the paper and wanting to save a pdf I went into EBSCO to get it and found that that issue of BJM had some fascinating articles on the state of management education in the UK. I sent one of them on to the deans as it mentioned Mike Wallace who is coming to do a workshop for us, at my instigation. He's an important person in the area and a useful contact for us.
Downloaded the articles and then Firefox crashed. Decided to try Chrome. Seems much faster. Spent some time bookmarking sites I use a lot. Late to bed and then started reading "The Sound of Gravity", a novel by Joe Simpson, the mountaineer who wrote "Touching the Void". Completely gripped by it from the first page but began to feel rather cold....
Friday: Early start at the dentist who poked about, took an X-ray and pointed to something nasty that may be lurking and needs sorting out. Made an appointment for three week's time - hadn't realised quite how full my diary is.
Not many emails this morning but time-consuming. A rather unhelpful reply to a query of mine prompted me to spend some time composing a lengthy response raising some fundamental issues about resourcing research. The university reorganisation has led to some very tricky issues about accountability and responsibility which no-one has thought through properly.
A dissertation draft from an undergraduate student which I have promised to feed back on by Monday will need careful reading. And a request from a journal editor to review a paper which is so interesting I dropped everything to read it.
Then a call from Gillian at ICAEW about the progress of a funding proposal. The chance of concentrating on chapter 6 becomes less and less likely as the day goes on...the answer has to be to ignore email entirely.
Thursday 27 October 2011
Thursday
I like this Jonah Lehrer piece on mind wandering:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/the-importance-of-mind-wandering/
I'm sure I'm more productive when I have space to think purposelessly. That's when I see connections or when new thoughts pop up, sometimes really obvious ideas that I can't believe I've never thought about before. These days such moments are rare.
Downloaded Andy Haldane's Wincott lecture (http://www.wincott.co.uk/lecture.htm) which looks at the history of banking. Added to the pile of interesting things to read.
Productive morning. Amended my funding proposal after some very helpful feedback from a colleague - it's always very helpful to get comments, it's surprising how one can miss the obvious by having spent a lot of time on the detail. The costs need updating but our wonderful research manager will sort that out for me. Then I went through the latest version of the bid that the team have put together. Emails have been flying about with each of them making changes so I called a halt and said I would deal with the final version. Again, it's surprising how many small things they all managed to miss. A detailed application form is also required so I filled that in and sent it all off to the research manager and the chair of the Faculty grants panel. Our new system requires bids to be circulated for comment to be fed back via the chair. I do hope this process happens quickly!
An email from the editor of a journal saying she is retiring from the role. The journal was set up about 15 years ago in an attempt to foster links between academics and practitioners. My first ever academic publication appeared in it. The original editor was very entrepreneurial and also a very convivial chap - editorial dinners were great fun. But he decided that there was life beyond academia and left, handing over the task to his colleague. She managed to keep it going for a long time, published by her university which meant she did everything from soliciting papers to posting out each issue, and with very little support, until recently it was taken over by Elsevier. The message prompted me to invite her to give a seminar next semester as her research area is CSR and we have people interested in that area.
Another reference request and an email from the former student to say that she has applied to six universities, so I can expect four more! I didn't copy yesterday's so I had to reconstruct something suitable, remembering to save it for the future. More emails asking for information, like how I have I linked my research to my teaching in the last year. This is to tick a box for the annual review. Takes me several minutes to go through my diary and then find specific module numbers. Perhaps I'll keep a note of how many similar requests for information I receive. Or perhaps not: it might be depressing.
Finish the afternoon by catching up with some ICAEW requests - a quick review of an outline research proposal and preliminary comment, and some planning for the next occasion I visit Chartered Accountants Hall in two week's time.
Dentist at 8 am tomorrow - hope she doesn't batter me about too much as I'm planning to get on with chapter 6 afterwards.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/the-importance-of-mind-wandering/
I'm sure I'm more productive when I have space to think purposelessly. That's when I see connections or when new thoughts pop up, sometimes really obvious ideas that I can't believe I've never thought about before. These days such moments are rare.
Downloaded Andy Haldane's Wincott lecture (http://www.wincott.co.uk/lecture.htm) which looks at the history of banking. Added to the pile of interesting things to read.
Productive morning. Amended my funding proposal after some very helpful feedback from a colleague - it's always very helpful to get comments, it's surprising how one can miss the obvious by having spent a lot of time on the detail. The costs need updating but our wonderful research manager will sort that out for me. Then I went through the latest version of the bid that the team have put together. Emails have been flying about with each of them making changes so I called a halt and said I would deal with the final version. Again, it's surprising how many small things they all managed to miss. A detailed application form is also required so I filled that in and sent it all off to the research manager and the chair of the Faculty grants panel. Our new system requires bids to be circulated for comment to be fed back via the chair. I do hope this process happens quickly!
An email from the editor of a journal saying she is retiring from the role. The journal was set up about 15 years ago in an attempt to foster links between academics and practitioners. My first ever academic publication appeared in it. The original editor was very entrepreneurial and also a very convivial chap - editorial dinners were great fun. But he decided that there was life beyond academia and left, handing over the task to his colleague. She managed to keep it going for a long time, published by her university which meant she did everything from soliciting papers to posting out each issue, and with very little support, until recently it was taken over by Elsevier. The message prompted me to invite her to give a seminar next semester as her research area is CSR and we have people interested in that area.
Another reference request and an email from the former student to say that she has applied to six universities, so I can expect four more! I didn't copy yesterday's so I had to reconstruct something suitable, remembering to save it for the future. More emails asking for information, like how I have I linked my research to my teaching in the last year. This is to tick a box for the annual review. Takes me several minutes to go through my diary and then find specific module numbers. Perhaps I'll keep a note of how many similar requests for information I receive. Or perhaps not: it might be depressing.
Finish the afternoon by catching up with some ICAEW requests - a quick review of an outline research proposal and preliminary comment, and some planning for the next occasion I visit Chartered Accountants Hall in two week's time.
Dentist at 8 am tomorrow - hope she doesn't batter me about too much as I'm planning to get on with chapter 6 afterwards.
Tuesday/Wednesday
Tuesday: excellent time at LSE. Interesting people, intellectually stimulating conversation. Possibility of further research on data collected by the authors of the ICAEW report on activist investors. I'm very interested in the way in which active/activist investors define themselves and are defined by others. The word "activist" seems to have become tainted. And what impact do they have on the role of NEDs? But that will have to wait until the book is finished. Long chat with potential recruit.
Then went on to an audit committee event at ICAEW. A report has been produced jointly with BDO on audit committee reporting. The panel speakers were very good, especially Simon Laffin who has been a NED in some difficult situations - Northern Rock, Mitchell & Butler. Really good wide ranging discussion about the role of audit committees. It would be so interesting to revisit my PhD work to see how things have changed. (I noticed one of my original interviewees at the event - he was a young FD when I talked to him!) But that's another project that there's no time to do. Talked to potential interviewee for NEDs in public sector project - she will be my first port of call if I get the funding.
Arrived home very tired, looked the day's emails, most of which required my action and went to bed without doing anything about them.
Wednesday: started on emails at 6 am and cleared quite a few before heading to the campus. Several conversations, emails and phone calls to get recruitment and selection process moving in the hope of capturing a star. Further meetings with academic advisees - more cheerful Economics students whose only worry seems how to do referencing. Some interesting questions about how they would get feedback, they seem concerned about this.
Spent some time writing a reference for a former student who has applied to do a Masters at LSE. She is certainly ambitious and determined but her grades show that she is much better at exams (both numerical and discursive) than at anything which requires independent study. I was her academic advisor but didn't teach her although she visited me often for advice. Her English improved greatly. from a very weak start. I imagine there must be a lot of competition for places on her chosen courses, though. Completing references online is much easier than having to write letters as we used to.
The flood of emails seems never ending today - queries from a PhD student about completing a form, enquiries about applying for PhD study, notifications of changed meeting times and others of new meetings...
I was supposed to attend a Lord Mayor's Initiative meeting at the Mansion House tomorrow morning but I've sent my apologies as I shall need a clear day to go through the funding bid my colleagues have finally finished tweaking, to rejig my own bid and to get a move on with chapter 6. Have booked in to the nice hotel in Cambridge for two days at the start of December so that we can pull the book together and check any final references with the archive.
Meeting with PhD student after lunch. My co-supervisor had managed to read and comment on the 66 pages. We spent some time deconstructing a diagram that the student was clearly quite wedded to but which really didn't work and sent him away to reshape the literature review so that it supports his thesis properly. It is always a bit baffling for students when they discover that the research process is iterative rather than linear and that you need to keep revisiting what you wrote earlier.
More conversations about staff recruitment, funding bids and conference attendance and a quick trip to the library to collect an inter-library loan before I could leave. 8 am to 5 pm, lunch eaten at my desk while doing email - a long day but little progress on the big stuff.
Then went on to an audit committee event at ICAEW. A report has been produced jointly with BDO on audit committee reporting. The panel speakers were very good, especially Simon Laffin who has been a NED in some difficult situations - Northern Rock, Mitchell & Butler. Really good wide ranging discussion about the role of audit committees. It would be so interesting to revisit my PhD work to see how things have changed. (I noticed one of my original interviewees at the event - he was a young FD when I talked to him!) But that's another project that there's no time to do. Talked to potential interviewee for NEDs in public sector project - she will be my first port of call if I get the funding.
Arrived home very tired, looked the day's emails, most of which required my action and went to bed without doing anything about them.
Wednesday: started on emails at 6 am and cleared quite a few before heading to the campus. Several conversations, emails and phone calls to get recruitment and selection process moving in the hope of capturing a star. Further meetings with academic advisees - more cheerful Economics students whose only worry seems how to do referencing. Some interesting questions about how they would get feedback, they seem concerned about this.
Spent some time writing a reference for a former student who has applied to do a Masters at LSE. She is certainly ambitious and determined but her grades show that she is much better at exams (both numerical and discursive) than at anything which requires independent study. I was her academic advisor but didn't teach her although she visited me often for advice. Her English improved greatly. from a very weak start. I imagine there must be a lot of competition for places on her chosen courses, though. Completing references online is much easier than having to write letters as we used to.
The flood of emails seems never ending today - queries from a PhD student about completing a form, enquiries about applying for PhD study, notifications of changed meeting times and others of new meetings...
I was supposed to attend a Lord Mayor's Initiative meeting at the Mansion House tomorrow morning but I've sent my apologies as I shall need a clear day to go through the funding bid my colleagues have finally finished tweaking, to rejig my own bid and to get a move on with chapter 6. Have booked in to the nice hotel in Cambridge for two days at the start of December so that we can pull the book together and check any final references with the archive.
Meeting with PhD student after lunch. My co-supervisor had managed to read and comment on the 66 pages. We spent some time deconstructing a diagram that the student was clearly quite wedded to but which really didn't work and sent him away to reshape the literature review so that it supports his thesis properly. It is always a bit baffling for students when they discover that the research process is iterative rather than linear and that you need to keep revisiting what you wrote earlier.
More conversations about staff recruitment, funding bids and conference attendance and a quick trip to the library to collect an inter-library loan before I could leave. 8 am to 5 pm, lunch eaten at my desk while doing email - a long day but little progress on the big stuff.
Monday 24 October 2011
Monday
Didn't manage to avoid work entirely over the weekend - when I looked at my to do list for the week ahead I decided that I needed to get some things done in advance so spent an hour on chapter 6 to get up a head of steam, completed the ESRC review to get that out of the way and tidied up my funding application on the basis of one set of helpful comments from someone else who was working over the weekend...
Monday morning, early start, amazing sunrise. Useful conversations with colleagues before a morning of meetings with five of my academic advisees. Four very cheerful first year students, one slightly anxious second year. There's quite a big difference between the demands of first and second year modules and this can come as a shock to students who have A levels in relevant subjects and coast through the first year. In between appointments, managed to put together slides for next Monday's lecture on literature reviews for MSc students.
Pleased to recieve an invitation to a reception at the House of Lords the week after next - a Tomorrow's Company event with speakers on the topic of "Investing in stewardship". One of the speakers is a journalist whose pieces about Cadbury I have been reading for the book, it will be interesting to meet her.
A meeting with my co-author to catch up and then a meeting about revising the departmental research web page. Tasks associated with chasing and updating research colleagues about various issues take nearly an hour - all stuff an administrator could do... Home to do some more concentrated work.
Husband greets me with news that Beanie walked across his laptop keyboard and now the screen has turned 90 degrees and some of the keys don't work properly. I pass him the netbook and tell him to Google on "screen turned 90 degrees". One of the first hits says "My kitten walked across the keyboard and now my screen has turned 90 degrees." It is very easy to rectify. The keys didn't work properly because she'd obviously pressed Num Lock as well.
It is now 4pm and I feel as if I have achieved very little although I'm rather tired. Will put feet up after clearing email and organising papers for tomorrow's day out - two meetings and lunch at LSE and an audit committee event at ICAEW where I may find potential interviewees for my next project. Good to get out and about. Must remember to take new business cards - all had to be replaced after university rebranding.
Monday morning, early start, amazing sunrise. Useful conversations with colleagues before a morning of meetings with five of my academic advisees. Four very cheerful first year students, one slightly anxious second year. There's quite a big difference between the demands of first and second year modules and this can come as a shock to students who have A levels in relevant subjects and coast through the first year. In between appointments, managed to put together slides for next Monday's lecture on literature reviews for MSc students.
Pleased to recieve an invitation to a reception at the House of Lords the week after next - a Tomorrow's Company event with speakers on the topic of "Investing in stewardship". One of the speakers is a journalist whose pieces about Cadbury I have been reading for the book, it will be interesting to meet her.
A meeting with my co-author to catch up and then a meeting about revising the departmental research web page. Tasks associated with chasing and updating research colleagues about various issues take nearly an hour - all stuff an administrator could do... Home to do some more concentrated work.
Husband greets me with news that Beanie walked across his laptop keyboard and now the screen has turned 90 degrees and some of the keys don't work properly. I pass him the netbook and tell him to Google on "screen turned 90 degrees". One of the first hits says "My kitten walked across the keyboard and now my screen has turned 90 degrees." It is very easy to rectify. The keys didn't work properly because she'd obviously pressed Num Lock as well.
It is now 4pm and I feel as if I have achieved very little although I'm rather tired. Will put feet up after clearing email and organising papers for tomorrow's day out - two meetings and lunch at LSE and an audit committee event at ICAEW where I may find potential interviewees for my next project. Good to get out and about. Must remember to take new business cards - all had to be replaced after university rebranding.
Saturday 22 October 2011
Saturday
Yes, it's a mistake to check work email on a Saturday morning... A PhD student has sent me 66 pages to read before we meet on Wednesday and I need to review an updated funding proposal that I'm submitting with other colleagues so that it can get into the internal review process quickly. Message from a module leader expecting me to talk to his MSc students on Monday throws me into a panic as I was expecting to do this the following Monday. Checking I find that it's his mistake, not mine, but it's a useful reminder that I have to put together a talk on doing a literature review. And chapter 6 is still clucking at me in the background...
Friday 21 October 2011
Friday
Some really interesting stuff has surfaced overnight from the ICAEW discussion on the impact of computer trading on financial stability which seems to be how the member's query is being interpreted.
http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/current-projects/computer-trading/working-paper
Huge temptation to read all the material right now, before breakfast!
A request from the editor of a journal I have never heard of to submit papers. All over the world there must be academics slogging away taking on the often thankless task of editorship and sending out these requests. This one is personalised, referring to one of my recently published papers. But the journal doesn't appear on the Association of Business Schools journal ranking list so I am loth to encourage colleagues to submit work there. I have accepted an invitation to join the editorial board of "Social Business", a new journal which has great potential but only one issue has so far come out and it's also not ranked. I have promised the editor something on board diversity but I haven't had a chance to write it yet. Another plate to be kept spinning.
Today's alerts tell me that a new issue of AOS is out, as well as an article in a sociology journal comparing UK and German corporate governance codes. This reminds me that an Austrian scholar I know is currently in Oxford, working on a comparison between the UK and Austrian codes, and wants to meet up soon. He will be interested in this article. A few clicks reveals that it's not available via our library so I request an inter-library loan and then send the citation on to him.
I set out to get on with chapter 6 but a couple of (welcome!) interruptions delay me. I get even more interruptions if I try to work in the office and home is a lot more comfortable. I realise that my desk is a great mess of papers so I spend some time sorting them into more manageable piles relating to the three main projects I have on the go at the moment. The pile of papers to read is very high and I start reading. Suddenly it's lunch time....
I deal with further email and then set about pulling together the information about the department's research activities that I had asked colleagues to provide. One set relating to publications and other outputs has to be presented in a specific format. To make it easier for myself I ask for the information to be set out in that format and amazingly this time most people have done as I asked so it was a relatively simple cut and paste job which took about an hour. Six people have yet to reply but my deadline has not yet arrived for this.
A more urgent request was for general information about individual research interests and I had asked for this to be sent before today's date so that I can pass it on to the marketing department on Monday for the new web page. Another cut and paste job. Four people missing this time. I emailed the document to everyone and two of the missing ones emailed back the necessary information quite quickly.
So I've spent a couple of hours on jobs that could be done by an administrator. In theory, we have a share in one of the executive office team but if I asked her to do it I'm sure there would be ructions. If we had a dedicated administrator for the department though, things would be so much easier. I even know of other universities where professors have their own personal assistants...
A LinkedIn alert draws my attention to some discussions that are going on in the corporate governance research group. More practitioners than academics seem to post there which gives an interesting perspective. This group was started nearly two years ago as a result of conversations at the EIASM corporate governance workshop in Brussels that I co-chair every year. There are now 574 members which is very pleasing.
Right, my inbox has only 13 messages and they can wait till next week. The weekend starts here...
http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/current-projects/computer-trading/working-paper
Huge temptation to read all the material right now, before breakfast!
A request from the editor of a journal I have never heard of to submit papers. All over the world there must be academics slogging away taking on the often thankless task of editorship and sending out these requests. This one is personalised, referring to one of my recently published papers. But the journal doesn't appear on the Association of Business Schools journal ranking list so I am loth to encourage colleagues to submit work there. I have accepted an invitation to join the editorial board of "Social Business", a new journal which has great potential but only one issue has so far come out and it's also not ranked. I have promised the editor something on board diversity but I haven't had a chance to write it yet. Another plate to be kept spinning.
Today's alerts tell me that a new issue of AOS is out, as well as an article in a sociology journal comparing UK and German corporate governance codes. This reminds me that an Austrian scholar I know is currently in Oxford, working on a comparison between the UK and Austrian codes, and wants to meet up soon. He will be interested in this article. A few clicks reveals that it's not available via our library so I request an inter-library loan and then send the citation on to him.
I set out to get on with chapter 6 but a couple of (welcome!) interruptions delay me. I get even more interruptions if I try to work in the office and home is a lot more comfortable. I realise that my desk is a great mess of papers so I spend some time sorting them into more manageable piles relating to the three main projects I have on the go at the moment. The pile of papers to read is very high and I start reading. Suddenly it's lunch time....
I deal with further email and then set about pulling together the information about the department's research activities that I had asked colleagues to provide. One set relating to publications and other outputs has to be presented in a specific format. To make it easier for myself I ask for the information to be set out in that format and amazingly this time most people have done as I asked so it was a relatively simple cut and paste job which took about an hour. Six people have yet to reply but my deadline has not yet arrived for this.
A more urgent request was for general information about individual research interests and I had asked for this to be sent before today's date so that I can pass it on to the marketing department on Monday for the new web page. Another cut and paste job. Four people missing this time. I emailed the document to everyone and two of the missing ones emailed back the necessary information quite quickly.
So I've spent a couple of hours on jobs that could be done by an administrator. In theory, we have a share in one of the executive office team but if I asked her to do it I'm sure there would be ructions. If we had a dedicated administrator for the department though, things would be so much easier. I even know of other universities where professors have their own personal assistants...
A LinkedIn alert draws my attention to some discussions that are going on in the corporate governance research group. More practitioners than academics seem to post there which gives an interesting perspective. This group was started nearly two years ago as a result of conversations at the EIASM corporate governance workshop in Brussels that I co-chair every year. There are now 574 members which is very pleasing.
Right, my inbox has only 13 messages and they can wait till next week. The weekend starts here...
Thursday
Plodding on with the research proposal, I see that the website where it has to be uploaded will be down for maintenance for part of the morning - helpful to have a warning of that. So I fill in the boxes requiring basic information, save what I've done and then turn my attention to other inbox items.
A request from an interesting new contact, a former management consultant who works for an investment trust which has set up a governance consultancy. She has developed an online board evaluation tool and has asked me to test out a couple of modules. This takes some time as you are presented with a series of scenarios requiring board decisions and asked to rate a series of possible responses. It's cleverly constructed and I can see lots of scope for discussing the scenarios as well as picking out a response and ending up with an overall picture of the responses of the full board. I'm looking forward to talking to her about this and finding out more about how it works. I can also see how it might be used in a university context. I don't know enough about the market for these tools to compare it to anything else, other than a so-called toolkit developed by a group at Birkbeck, funded by ESRC, who ran a seminar last year which was less than impressive. Pretty slides with diagrams but no tools that I could see. I upset the leader of the project by asking where they were - "It's not a toolkit with spanners!" he snapped. In fact what they presented was a model and it was difficult to see its practical use, other than enabling the team to earn fees by presenting it at company workshops.
A request from ESRC to review a funding proposal. It looks quite interesting but they want the review by 10 November - can I find half a day to concentrate on it? My diary next week looks very full, two days meeting with all my new academic advisees to find out how they're settling in, meetings with other students who I'm supervising and two days at events in London. But I don't like to turn down these requests, it's part of contributing to an academic community that I am proud to be part of and which has supported me, although I've never asked the ESRC for funding. Reading the summary, I am immediately drawn into it, as the ideas are interesting and I want to see how the researchers plan to investigate them. A first read through of all the paperwork is disappointing, though. I spend some time researching the researchers and reading a bit about the data collection plans they propose which are new to me. They are also asking for a very large sum and I'm not convinced that all the costs are necessary. I'll need to read it all again.
Back to the proposal. Very difficult to convey excitement about the project and its importance as well as show that the ideas are grounded in the literature and that the theoretical framework and analytical approach are appropriate, all in 1000 words. The more I edit it, the feebler it seems to get. Late in the afternoon I finally upload it and send it off to colleagues for internal review.
An invitation arrives to lunch next week with a researcher at LSE, one of the authors of the ICAEW report that I signed off. My interest in it was passed on to him and he wants advice on turning it into an academic paper. I've never met him but he has published in top journals with people like Donald Mackenzie so I'm not sure how I can help him. He says nice things in his email about the paper I published in Accounting, Organizations and Society with Yves - my best publication in terms of journal rankings and very important for the REF.
Late in the evening a flurry of emails from colleagues in the ICAEW technical directorate who are discussing a query raised at the AGM by a member wanting to know about research on the impact of technology on decision-making. Everyone thinks there must be lots of this somewhere but they don't know where it might be. I too am sure there must be lots of work done on this topic but I know that if I start looking I'll get drawn into it, following all sorts of interesting ideas and, before I know it, days will have slipped past. The two foot high pile of material on my desk relating to board diversity is the result of my last casual search for existing studies and I have yet to find the time to write the critical review of that. So I resist the temptation and just suggest that the new Kahneman book might be relevant.
A request from an interesting new contact, a former management consultant who works for an investment trust which has set up a governance consultancy. She has developed an online board evaluation tool and has asked me to test out a couple of modules. This takes some time as you are presented with a series of scenarios requiring board decisions and asked to rate a series of possible responses. It's cleverly constructed and I can see lots of scope for discussing the scenarios as well as picking out a response and ending up with an overall picture of the responses of the full board. I'm looking forward to talking to her about this and finding out more about how it works. I can also see how it might be used in a university context. I don't know enough about the market for these tools to compare it to anything else, other than a so-called toolkit developed by a group at Birkbeck, funded by ESRC, who ran a seminar last year which was less than impressive. Pretty slides with diagrams but no tools that I could see. I upset the leader of the project by asking where they were - "It's not a toolkit with spanners!" he snapped. In fact what they presented was a model and it was difficult to see its practical use, other than enabling the team to earn fees by presenting it at company workshops.
A request from ESRC to review a funding proposal. It looks quite interesting but they want the review by 10 November - can I find half a day to concentrate on it? My diary next week looks very full, two days meeting with all my new academic advisees to find out how they're settling in, meetings with other students who I'm supervising and two days at events in London. But I don't like to turn down these requests, it's part of contributing to an academic community that I am proud to be part of and which has supported me, although I've never asked the ESRC for funding. Reading the summary, I am immediately drawn into it, as the ideas are interesting and I want to see how the researchers plan to investigate them. A first read through of all the paperwork is disappointing, though. I spend some time researching the researchers and reading a bit about the data collection plans they propose which are new to me. They are also asking for a very large sum and I'm not convinced that all the costs are necessary. I'll need to read it all again.
Back to the proposal. Very difficult to convey excitement about the project and its importance as well as show that the ideas are grounded in the literature and that the theoretical framework and analytical approach are appropriate, all in 1000 words. The more I edit it, the feebler it seems to get. Late in the afternoon I finally upload it and send it off to colleagues for internal review.
An invitation arrives to lunch next week with a researcher at LSE, one of the authors of the ICAEW report that I signed off. My interest in it was passed on to him and he wants advice on turning it into an academic paper. I've never met him but he has published in top journals with people like Donald Mackenzie so I'm not sure how I can help him. He says nice things in his email about the paper I published in Accounting, Organizations and Society with Yves - my best publication in terms of journal rankings and very important for the REF.
Late in the evening a flurry of emails from colleagues in the ICAEW technical directorate who are discussing a query raised at the AGM by a member wanting to know about research on the impact of technology on decision-making. Everyone thinks there must be lots of this somewhere but they don't know where it might be. I too am sure there must be lots of work done on this topic but I know that if I start looking I'll get drawn into it, following all sorts of interesting ideas and, before I know it, days will have slipped past. The two foot high pile of material on my desk relating to board diversity is the result of my last casual search for existing studies and I have yet to find the time to write the critical review of that. So I resist the temptation and just suggest that the new Kahneman book might be relevant.
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Wednesday
Another early start in the office. Cleared email and read through a report for ICAEW to check it for publication - the academic advisor who usually does this is off on his travels and it's the first time I've had this responsibility. Fortunately the study is in an area I know about and there are no stats! Next a meeting with the faculty research manager to sort out details for my funding bid. She is very tactful about suggesting changes! Another visit to the library to collect a reserved book. The system now requires me to find it on the reserved shelf and check it out at a special terminal which didn't print out a receipt. Jane, my favourite library assistant, came to my rescue.
The pile of books and papers to read is growing. Checked my alerts and found an article by Jonah Lehrer about a new book by Daniel Kahneman called "Thinking Fast and Slow" which sounds really interesting. Not in the university library, reserved it online at the public library. The Lehrer review ended with the observation: "
The pile of books and papers to read is growing. Checked my alerts and found an article by Jonah Lehrer about a new book by Daniel Kahneman called "Thinking Fast and Slow" which sounds really interesting. Not in the university library, reserved it online at the public library. The Lehrer review ended with the observation: "
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Monday and Tuesday
Monday - worked at home but got off to a slow start as the automated back up which should have been made to my external hard drive on Sunday night apparently failed because the drive was full. I am a bit obsessional about having lots of copies of stuff so my first task was to clear space on the drive and rerun the back up.
Concentrated on writing a funding application . For a long time I've been wanting to look at aspects of corporate governance which have been adopted in the public sector and I shall need another project when the book is finished but the proposal has to be put together in a very short space of time so that it can be approved internally and meet the funding body deadline. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to write but chasing up references for the appropriate citations has taken time and occasionally distracted me into reading other interesting material. I'm not very good at filing references - I have Endnote but tend to forget to use it. I used to be such an organised person... When I've finished this draft I'll have to edit it down to 1000 words and then email the people I plan to ask to act as referees.
Read and commented on an undergraduate dissertation draft. The undergraduates I'm supervising are incredibly keen. Three of them started working on their dissertations well before the summer vacation and have completed a huge amount of reading. They all wanted to get as far as they could before the academic year started again which was a very sensible strategy. Writing is more of a challenge for them but they've allowed lots of time for getting feedback from me, unlike the MSc students who left everything to the last minute.
Read through papers for tomorrow's meetings and checked the online system for submitting the research proposal to see what other information I'll need to collect.
Tuesday - in my office by 8 am (definitely damp - now the heating is on, my glasses steamed up as soon as I went in). Dealt with email and snail mail (very little these days) and filled out various forms. Chased colleagues for information about their research activities. Remainder of the morning taken up with a lengthy research leader meeting. Went to library to collect a book and wrestled with new self-service system, to amusement of library staff. First your card is scanned (if you place it in the correct place, the correct way up). Then you place the book you want to borrow on the machine. Then you have to touch the screen to get a printed slip showing the return date - no date-stamping any more. The onscreen instruction about this is very small and I would have missed it without guidance. And the slip is bound to get lost... I am far from convinced that this is an improvement.
Ate lunch at my desk while catching up with alerts about publications in my area and printing out copies of articles relating to chapter 6 of the Cadbury book - when will I find time to read them? Marked another MSc dissertation and completed the necessary form. Then a meeting with a young colleague to discuss the reviewers' comments on his paper. I think it's very bad form for a reviewer to criticise the writing style of a paper in disjointed sentences that don't make sense! Some of the criticisms were justified but the comments could have been much more constructive. But a "revise and resubmit" from a 3* journal is pretty good for a first paper, although his co-authors are not being very helpful.
Emailed colleagues with a report of the morning meetings and then time for a quick cup of tea and chat with colleagues before coming home. Meetings tomorrow, from 9.30 until 3, an evening of preparation for these.
Concentrated on writing a funding application . For a long time I've been wanting to look at aspects of corporate governance which have been adopted in the public sector and I shall need another project when the book is finished but the proposal has to be put together in a very short space of time so that it can be approved internally and meet the funding body deadline. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to write but chasing up references for the appropriate citations has taken time and occasionally distracted me into reading other interesting material. I'm not very good at filing references - I have Endnote but tend to forget to use it. I used to be such an organised person... When I've finished this draft I'll have to edit it down to 1000 words and then email the people I plan to ask to act as referees.
Read and commented on an undergraduate dissertation draft. The undergraduates I'm supervising are incredibly keen. Three of them started working on their dissertations well before the summer vacation and have completed a huge amount of reading. They all wanted to get as far as they could before the academic year started again which was a very sensible strategy. Writing is more of a challenge for them but they've allowed lots of time for getting feedback from me, unlike the MSc students who left everything to the last minute.
Read through papers for tomorrow's meetings and checked the online system for submitting the research proposal to see what other information I'll need to collect.
Tuesday - in my office by 8 am (definitely damp - now the heating is on, my glasses steamed up as soon as I went in). Dealt with email and snail mail (very little these days) and filled out various forms. Chased colleagues for information about their research activities. Remainder of the morning taken up with a lengthy research leader meeting. Went to library to collect a book and wrestled with new self-service system, to amusement of library staff. First your card is scanned (if you place it in the correct place, the correct way up). Then you place the book you want to borrow on the machine. Then you have to touch the screen to get a printed slip showing the return date - no date-stamping any more. The onscreen instruction about this is very small and I would have missed it without guidance. And the slip is bound to get lost... I am far from convinced that this is an improvement.
Ate lunch at my desk while catching up with alerts about publications in my area and printing out copies of articles relating to chapter 6 of the Cadbury book - when will I find time to read them? Marked another MSc dissertation and completed the necessary form. Then a meeting with a young colleague to discuss the reviewers' comments on his paper. I think it's very bad form for a reviewer to criticise the writing style of a paper in disjointed sentences that don't make sense! Some of the criticisms were justified but the comments could have been much more constructive. But a "revise and resubmit" from a 3* journal is pretty good for a first paper, although his co-authors are not being very helpful.
Emailed colleagues with a report of the morning meetings and then time for a quick cup of tea and chat with colleagues before coming home. Meetings tomorrow, from 9.30 until 3, an evening of preparation for these.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Saturday
It's Saturday and the cats woke me up at 6 am. Pondering about yesterday's meeting and whether I could demonstrate any impact associated with my research, I look at the ICAEW web site because I remember that an ICAEW publication on corporate governance contained a quote from one of my papers. While searching there, I stumble on links to journal articles relevant to the book I'm writing on the history of the Cadbury Committee. The ICAEW library pages are really helpful and well-organised. But..the link to the EBSCO database PDF of the most important article (by the late Jonathan Charkham, who was a member of the Cadbury Committee, on the report of the successor committee chaired by Sir Ronald Hampel) only provides the first four pages. I try going in to EBSCO via the university library but it appears that only the first four pages have been scanned. So I have to complete an inter-library loan request. When you can't access instantly precisely what you're after it becomes frustrating - I have to remind myself that it is still a miracle that all this can be done online at the click of a button.
Returning to the ICAEW library page, I follow the link to an EBSCO search on corporate governance and scan the list of nearly 100 articles. Some of these will be very useful in demonstrating the impact of the Cadbury Code which will be covered in the final chapter of the book. Clicking, skim reading and saving..and I've now been sitting at the PC for over an hour.
Checking my Google Reader alerts, I find a link to a forthcoming paper in JAE by Catherine Schrand and Sarah Zeckman on "Executive overconfidence and the slippery slope to financial misreporting". Their study of a sample of 49 firms subject to SEC Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs) suggests that intention to defraud is only responsible for about a quarter of these, with the others explained by executives' optimistic bias. I have often thought that the agency theory assumption that managers are self-serving is too simplistic an explanation. The idea that NEDs should monitor management also seems to assume that management motives are to capture resources. Ian Griffith's book on creative accounting pointed out that manipulation could be useful in some circumstances to allow a breathing space. It seems to me to be quite plausible that over-optimistic managers could get into trouble, need to cover this up, use misreporting as a temporary fix and enter a downward spiral. Another fascinating paper to read...could also be interesting to start a LinkedIn discussion.
Husband points out that it's breakfast time...
Returning to the ICAEW library page, I follow the link to an EBSCO search on corporate governance and scan the list of nearly 100 articles. Some of these will be very useful in demonstrating the impact of the Cadbury Code which will be covered in the final chapter of the book. Clicking, skim reading and saving..and I've now been sitting at the PC for over an hour.
Checking my Google Reader alerts, I find a link to a forthcoming paper in JAE by Catherine Schrand and Sarah Zeckman on "Executive overconfidence and the slippery slope to financial misreporting". Their study of a sample of 49 firms subject to SEC Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs) suggests that intention to defraud is only responsible for about a quarter of these, with the others explained by executives' optimistic bias. I have often thought that the agency theory assumption that managers are self-serving is too simplistic an explanation. The idea that NEDs should monitor management also seems to assume that management motives are to capture resources. Ian Griffith's book on creative accounting pointed out that manipulation could be useful in some circumstances to allow a breathing space. It seems to me to be quite plausible that over-optimistic managers could get into trouble, need to cover this up, use misreporting as a temporary fix and enter a downward spiral. Another fascinating paper to read...could also be interesting to start a LinkedIn discussion.
Husband points out that it's breakfast time...
Friday 14 October 2011
Friday
Another sunny day! At work I made the mistake of leaving my office door open so was interrupted by a stream of students asking where to find other rooms. The signage around the place is quite clear but it's far easier to ask someone who is clearly sitting at her desk doing nothing very important... In fact, I was marking another MSc dissertation and fielding a great number of emails. I think a lot of students must use Blackberrys and, now the system is working again, traffic has increased. I also followed up alerts to two very useful - but very long - journal articles, one in a law journal on the board's risk management function and a big review article on comparative and international corporate governance. I shall need to have another reading day next week.
Most of today was taken up with conversations with colleagues, before and after a lunchtime meeting about the REF (Research Excellence Framework). The PVC RKT (Pro Vice Chancellor, Research and Knowledge Transfer) gave a very good talk about the process and its implications, as far as is currently known, although I glazed over at the slide which contained equations. But he is a mathematician and he did explain the algorithm quite clearly. He was followed by a young woman from RBDO (Research and Business Development Office) who explained the rules about impact. These seem more complicated than I had understood hitherto. My two colleagues whose work will quite obviously have an impact on policy making by professional bodies will have difficulty meeting the requirements because of the need to demonstrate evidence of impact as well as link back to published research. Public engagement is not the same thing as impact, apparently. Researchers will have to start soliciting written feedback from the people they engage with. Goodness knows how the panels will make sense of all this.
Most of today was taken up with conversations with colleagues, before and after a lunchtime meeting about the REF (Research Excellence Framework). The PVC RKT (Pro Vice Chancellor, Research and Knowledge Transfer) gave a very good talk about the process and its implications, as far as is currently known, although I glazed over at the slide which contained equations. But he is a mathematician and he did explain the algorithm quite clearly. He was followed by a young woman from RBDO (Research and Business Development Office) who explained the rules about impact. These seem more complicated than I had understood hitherto. My two colleagues whose work will quite obviously have an impact on policy making by professional bodies will have difficulty meeting the requirements because of the need to demonstrate evidence of impact as well as link back to published research. Public engagement is not the same thing as impact, apparently. Researchers will have to start soliciting written feedback from the people they engage with. Goodness knows how the panels will make sense of all this.
Thursday 13 October 2011
Thursday, part 2
OK, it's now 3 pm, the sun is still shining but I haven't been outside yet...
I've read and commented on the draft dissertation sent to me for comment by one of my MSc supervisees. He is determined to undertake an event study which I think is too ambitious and possibly inappropriate for addressing his research question but sometimes students will not take advice...
I've read and marked another MSc dissertation which I suspect may be plagiarised in part so I shall have to check that out. Often a simple Google search identifies the unacknowledged sources. We still don't know enough about why students do this, in spite of all the warnings, but our resources seem to be directed at identifying it and punishing it, rather than exploring the reasons that it happens and putting better preventive measures in place.
I've read an excellent paper from the Yale School of Management by Ben Heineman and Stephen Davis on the role of institutional investors. It questions the shift to expecting shareholders to take more responsibility for monitoring boards and provides a very clear analysis of the issues, identifying gaps in our knowledge that should be redressed by research. It's very US focused. I've emailed the organiser of a corporate governance symposium on the UK Stewardship Code due to take place in February 2012 suggesting that this could be a launch pad for a UK debate.
I think I've solved the meeting problem, people seem quite keen to have a breakfast meeting, judging by the email responses. But there are at least two new emails with attachments which will require careful reading: papers for a meeting next week and a draft report to review for ICAEW.
I did stop briefly for lunch but I've been working since 6 am so I reckon that's a full day. But a reading day, not a writing day.. and I have a research bid, some book chapters and two articles to write..
Tomorrow will be a meeting day, like yesterday. Looks as if I'll be writing over the weekend.
I've read and commented on the draft dissertation sent to me for comment by one of my MSc supervisees. He is determined to undertake an event study which I think is too ambitious and possibly inappropriate for addressing his research question but sometimes students will not take advice...
I've read and marked another MSc dissertation which I suspect may be plagiarised in part so I shall have to check that out. Often a simple Google search identifies the unacknowledged sources. We still don't know enough about why students do this, in spite of all the warnings, but our resources seem to be directed at identifying it and punishing it, rather than exploring the reasons that it happens and putting better preventive measures in place.
I've read an excellent paper from the Yale School of Management by Ben Heineman and Stephen Davis on the role of institutional investors. It questions the shift to expecting shareholders to take more responsibility for monitoring boards and provides a very clear analysis of the issues, identifying gaps in our knowledge that should be redressed by research. It's very US focused. I've emailed the organiser of a corporate governance symposium on the UK Stewardship Code due to take place in February 2012 suggesting that this could be a launch pad for a UK debate.
I think I've solved the meeting problem, people seem quite keen to have a breakfast meeting, judging by the email responses. But there are at least two new emails with attachments which will require careful reading: papers for a meeting next week and a draft report to review for ICAEW.
I did stop briefly for lunch but I've been working since 6 am so I reckon that's a full day. But a reading day, not a writing day.. and I have a research bid, some book chapters and two articles to write..
Tomorrow will be a meeting day, like yesterday. Looks as if I'll be writing over the weekend.
Where does the time go?
It's 10.30 am on a sunny October day. This morning Beanie the cat woke me at 5 am so I was sitting at the PC quite early. So far:
I've responded to some emails, tried (yet again) to set up a Scholarly Connections meeting for the department and sent out a request for information on research ouputs from colleagues.
I've checked Google Reader for updates on the blogs I follow, and read several.
I've followed up two automatic alerts to newly published papers (nothing interesting)
I've made some notes for a bid for research funding, to look at the role of audit committees in the UK public and third sectors. I've done a Google Scholar search on "public sector governance" and skim read a paper on corporate governance in the Australian public sector.
I've read a paper sent to me by a young colleague, which has received a revise and submit from a 3* journal - pretty good for a first paper. But some of the reviewers' comments are difficult to understand and it's a bit much to criticise the paper's writing style in sentences that are very badly written. Reviewers' comments can be very discouraging for new researchers. As a reviewer, I know that sometimes it's not easy to find something positive to say, but I always try to acknowledge the effort that the authors have put in and to be constructive. It'll take some fairly major reconstruction but I think this paper can be sorted out.
I've read a very good paper by a legal scholar which analyses two recently published papers on the impact of independent directors on boards and argues that we need to recognise that the role of the independent diretor in corporate governance may be more complicated than has been considered by policy makers and regulators. I like the conclusion: "We may yet hope against hope that director independence could be the magic bullet for corporate governance. But there might be no magic." Tung, F (2011) The Puzzle of Independent Directors: New Learning, Boston University Law Review, Vol 91, 1175-1190. I think this is good because the ideas resonate with my own thinking. I'm currently working on a book on the history of the Cadbury Committee, which, two decades ago, took the value of independent directors as read, in spite of very little evidence about their impact. We need to challenge the conventional wisdom!
I've read the FRC feedback on its consultation about gender diversity on boards
http://www.frc.org.uk/press/pub2645.html
I'm pleased to see that the FRC is taking a measured approach to amending the Corporate Governance Code on this. Mandating board structures has costs as well as benefits and the debate on quotas to promote gender diversity does not, in my view, reflect the costs properly. The Davies review was very selective in the research it quoted. I'm trying to write a paper which brings together the research on the topic, which has been undertaken in different academic disciplines which don't seem to talk to each other. Again, US legal scholars have much useful stuff to say.
And I've started writing this blog, to keep a record for my own use and for anyone who thinks that professors sit about twiddling their thumbs all day...
Time for a cup of green tea...
I've responded to some emails, tried (yet again) to set up a Scholarly Connections meeting for the department and sent out a request for information on research ouputs from colleagues.
I've checked Google Reader for updates on the blogs I follow, and read several.
I've followed up two automatic alerts to newly published papers (nothing interesting)
I've made some notes for a bid for research funding, to look at the role of audit committees in the UK public and third sectors. I've done a Google Scholar search on "public sector governance" and skim read a paper on corporate governance in the Australian public sector.
I've read a paper sent to me by a young colleague, which has received a revise and submit from a 3* journal - pretty good for a first paper. But some of the reviewers' comments are difficult to understand and it's a bit much to criticise the paper's writing style in sentences that are very badly written. Reviewers' comments can be very discouraging for new researchers. As a reviewer, I know that sometimes it's not easy to find something positive to say, but I always try to acknowledge the effort that the authors have put in and to be constructive. It'll take some fairly major reconstruction but I think this paper can be sorted out.
I've read a very good paper by a legal scholar which analyses two recently published papers on the impact of independent directors on boards and argues that we need to recognise that the role of the independent diretor in corporate governance may be more complicated than has been considered by policy makers and regulators. I like the conclusion: "We may yet hope against hope that director independence could be the magic bullet for corporate governance. But there might be no magic." Tung, F (2011) The Puzzle of Independent Directors: New Learning, Boston University Law Review, Vol 91, 1175-1190. I think this is good because the ideas resonate with my own thinking. I'm currently working on a book on the history of the Cadbury Committee, which, two decades ago, took the value of independent directors as read, in spite of very little evidence about their impact. We need to challenge the conventional wisdom!
I've read the FRC feedback on its consultation about gender diversity on boards
http://www.frc.org.uk/press/pub2645.html
I'm pleased to see that the FRC is taking a measured approach to amending the Corporate Governance Code on this. Mandating board structures has costs as well as benefits and the debate on quotas to promote gender diversity does not, in my view, reflect the costs properly. The Davies review was very selective in the research it quoted. I'm trying to write a paper which brings together the research on the topic, which has been undertaken in different academic disciplines which don't seem to talk to each other. Again, US legal scholars have much useful stuff to say.
And I've started writing this blog, to keep a record for my own use and for anyone who thinks that professors sit about twiddling their thumbs all day...
Time for a cup of green tea...
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