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.