Monday

The extra hour came in handy, allowing me to spend more time on reviewing the paper for ABR. The topic is very interesting and the paper is very well written: it's not often that I get asked to review a paper of this quality and it's taken me some time to reflect on ways in which it could be strengthened. As usual, I'm much more interested in how the research was actually undertaken than in the findings and this is especially so with case studies. The authors managed to get access to significant people and I'd like to know much more about the process of collecting the data. But typically journal articles say very little about this.

Spent the rest of the day on the South Bank and very much enjoyed a performance of Arnold Wesker's "The Kitchen" at the National Theatre. The production was quite balletic in places and left me thinking about how groups of quite dysfunctional  individuals can work together effectively. The idea of senior management being shipped off to experience work in a professional kitchen is quite appealing.

Monday got off to a good start - coffee with a young friend who has recently completed an Oxford DPhil and is now working on a fascinating project shadowing chief execs in the NHS. She told me all about her viva and, not for the first time, I regret not having pursued the project started a long time ago exploring viva experiences. (It was knocked on the head by our then research director who insisted that it wouldn't lead to an output RAEable under Business and Management.) She has sent me her thesis to read -  all 448 pages! She has cited my work on audit committees quite extensively so it will be interesting to see how she has used it.

Snail mail brings a report on risk reporting published by ICAEW which cites my co-authored paper on regulation by disclosure several times - excellent news as I can put this in the REF impact form I've been asked to complete. Slight problem that the paper itself may not make the cut as the journal is one of those which appear low down in the rankings in spite of its clear quality.

Issues about protection of research time have come to a head and after meetings, phone calls and emails I found myself organising a meeting of professors for tomorrow afternoon.

Made some headway on my inbox before chairing a meeting of the PRME task group. We need to produce some recommendations on how the Faculty should pursue the PRME agenda and I had made some notes on this beforehand but the meeting turned out rather differently - a bunch of extremely enthusiastic colleagues who see this as an opportunity to make quite radical changes in student engagement across all courses, the development of the Faculty culture and external relationships. It was a great pleasure to attend a meeting that did not involve anyone expressing anxieties or complaining about anything. Although those attending have a number of individual agendas, PRME provides a useful focus for these. I now have to draft a report which captures the interesting ideas put forward - the task list for Thursday, my working at home day, grows longer and chapter 6 is still calling to me...

Then off to teach a session on literature reviews on the MSc Finance research methods module. Most of the students seemed lively and receptive. I was shocked to find that they don't see the point of keeping themselves informed about business news by reading newspapers: they seemed surprised that anyone should suggest it. A few of them seem to have a clear idea of possible dissertation topics but many don't and seem to think they can knock out a proposal over the Xmas break. I think I shall have to offer to help with marking proposals. I rashly offered to deal with enquiries about literature reviews by email - by the time they come to write them, they will have forgotten everything I told them. In talking about how to read critically, I suggested that they should consider who authors are writing for and was then asked who the audience for their dissertations is - a very perceptive question from a student who told me he did an undergraduate degree in psychology and wants to look at aspects of behavioural finance in his dissertation. The time went very quickly but I was really tired by the end of the afternoon.