Thursday

Thursday again, they come round very quickly...

Today I have written 933 words of the book which I feel quite pleased with. I've been struggling with a structural problem - chapter 5 is far too long and overflows into chapter 6 but I can't work out how to rearrange the material sensibly. This has been preventing me from getting on with the later part of the story so I decided to just start a new document and write, in the hope that it will all fit together properly in the end. I think I'm ready to start on chapter 7 now, which will be more thematic, drawing on the earlier descriptive part. It also moves away from the archive and into the commentary in the academic literature and will include some of the interview material. With a bit of luck and a following wind I should be able to make good progress as I have some clear days ahead.

I've managed to keep my inbox clear too. Some interesting discussion on LinkedIn about the EU consultation on corporate governance which put me back in touch with Sarah Wilson from Manifest who I haven't seen for a while. She sent me their report on "Say on Pay" around the world. In another LinkedIn group, discussion about the High Pay Commission report where I interjected my thoughts on workers on boards, although I haven't of course had a chance to read the HPC report yet! A tweet from my friend at Cranfield about a paper on board diversity which looked at first glance to be the paper I'm planning to write! A moment of panic before I realised that I've seen an earlier draft of this paper on SSRN and it isn't very good.

A lengthy revised literature review from a PhD student which I dealt with by filing it and telling him he could return to it when he has written up his data analysis chapter. Postponed our next meeting until January to give him time to do that.

Two enquiries about doctoral study: one from an MBA student who didn't give any indication of the area of corporate governance she might be interested in but asked me to suggest things to read, and another with a very scrappy proposal attached. If, as he claimed, he had read the web pages he would know that we won't be accepting further applications until next September and that they have to be in specified areas.

Then a colleague emailed an application for central funding to support research impact. My blood pressure soared when I read that he would be away between now and the application deadline and he asked me and the research manager to submit it for him. And then I remembered that when he had expressed an interest in applying three weeks ago I had emailed him and asked him to let me have a draft so that we could discuss it - but he hadn't replied. The application itself is totally unacceptable - no supporting documents to show that he has in fact received an invitation to undertake the travel he is proposing. I can see that I shall have to spend a great deal of time policing rogue researchers which is not in my job description.