Early start - finally manage to scan all receipts and submit expenses claim to ICAEW, much quicker with a clear head. Follow up some alerts and forward useful links to colleagues. A PhD enquiry - these have tailed off lately, possibly because we have provided some very specific areas of study on the web site. Only one enquiry so far about the post doc advert and the topic of interest would be stretching the interpretation of our research focus somewhat. Confirmation that the funding proposal has achieved Faculty approval - now waiting for university approval before I can send off all the documents. Message from Google Scholar telling me that the Arthur Andersen paper has been cited: seems to be in a paper by one of my co-author's students so hardly surprising!
Check on my literature search on board gender diversity via Google Scholar. Thankfully nothing seems to have been published lately that I haven't already picked up but following up the citations (such a useful feature!) I find an article by a professor of psychology at Hertfordshire which provides references for some of the material that is so frequently cited as showing the benefits of women on boards. Very tempted to write to the author pointing out that the article perpetuates a growing myth by conflating correlation with causality.
Back to chapter 6. Read through file of material I have collected on early compliance with the Code - a big file but some of contents are not directly relevant so I can clear a bit of space on my desk. I find some previous notes I had made about how to structure the discussion of compliance. Wish I could read my handwriting...
Window cleaner appears suddenly giving both me and Beanie a bit of a fright. We don't expect to be disturbed up here in the study.
Complete draft of report of the "professorial task group" I've been chairing. My group was responsible for looking at the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education. The main issue is whether we commit to this whole-heartedly through a process of "critical engagement" with the principles or superficially, just ticking the boxes where our current activities match. There is a lot already going on in the Faculty which relates to the Principles, some of which is really innovative. The group has had fluctuating membership: some colleagues are really committed to this initiative and have been very helpful. Others, having expressed an interest initially, haven't come to any of the meetings or responded to emails asking for input. I've circulated the draft and asked for comment by tomorrow afternoon so that I can send it to the dean next week.
A tweeted link to Andy Haldane's recent lecture on the Gresham College site is disappointing because it only gives his slides (he is an economist at the Bank of England and has written some excellent papers on the financial crisis: he is speaking at the ICAEW conference next month) but by happy chance I find a pdf of Adrian Cadbury's 1998 lecture and read it over lunch. Some quotable bits and a very useful addition to my collection of his reflections after the report and Code were published.
Quick trip out to the shops. In a North Oxford supermarket I find a lost shopping list which begins "Venison, Chantenay carrots..". Succumb to temptation of 3 for 2 offers on frozen petit fours. Visit newly opened shop selling upmarket frozen meals. The packaging is good because you can see the food inside but it's all very expensive. A big range of types and sizes but a three course meal would cost just as much as a meal out in a medium-priced restaurant. Assistant tells us that it's all cooked as if home-made with no preservatives or additives. I see that the names of the cooks are shown on the packaging: not sure I'd want to eat anything cooked by a Mr Piles, though. Wonder how long the shop will last.
Back to find funding proposal has been approved - off it goes and shortly I receive confirmation that it has arrived safely. Request arrives to update the departmental entry in the British Accounting Review Research Register. This is published every two years and lists all the accounting and finance academics at every British university with a note of their teaching and research interests and publications so it is a very useful resource, but completing the return required is a pain. Much less of a pain, though, than when it was all paper based, but still a couple of hours work assembling all the information for the last two years.
Dentist first thing tomorrow, not looking forward to it.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Wednesday
Woke up at 4 am feeling queasy after sleep disturbed by vivid dreams (all components clearly related to previous day's thoughts and conversations but reassembled into a surreal experience). Decided against struggling into the City for ICAEW public sector non-executive director event. My main objective in attending was to identify potential interviewees for a project on public sector audit committees but there is no guarantee that I'll get the funding for this and if I do I already have contacts who can introduce me to appropriate people. Right now, the possibility of two consecutive uninterrupted days of reading and writing is hard to resist.
"The Corporate Objective" by Andrew Keay is the most disappointing book I've encountered for a long time. I am prejudiced against the legal style of citation with lengthy footnotes but the first part of this book has a footnote for every sentence. Some legal scholars include a parenthetical sentence summarising the relevance of the sources cited: at least that gives some idea of how the source supports the argument. But in this case the sources seem wildly disparate and often out of date. It reminded me of a student dissertation: lots of references to a huge range of literature but none of it pulled together properly. The writing style is ponderous and repetitious - a good editor could have improved it immensely. By the end of chapter 1 I was ready to hurl the book out of the window. I skim read the remainder but even a detailed reading would have been unlikely to elucidate the new "model" proposed by the author and his recommendations for its enforcement. I searched in vain for any mention of the role of financial reporting in the accountability of directors, although there was a very brief reference to audit.
The second book "Corporate Governance: an Institutionalist Approach" is infinitely better. It's an edited collection of essays, one of which, on the Company Law Review process, is very useful. It covers some of the same ground as the Keay book in examining the theoretical frameworks but is so much better. It was published in 2003 and has been in our library since 2006 but never borrowed - I'm surprised it hasn't been culled! It wasn't on the shelf where I would have expected to find it and I certainly didn't recommend it so I wonder how it came to be purchased.
Chapter 6 got some attention today, I'm happy to report. I read the two papers which arrived via inter-library loan yesterday, which were early academic assessments of compliance with the Cadbury Code, and incorporated their findings. I reckon the chapter is half done so if I can crack on tomorrow I might even get it finished by next week.
I think the head of admin was shocked to receive anything other than a complaint. However, today the problem student has apparently been given advice by less sensible members of the postgraduate office staff which conflicts with the authoritative advice I was given and commits me, without consultation, to a course of action over which I should have had a choice. Thankfully it is what I had already planned to do but that office does need to be sorted out.
Trying to submit my ICAEW expense claim has given me a headache. I have to scan my receipts and then email them to my ICAEW address so that I can then log in to the ICAEW virtual desktop and put the claim together. This takes two passwords and I haven't yet worked out how to switch between desktops. Today I got started and then realised that I'd forgotten the cost code so tried to find an old claim to check it - that was impossible. So I had to log out of ICAEW to try to find it. In the end I phoned Gillian who was as usual very helpful.
And now I see that one of our new staff has decided to organise a Secret Santa for our departmental Xmas lunch. I HATE Secret Santa. What is the point of it? You look mean if you don't join in but I really don't want to have to buy a present for someone I may not like. I hope other people share my view.
"The Corporate Objective" by Andrew Keay is the most disappointing book I've encountered for a long time. I am prejudiced against the legal style of citation with lengthy footnotes but the first part of this book has a footnote for every sentence. Some legal scholars include a parenthetical sentence summarising the relevance of the sources cited: at least that gives some idea of how the source supports the argument. But in this case the sources seem wildly disparate and often out of date. It reminded me of a student dissertation: lots of references to a huge range of literature but none of it pulled together properly. The writing style is ponderous and repetitious - a good editor could have improved it immensely. By the end of chapter 1 I was ready to hurl the book out of the window. I skim read the remainder but even a detailed reading would have been unlikely to elucidate the new "model" proposed by the author and his recommendations for its enforcement. I searched in vain for any mention of the role of financial reporting in the accountability of directors, although there was a very brief reference to audit.
The second book "Corporate Governance: an Institutionalist Approach" is infinitely better. It's an edited collection of essays, one of which, on the Company Law Review process, is very useful. It covers some of the same ground as the Keay book in examining the theoretical frameworks but is so much better. It was published in 2003 and has been in our library since 2006 but never borrowed - I'm surprised it hasn't been culled! It wasn't on the shelf where I would have expected to find it and I certainly didn't recommend it so I wonder how it came to be purchased.
Chapter 6 got some attention today, I'm happy to report. I read the two papers which arrived via inter-library loan yesterday, which were early academic assessments of compliance with the Cadbury Code, and incorporated their findings. I reckon the chapter is half done so if I can crack on tomorrow I might even get it finished by next week.
I think the head of admin was shocked to receive anything other than a complaint. However, today the problem student has apparently been given advice by less sensible members of the postgraduate office staff which conflicts with the authoritative advice I was given and commits me, without consultation, to a course of action over which I should have had a choice. Thankfully it is what I had already planned to do but that office does need to be sorted out.
Trying to submit my ICAEW expense claim has given me a headache. I have to scan my receipts and then email them to my ICAEW address so that I can then log in to the ICAEW virtual desktop and put the claim together. This takes two passwords and I haven't yet worked out how to switch between desktops. Today I got started and then realised that I'd forgotten the cost code so tried to find an old claim to check it - that was impossible. So I had to log out of ICAEW to try to find it. In the end I phoned Gillian who was as usual very helpful.
And now I see that one of our new staff has decided to organise a Secret Santa for our departmental Xmas lunch. I HATE Secret Santa. What is the point of it? You look mean if you don't join in but I really don't want to have to buy a present for someone I may not like. I hope other people share my view.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Tuesday
Enjoying my lunchtime egg sandwich, I have just come up with a post for the FB group Famous catchphrases sound better in Shakespearean iambic pentameter.
Collected two more inter-library loan copies of articles and two books I'd requested from the library. (I've come to terms with the new issue system at last.) Some reading for the bus to London tomorrow. One book does not look promising: on the first page I read "Michael Jensen has emitted similar sentiments..." Emitted? Expressed, surely. And this book is by a lawyer which means that all the references are in footnotes which I find a real pain. I suspect that neither volume will be as interesting or thought-provoking as Heffernan which I finished reading over breakfast.
Alerted by a tweet from the wonderful Robert Goddard, without whom I would never manage to keep up to date in my area, I looked at the list of the respondents to the consultation on EU corporate governance. It's always interesting to see which academics take the time to express their views to public consultations: I confess that I never manage to find time. Ian Tonks from Bath was in the list and reading his submission I saw that he has co-authored a paper on gender diversity which looks very interesting so I emailed him to ask for a copy. (In this morning's discussion about the difficulty of getting hold of back issues of journals, a colleague described having to track down a seminal paper via a contact at another university: I did wonder why he hadn't emailed the author directly but perhaps that wasn't possible. I get quite a few direct requests for copies of mine.)
Google Reader flagged up a new post on the FASRI (Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative) web site. It's such a long time since I taught financial accounting that I am very out of touch but I do try to read the occasional article on the big issues. This is about asset impairment and refers to the "three bucket" approach. What a splendid metaphor! I remember being on a bus back from London continuing by phone a discussion about research methods after a research meeting and trying to explain an idea by referring to transferring data in and out of bins. I don't think I convinced my co-author but when the conversation ended the woman sitting across the aisle from me told me how interesting the idea was and wanted to know more about the research.
No, chapter 6, I haven't forgotten you...
PS And an hour after I emailed my request, Ian has kindly sent me the paper.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Monday
Didn't achieve much today - most of the items on my to-do list got ticked off but they were small things. Almost cleared my inbox and had some success in arranging next week's departmental research meeting. Colleagues seem to respond speedily and positively to invitations via the electronic calendar and I even flushed out two volunteer speakers to fill the vacant slots in the programme. Some progress with paperwork for PhD student and the funding application should at last have all the Faculty approvals to enable it to go through the internal system. Sent the VC and the dean details of last week's ICAEW event. Fulfilled all requests for papers from people I talked to last week.
In the afternoon met up with Austrian lawyer friend who is studying in Oxford this term. I think he is a frustrated academic. I don't know how he is managing to attend lectures and seminars, read and write and also keep up his job back in Austria but he seems very committed. He told me that he has found a German source which indicates that debates were going about unitary or two tier boards in Germany as early as the late 1800s, which I would be very interested to see.
Tomorrow: meetings with students, research leaders meeting and a PDR.
In the afternoon met up with Austrian lawyer friend who is studying in Oxford this term. I think he is a frustrated academic. I don't know how he is managing to attend lectures and seminars, read and write and also keep up his job back in Austria but he seems very committed. He told me that he has found a German source which indicates that debates were going about unitary or two tier boards in Germany as early as the late 1800s, which I would be very interested to see.
Tomorrow: meetings with students, research leaders meeting and a PDR.
Catching up
Being out and about is very pleasant, very interesting and very tiring. I always collect a pocketful of business cards (I wonder if anyone has researched business card design?) but establishing new relationships requires follow up emails and while I'm out and about my inbox fills up rapidly. Even the ability to deal with email on my phone makes little difference, other than raising my awareness of all the catching up I shall have to do when I get back to base, since I often can't easily access the information I need to answer queries raised.
So Thursday morning was spent catching up with Wednesday's emails, following up with new contacts and trying to complete the reading for Friday's meeting. Back on the bus to London after an early lunch and, as on Wednesday, transferring onto the tube at Hillingdon proved to be a good idea - it seems that there have been traffic problems on the A40 all week. At Chartered Accountants Hall, a meeting with my part-time PhD student to check progress on completion of her registration paperwork and to catch up with her working life in internal audit in financial services. She has also been elected deputy president of her professional association which will keep her busy but provide lots of opportunities for finding interview subjects. She seems to have people around her who are very supportive of her doctoral studies which will be a great help to her. We are both addicted to stationery so as usual we compared notes on notebooks and pens.
A chat with the ICAEW research manager about Friday's meeting which could be complicated and then off to the IT Faculty annual lecture which one of my colleagues helped to organise. He has become something of an expert on open data and was concerned that there seemed to be no accountants considering its implications so I suggested that he talked to ICAEW who responded very enthusiastically and decided to make it the topic of their annual lecture, asking him to suggest a speaker. The very lively and charismatic Rufus Pollock gave an excellent overview of the subject and we were then given a very pleasant dinner. I caught up with people I had last seen at conferences in far-flung places like Venice and Segovia and met some of the faculty members. Back to the splendid Hoxton hotel for the night.
Up early and back to ICAEW, stopping at the cheap bookshop in Moorgate en route to search for bargains - they had some very interesting but huge coffee table type books greatly discounted but too heavy to carry home on the bus. Resisted popping over the road to Hotel Chocolat for free samples - even with my great liking for chocolate, I can't eat it at 8.30 am!
Checked email in the Business Centre (it's very convenient to be able to do this but I do still miss the old Members and Guests room with its big sofas and old men dozing in corners...) Students with queries: one who is not enjoying his course and wants to change but doesn't say what he isn't enjoying or what he wants to change to; another who seems to want to go back to his home country as soon as his exams have finished in December - no problem with that except that his English is so poor that it is difficult to be sure that this is really his query; and a Masters student telling me that he has a medical resit for his dissertation which is puzzling. I spend some time trying to track down the appropriate rules that could have led to this but have no success on the university web site and eventually forward the message to a colleague who may know more. A flurry of discussion about agenda items for next weeks research leaders' meeting reveals some unexpected issues and possible misinformation but no time to dig further. A couple of useful chats with passing technical staff who I haven't seen for some time before the start of the research board meeting which is lengthy, as usual, but not as difficult as I had anticipated.
A fascinating discussion about the future of accounting as an academic subject: the view from a post-1992 university is rather different and I think quite surprising to colleagues from the other side of the fence where they are only just catching up with some of the issues we have faced for a long time, such as the need to recruit staff wit a professional background who may not have a PhD. Of course they don't know about the annual research methods workshop designed many years ago to meet the needs of such people - well, one of the members present did because he had been a keynote speaker one year but I found myself shuddering at the thought of any of the others taking on that role...
Lunch included crème brulee in tiny glasses but no spoons to eat it with: it had a runny consistency and I was entertained by watching how people dealt with this. Difficult to eat custard with a fork so some of them drank it. An interesting gossip afterwards and then off home. Too tired to head for the bus to Victoria so took a very extravagant taxi - the traffic was heavy so the fare was high but if I travelled to London by train the total travel cost would still be far in excess of the bus and taxi fare combined so I feel justified. I think ICAEW get good value from their expenditure on me but I do find myself occasionally donning my member's hat and wondering about this. (I've asked other staff who are also members whether they too experience this conflict but they look at me as if I'm mad...)
Back home to entertain an overnight guest, a colleague who lives some distance away and has to be on campus very early on Saturday for an open day. Husband produces an excellent meal.
Spend the weekend catching up with domestic chores. The highlight was Saturday night - went to see Hot Club of Cowtown, fantastic as usual. First saw them at the Old Bag Factory in Goshen, Indiana in 2007 ( a memorable evening in more ways than one: darkness in Amish country makes unlit buggies a driving hazard unlike any other...). See them at http://youtu.be/Jr8My5Uo0gE
So Thursday morning was spent catching up with Wednesday's emails, following up with new contacts and trying to complete the reading for Friday's meeting. Back on the bus to London after an early lunch and, as on Wednesday, transferring onto the tube at Hillingdon proved to be a good idea - it seems that there have been traffic problems on the A40 all week. At Chartered Accountants Hall, a meeting with my part-time PhD student to check progress on completion of her registration paperwork and to catch up with her working life in internal audit in financial services. She has also been elected deputy president of her professional association which will keep her busy but provide lots of opportunities for finding interview subjects. She seems to have people around her who are very supportive of her doctoral studies which will be a great help to her. We are both addicted to stationery so as usual we compared notes on notebooks and pens.
A chat with the ICAEW research manager about Friday's meeting which could be complicated and then off to the IT Faculty annual lecture which one of my colleagues helped to organise. He has become something of an expert on open data and was concerned that there seemed to be no accountants considering its implications so I suggested that he talked to ICAEW who responded very enthusiastically and decided to make it the topic of their annual lecture, asking him to suggest a speaker. The very lively and charismatic Rufus Pollock gave an excellent overview of the subject and we were then given a very pleasant dinner. I caught up with people I had last seen at conferences in far-flung places like Venice and Segovia and met some of the faculty members. Back to the splendid Hoxton hotel for the night.
Up early and back to ICAEW, stopping at the cheap bookshop in Moorgate en route to search for bargains - they had some very interesting but huge coffee table type books greatly discounted but too heavy to carry home on the bus. Resisted popping over the road to Hotel Chocolat for free samples - even with my great liking for chocolate, I can't eat it at 8.30 am!
Checked email in the Business Centre (it's very convenient to be able to do this but I do still miss the old Members and Guests room with its big sofas and old men dozing in corners...) Students with queries: one who is not enjoying his course and wants to change but doesn't say what he isn't enjoying or what he wants to change to; another who seems to want to go back to his home country as soon as his exams have finished in December - no problem with that except that his English is so poor that it is difficult to be sure that this is really his query; and a Masters student telling me that he has a medical resit for his dissertation which is puzzling. I spend some time trying to track down the appropriate rules that could have led to this but have no success on the university web site and eventually forward the message to a colleague who may know more. A flurry of discussion about agenda items for next weeks research leaders' meeting reveals some unexpected issues and possible misinformation but no time to dig further. A couple of useful chats with passing technical staff who I haven't seen for some time before the start of the research board meeting which is lengthy, as usual, but not as difficult as I had anticipated.
A fascinating discussion about the future of accounting as an academic subject: the view from a post-1992 university is rather different and I think quite surprising to colleagues from the other side of the fence where they are only just catching up with some of the issues we have faced for a long time, such as the need to recruit staff wit a professional background who may not have a PhD. Of course they don't know about the annual research methods workshop designed many years ago to meet the needs of such people - well, one of the members present did because he had been a keynote speaker one year but I found myself shuddering at the thought of any of the others taking on that role...
Lunch included crème brulee in tiny glasses but no spoons to eat it with: it had a runny consistency and I was entertained by watching how people dealt with this. Difficult to eat custard with a fork so some of them drank it. An interesting gossip afterwards and then off home. Too tired to head for the bus to Victoria so took a very extravagant taxi - the traffic was heavy so the fare was high but if I travelled to London by train the total travel cost would still be far in excess of the bus and taxi fare combined so I feel justified. I think ICAEW get good value from their expenditure on me but I do find myself occasionally donning my member's hat and wondering about this. (I've asked other staff who are also members whether they too experience this conflict but they look at me as if I'm mad...)
Back home to entertain an overnight guest, a colleague who lives some distance away and has to be on campus very early on Saturday for an open day. Husband produces an excellent meal.
Spend the weekend catching up with domestic chores. The highlight was Saturday night - went to see Hot Club of Cowtown, fantastic as usual. First saw them at the Old Bag Factory in Goshen, Indiana in 2007 ( a memorable evening in more ways than one: darkness in Amish country makes unlit buggies a driving hazard unlike any other...). See them at http://youtu.be/Jr8My5Uo0gE
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Wednesday, out and about
Set off for the House of Lords for the Tomorrow's Company reception. Arriving early in Westminster, strolled up Whitehall to look at the horses. Many, many police, far more than usual, setting up for a demonstration about student fees. Decided to risk being the first to arrive at the event but found that there was already a queue at Black Rod's Garden Entrance - security is tight as might be expected but only one person checking so very slow. Chatted to others in the queue who said that last year on the day of this event it had been raining which was much worse! Spotted several old pals in the queue.
A very warm welcome from my good friend Emma who is COO for Tomorrow's Company - she used to organise events at ICAEW. With the sun shining it was very pleasant on the terrace and the canapes were excellent. Good conversation with Mark Goyder, who founded TC, and his recollections of the Cadbury time. Met an interesting lawyer who surprisingly shared some of my heretical views about NEDs and board diversity, and claimed to have read some of my work. I don't think he was just being kind, he seemed quite familiar with it - trouble is, I no longer am! Stuff I wrote ten years ago is no longer easily retrievable from my memory bank.
Everyone looking at my badge had a comment about OBU, some sort of connection from being the father of one of our MBA administrators, or an adviser to one of our research groups to having a young relative who had studied with us. Several comments about our ACCA link, especially from the CIMA people who were out in force because they have linked up with TC.
The speeches were mercifully short as we had to stand and the marquee had become very crowded and hot. A lot of rather fluffy calls for ethical behaviour and sustainability (I have some sympathy with Simon Jenkins on this in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/ethical-fluff-st-pauls-rowan-williams ) I was particularly interested to hear Lisa Buckingham, editor of the Financial Mail, as she wrote a great deal about Cadbury twenty years ago. I spoke to her afterwards: there was a small queue of people wanting to speak to her and she seemed rather pleased to be rescued from someone from UKSIF. She told me that she was with the Guardian at the time - she had been on maternity leave and wanted to work part-time but they weren't keen to let her. She offered to write about corporate governance, convincing her boss that it would be a really important area, and because no-one else was writing on the subject, she managed to concentrate her work in a family-friendly way. She seemed interested in the book so I may ask her for some more detail about her memories of the time.
I didn't linger because I was nervous about getting caught up in the demonstrations so headed back to get the bus. Dealt with email on the journey - it's great to be able to do that on my phone, no need to lug a netbook about. Phone calls bringing me up to date about events back at base - rather pleased I'm out and about this week.
An evening reading papers for Friday's ICAEW research board meeting.
A very warm welcome from my good friend Emma who is COO for Tomorrow's Company - she used to organise events at ICAEW. With the sun shining it was very pleasant on the terrace and the canapes were excellent. Good conversation with Mark Goyder, who founded TC, and his recollections of the Cadbury time. Met an interesting lawyer who surprisingly shared some of my heretical views about NEDs and board diversity, and claimed to have read some of my work. I don't think he was just being kind, he seemed quite familiar with it - trouble is, I no longer am! Stuff I wrote ten years ago is no longer easily retrievable from my memory bank.
Everyone looking at my badge had a comment about OBU, some sort of connection from being the father of one of our MBA administrators, or an adviser to one of our research groups to having a young relative who had studied with us. Several comments about our ACCA link, especially from the CIMA people who were out in force because they have linked up with TC.
The speeches were mercifully short as we had to stand and the marquee had become very crowded and hot. A lot of rather fluffy calls for ethical behaviour and sustainability (I have some sympathy with Simon Jenkins on this in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/ethical-fluff-st-pauls-rowan-williams ) I was particularly interested to hear Lisa Buckingham, editor of the Financial Mail, as she wrote a great deal about Cadbury twenty years ago. I spoke to her afterwards: there was a small queue of people wanting to speak to her and she seemed rather pleased to be rescued from someone from UKSIF. She told me that she was with the Guardian at the time - she had been on maternity leave and wanted to work part-time but they weren't keen to let her. She offered to write about corporate governance, convincing her boss that it would be a really important area, and because no-one else was writing on the subject, she managed to concentrate her work in a family-friendly way. She seemed interested in the book so I may ask her for some more detail about her memories of the time.
I didn't linger because I was nervous about getting caught up in the demonstrations so headed back to get the bus. Dealt with email on the journey - it's great to be able to do that on my phone, no need to lug a netbook about. Phone calls bringing me up to date about events back at base - rather pleased I'm out and about this week.
An evening reading papers for Friday's ICAEW research board meeting.
Tuesday
Morning spent at the first ever meeting of research leaders across the university. Caught up with some people I haven't seen for a very long time. Most interesting discussion about the RL role which is interpreted very differently in different faculties.
Home again by 2pm to deal with email. An enquiry about the post doc post - I had completely forgotten that this was being advertised. Prompted me to look at the departmental web page: no updating has yet taken place although the details were passed on two weeks ago.
Completed final amendments to funding application to ICAS and sent all the documents to our wonderful research manager. Caught up with Twitter updates from corporate governance experts - links to more interesting reading bookmarked - but when will they get read?
Home again by 2pm to deal with email. An enquiry about the post doc post - I had completely forgotten that this was being advertised. Prompted me to look at the departmental web page: no updating has yet taken place although the details were passed on two weeks ago.
Completed final amendments to funding application to ICAS and sent all the documents to our wonderful research manager. Caught up with Twitter updates from corporate governance experts - links to more interesting reading bookmarked - but when will they get read?
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