The Management Professor

Abstract

I am often told that it is somewhat unusual that I’ve spent my entire twenty-five-year academic career at the same institution—namely, the University of Washington (and that I speak Norwegian, Danish, and an obscure dialect of Chinese as well). During that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many fine colleagues and students. In the last ten years I’ve had the wonderful experiences of being an associate editor and then editor of the Academy of Management Journal, of being vice president and then president of the Academy of Management, and—a somewhat different kind of experience though still a good one—of being an associate dean of faculty at the Foster School of Business. It is from the vantage point of these experiences that I want to talk about the role of the management professor, although I suspect that much of what I say applies to virtually all professors. More specifically, I want to offer my thoughts on our research and teaching missions.