The move to University of Warwick

Today I made an important decision. After 8 years in the UK, and having spent all the 8 years as an academic at University of Exeter, I have accepted the offer from University of Warwick to take on the post of Professor of Marketing and Service Systems. There are 2 statements I am making about this move.

First, it's not at the business school, but at the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/. As I begin to be more embedded in transdisciplinarity, I am beginning to feel that the future of business research cannot be detached from technology. Advanced business research could therefore sit within technology schools such as computing and engineering. I have felt for some time that business schools are becoming less and less relevant in advancing research and they are being relegated to undergraduate teaching, MBA or exec ed i.e. teaching standard disciplinary knowledge of business. Research in business, however, has to be much more in collaboration with technology schools as businesses and individuals become more and more connected technologically. Whether it's around strategy, HR, OB, ops mgt, Mkt, business research can no longer ignore the role of technology and it would affect the way we draw boundaries around the disciplines and the way we organise business, markets and structures. In fact, I would argue that the current disciplines are slowly growing obsolete as they belong to an industrial era that has evolved and changed. The only reason these disciplines are still being held sacred is that there are currently no accepted alternatives and it's the American business school way. But its increasingly impeding innovation, progress and knowledge and if the American Business Schools don't change, it would be their loss because some of us would just move ahead and do it our way.

Its quite a drastic move - from a business school to a technical school, but what I feel it is an appropriate one. Over the past 3 years, I have learnt so much from working on collaborative research projects and I do feel I am now ready to make the leap. I know where I am able to make a difference and even though it's quite a change, being at cambridge IfM has helped in the adjustment.

Second, which leads from the first, is the need for technology schools (engineering, computer science etc.) to understand business, markets and customers better and being within a technology school would hopefully allow me to bring the latest thinking into this domain especially, being marketing, about customers and individuals within firms and markets. Technical schools don't quite get business in the way that business schools don't quite get technology and this should change and when it does, we could put our minds to society's more complex problems. So many of my projects have been transdisciplinary that I sometimes don't recognise the boundaries of the disciplines, although to publish at high level journals, I still need to bring it back to theoretical aspects of the disciplines. Probably why my last 3 publications have been in engineering, ops mgt and Mkt.

The job is an interesting one. They approached me a few months ago and it has taken this long to finally confirm. It's also financially quite good as well, equivalent to US professorial levels. Together with the pay is of course the expectation to build the research capability at WMG, advance the state of the art research that really makes a difference to UK companies and competitiveness globally. Some of you may not know this but University of Warwick is top 5 in UK so career wise, this isn't a bad move ;p. It's really nice to be appreciated for the work I am doing which can be really quite left field. In fact my work is so left field I wonder how they even heard of me! When I first got the phone call, I was quite surprised. I know there is expectation that I would be building some of my research work in the defence domain which is where a lot of interest in my work is coming from and I hope to build on that too. My 'start up' team in Warwick would have an assoc prof, a postdoc research fellow, 2 Phd students, 0.5PA and a comms/subeditor. This is important for me because the last thing I want is to be trophy acquisition and find that I cannot work with anyone inside so they have agreed on my terms. Some people in manufacturing have asked 'what is a marketing academic doing in manufacturing'. It's quite important actually. Marketing prides itself as a discipline to understand all about the customer - its attitudes, behaviors, choices, types, segments etc. As a marketing academic, I can bring that knowledge about the customer, especially my own research in value, right to the heart of manufacturing. Many marketing academics tend to do it the other way i.e. represent the firm/product to the market i.e. promotion, price, segmentation etc. but there is work to be done this way round, particularly in hybrid manufacturing and service systems. My other blog (http://value-basedservicesystem.blogspot.com/) covers a lot of what I do that is relevant to manufacturing.

It's nice also to know that I qualify as a professor both in business and manufacturing/engineering schools (credit to the rather 'left field' nature of my work i suppose) but it's still a scary move for me, career wise. Of course Warwick would be a great place to build a team but I'm not getting any younger and sometimes I do wish I am part of someone's team and being looked after instead of looking after and building my team. Oh well, I guess my work is not yet done. Given the potential conflict of interest and rivalry between Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing and WMG, I will end my visitorship at IfM in September.

Some ask me 'why not cambridge' and I usually say, in a tongue and cheek manner that they cant afford me but the truth is, after being in Cambridge for 3 years, I need a far more dynamic environment for building teams and pushing boundaries of my research and Cambridge life sits on two extremes - either quite individualistic in research or in hierarchical teams where there is a pecking order. I love working with my team as an intellectual equal but its very hierarchical here and Cambridge and its 800 year rules is not very tolerant of my rather entrepreneurial ways of combining research, consultancy, funds, people etc. It is also probably true that based on Warwick's offer, it is likely Cambridge cant 'afford' me either since they wouldn't pay that level of salary (or maybe I just don't deserve it).

That said, I love my college and will still be a fellow at Wolfson College and the Cambridge Computer Labs is considering appointing me a visiting researcher as i have continuing project work with them so I guess my Cambridge affiliation might still be there so since I will still be in Cambridge, I shouldn't gripe about it too much ;p. I will, however, be forever grateful to Mike and Duncan who invited me to Cambridge in the first place. After 3 years, I do love the city and the environment and the fact that there is a lot of talent and many smart people around.

The 3 aspects that I am most proud of for securing this appointment are that (1) it is a triumph for transdisciplinarity and research entrepreneurship. You can get pay and position for doing risky left field work and for doing work you feel is the right thing to do. Reward for risk and I hope more academics will take these risks in academia (2) I have pushed the threshold of pay for management/marketing academics in the UK. I think most of us are not paid enough (compared to private sector) for our contribution to society. Future academics can at least aspire to this level (if u see me, just ask me what it is. I'm not too shy to tell ;p) (3) I have broken the glass ceiling for women professors who have always had lower pay compared to their male counterparts. yay to women!

I have to say that I hold a certain amount of respect for WMG for taking on a left fielder like me. I am certainly not mainstream and I am grateful for the opportunity as well as the faith they have placed in me. I will endeavour to reward that faith.

The future is now uncertain, but seem to hold promise. I have been told that I should be operating at a different level now, a different sphere where income is in millions and impact is significant. I do hope, though, to stay true to the cause - that of advancing knowledge in service systems. Better theories, better abstractions and better research leading to better practice. I see too many professors talk the talk but when they become more senior, it's the junior academics that do a lot of the work. I hope I won't be that.