service

I volunteer with this this great organization. They provide free EMS/ambulance services to South Orange and the surrounding area. Free! It feels so odd to have access to critical emergency medical services in the US without having to go bankrupt! But that's what we do. And we have to raise our own funds to be able to offer this free service. It's a great training ground for budding EMTs, nurses, and doctors. We draw heavily from Seton Hall students, but sometimes the occasional old townie like me falls into the mix. Glad to tell you more, if you're interested.

The McNair Program is a long-standing federally funded program that encourages under-represented students to earn a PhD. I'm one of the earliest McNair Scholars, completing the program in 1991. I recently realized that there are surprisingly few senior business faculty who completed the McNair Program; in fact, I know of no other full professor in a business school. And that's bad, because business academia -- and the students and current and future executives they reach -- could benefit from a broader array of voices. So I created this network. It's a tremendous opportunity not just for the students, but also for faculty and the field. Check it out!

I guest edited the summer 2020 issue of our open access journal, Rutgers Business Review. It features ten articles from teams of leading scholars who share their keen insights on many key aspects of corporate social innovation. It's good reading, and it's free!

The top research faculty from the top business schools form ARCS. I was part of it from the very start, attending the first conference over a snow-covered few days at Dartmouth long ago. But I trailed off for a while after that. Then, I brought RICSI and RBS into the group, and now I serve on the Board of Directors and I'm Chair of the Awards Committee. Check out all the great resources on the website.

I've lightly dabbled in a few martial arts over time -- karate, tae kwan do, judo, tai chi -- but I meandered into American Jiu Jitsu a couple years ago, and it really works for me. I quickly grew bored with katas in other systems. I'm not a dancer, and the choreography just wasn't for me. By contrast, AJJ is scenario-based self defense. That is, you practice ways to defend from real(istic) attacks. It draws from many other martial arts, and so has throws and kicks and grappling, but it's primarily a stand-up system, with a focus on wrist holds, arm bars, and whatever it takes to get safe from hands, feet, and a variety of weapons. The sensei -- Tony Avila -- is awesome and personable, and it's a great group of folks all around. Join us! If nothing else, you'll learn to appreciate the Jason Bourne, Matrix, and Kobra Kai series on a whole new level.

I was fortunate to be selected to the 2015-16 Class of ACE Fellows (Best Class Ever!). To learn intensively about university-level senior administration, I spent the year attending a series of workshops run by university presidents and ACE staff, conducted numerous site visits with presidents and top university staff across the country, and shadowed the president and provost of Baruch College (CUNY). It's the premier academic leadership program, so if you get a chance to do it . . . well, just do it!

In what seems like a lifetime ago, I moved to Oxford (once all the visa mayhem was ironed out) and, among many other duties, served as the inaugural Research Director of the Centre for Corporate Reputation. Briefly. But, we accomplished a great deal in structuring the research activities and building the international network of the Centre in that brief time. I maintain an ongoing affiliation as International Research Fellow, which allows me to make the pilgrimage (in non-pandemic times) back to Academic Mecca to attend the annual symposium.

In 2018, I helped stand up RICSI, served as interim Executive Director, then transitioned to Academic Director after hiring a full-time staff, and departed in Spring 2022. We put together a lot of great content to advance both theory and practice on how to create more innovative business models to better serve society. Explore the site. The QUASI seminars are a great repository of central debates.

As part of my role as Academic Director of RICSI, I created the QUASI seminar series. You can see the whole series and access associated materials at this link. Many use these seminars as part of doctoral coursework.

The QUASI seminars are designed to create better research questions. This twitter link is a burgeoning effort to create an open community for fine-tuning research questions. Please follow and contribute. It won't go anywhere if others aren't asking their questions & getting feedback -- it's a crowd sourcing initiative.

Students can drive change at universities. A student group asked Rutgers University to divest from fossil fuels. This set in motion creation of policy that included review of the request by an ad hoc committee. I was asked to serve on that committee -- which moved at lightning speed relative to academic time. It was the first test of this divestment policy, so we set precedent -- and I think in a very solid way. Success!

Over the course of several meetings, to include a fascinating retreat at the picturesque Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, I worked with a great team of scholars and the insightful Aspen Institute staff to come up with insights on how to advance corporate social intrapreneurship. You can see the report at this link.

I'm honored to serve as a Fellow of the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rutgers and to have participated in a variety of events they've held over the many years since they were founded.

Rutgers has a tremendous resource in its Center for Organizational Leadership, run by some amazing folks who offer some of the best leadership development programs in the country, and who literally wrote the book on this. Their flagship program is the Rutgers Leadership Academy, and I was fortunate to be part of the 2017-19 Cohort. Back then, it was a two-year program. It has since been condensed to a single year. How they pack it all in now, I don't know -- but if you get a chance to be a part of it, go for it!

I was a junior professor at the University of South Florida when the Patel Center for Global Solutions was created. Betty Castor, the immediately former USF president, directed it, and I was appointed a Fellow from the College of Business (Administration -- they later dropped the A, and thereafter, added "Muma" to the front). Time rolls on, and now they've built a nice, LEED-certified headquarters and become a college. I'm so glad to see them succeeding!

Everybody wants to rule the world and, with the notable exception of far too many members of a certain US political party, everybody wants to save the world. But the latter only becomes feasible through cooperation. Catalyst 2030 has taken on the audacious goal of coordinating individuals and organizations to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. I'm a member and on far more committees than I can recall at this point. There's a lot going on with this organization, as is necessarily the case.

I'm not a member of this academic society, though I do pretend to be from time to time. They hold their annual conference alongside the annual Academy of Management conference, and I slip over to SBE for keynotes, receptions (they have good grub!), and I've served on a panel or two. I'm also on the editorial board of their esteemed journal, Business Ethics Quarterly. It's a manageable and well-managed group.

By contrast to SBE, the Academy of Management's annual meeting is both a maze and amazing. Ten or twelve thousand of your closest absent-minded professor friends show up and take over a downtown in the August heat. I've been going since 1998. In fact, I've had almost half of my birthdays ever while at the AOM conference (no, they never give me a cake!). I've participated in more sessions and activities within AOM than I can recall, to include organizing the first-ever specialty conference (Surrey, England) and completing the leadership track for the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division. Fun fact: I've published in every AOM outlet, other than Annals. Annals -- throw me a bone, eh?

In a bruising process, by which I volunteered and no on else did, I was elected one of Rutgers Business School's representatives on the Newark Faculty Council. Monthly, we meet with the Chancellor, Provost, and other senior staff of the university. We have their ear for at least 90 minutes a month, so if you have any issues I should pursue, do let me know. For 2020-21, I was elected the Vice Chair, and that means that I become Chair (barring impeachment) for 2021-22. The power will surely go to my head.

What a masterful job Oana Branzei does in organizing this annual event! There's a structure and collegiality to it that it makes it the best doctoral student development workshop I've been to. I was fortunate to be a Faculty Mentor for the 10th Academy. I still have the apron received during the associated field trip. Oh, and I still have a hankering for maple-infused rye whiskey as a result!

Running a close second for well-run, comprehensive programs for doctoral student development is the oikos Academy. I'm still in touch with several of the students I mentored there, as one of the Faculty leading the 2016 Academy in beautiful settings around Henley.

Admittedly, I haven't kept up as it has grown, but I was on the advisory board for the development of the P3 Collaboratory at Rutgers, and I'm so glad to see it transform into a massive resource for advancing scholarship in Newark. They have a variety of great programming, so check it out if you're part of this community, and model it if you're not.

You know, I think this panel may have gone inert a while back. But it took off like a rocket before it crashed down. The idea was to quickly pose questions about recent announcements of corporate political activities to a panel of scholars, then provide the survey results and comments to media outlets. This led to some significant press coverage. I was interviewed by reporters for a few different news events and, among other things, wound up quoted on the front pages of all editions of the Wall Street Journal (and yes, I was correct in my advice and Uber did eventually part ways with Travis Kalanick!). Someone should fire this panel back up.

A very solid and international academic network with a finance-tilt, intending to make the world a better place through better business behaviors. Their conferences are global and rigorous. I was a co-organizer in 2015, a presenter in 2014, and part of a group that won a research grant from them in 2012. And then I got lazy I guess.

Another solid group of leading sustainability scholars, with more of a European tilt than ARCS. They have a great annual conference. I've served on their scientific committee multiple times, and I co-authored a paper that won Best Conference Paper at the 2018 Research Conference in Almeria, Spain. I also nearly accepted an invitation to co-edit the journal Organization & Environment that they have been affiliated with. But that's a whole other story . . . glad to see it doing very well, though.

I was selected for this national business academic honor society while completing my PhD at NYU/Stern. I've since participated in induction ceremonies at other universities. It's a nice honor, so take part if you get the opportunity. And bring a chapter to your campus, or help your current one to succeed.

I learned the practice of management at McDonald's. Then I learned the art of leadership in the US Air Force. I joined the Air Force to see the world! And then they promptly sent me to Montgomery, Alabama for OTS (Hoyas rock!), then Biloxi, Mississippi for tech school, and then Wichita, Kansas, where I was first Squadron Section Commander of a large aircraft maintenance squadron that was transitioning from nukes to air refueling, and then Executive Officer of the larger Logistics Group that the Squadron was a part of. I got an MBA at night while serving in this role. Oh, and the GI Bill helped me to afford my early PhD program years in Manhattan after I left the Air Force. I served during a period of relative stability. I'm less certain that current global and national dynamics make it as good a place to start one's career nowadays.

While an officer in the US Air Force, I persevered the lengthy selection process (including a long, awkward polygraph test that literally turned my arm purple) and extensive training to become a Reserve Officer of the Wichita Police Department. The training was the equivalent of a full police academy, but was held from 6-10pm every weeknight for four months and included weekends at the range with an ATF agent, where I became an expert marksman, but only after I figured out that I needed to keep one eye closed. Oh, and we got maced right in the eyes -- that was less than fun. But then I was able to respond to 911 calls and help needy people in their neediest times, for whichever shifts I wanted to volunteer. You'd be surprised at the crime in Wichita! But hey, it's a bigger city than Newark, and this was before the BTK serial killer had been found.