Centre Associate Samantha Fairclough writes: ‘I recently moved to the University of Mississippi where I’m now an Assistant Professor of Management with a focus on strategic management and entrepreneurship. Yes, Mississippi! Rather bizarrely I’m living in a small town called Oxford (named in the 1800’s to convince the state to locate its university there). It’s a delightful place with great architecture, history and a thriving arts scene. It’s home to William Faulkner (deceased now, obviously), John Grisham, Richard Ford, and a number of celebrity chefs. Morgan Freeman, Oprah, Elvis Costello and a variety of American football stars are all regular visitors. My favourite fact about the University is that Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, from Star Trek is a noteworthy fictional alumn!’
Samantha reports that she is still working with Professor Tim Morris on a variety of projects, and that she has also been active in a number of conferences in 2011. In August she gave a presentation with Evelyn Rita Micelotta of Alberta University on ‘Reasserting the influence of the institutional family logics in organizations’ at the the Academy of Management Conference in San Antonio, Texas. ‘We highlighted the influence of family models on a range of organizations,’ she writes, ‘and argued their significance has not been fully realised. Drawing on the Italian legal sector, where there are few family firms and many competing professional models, we found that, even where organizations are insulated, their form and practices are significantly influenced by family models: firms remain small, resistant to mergers and forms of internationalization and have successfully resisted the encroachment of invading foreign legal practices.’
At a joint ASQ, OMT and HEC Conference on Coordination Within and Among Organizations held at HEC Paris, June 13-15, 2011, Dr Fairclough gave a presentation titled ‘So near and yet so far? Institutional distance and transnational professional service firms’.‘I undertook a case study of a multiplex professional service firm - a member of the “Big Four” accounting firms - to examine how it is able to coordinate and control its cross-border operations, examining in particular its client management systems and the coordination of its global project teams and the impact of cross-cultural factors and institutional distance on cross-border projects. I also considered whether other features of the institutional environment affect a PSF‘s ability to apply expertise to deliver knowledge-based outcomes to its international clients.’