From MBA to business academic

The roles of student and academic have a lot in common, such as the wealth of resources on hand. You also end up working with many of the same people, notes Andromachi, whose former supervisor, Sue Dopson, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, is now a colleague she collaborates with regularly on research projects. She also collaborates with her former fellow-student on the Oxford DPhil, Dr Michael Smets, Associate Professor in Management and Organisation Studies as well as other senior Oxford Saïd faculty, including Tim Morris, Associate Professor in Management and Organisation Studies, and Rafael Ramirez, Professor of Practice.

Much like being a student, a researcher will also take work home with them – being a researcher is ‘definitely not a 9-5 job’, but ‘there is a lot of variation in my work as an academic,’ she says. From teaching and office hours to project meetings and writing papers. Every day is different, requiring a lot of multitasking, admin, and deadlines. 

For those considering a career as an academic, Andromachi advises that you ‘need to be prepared to study forever and you can’t be afraid of failure.’ Failure is not only a crucial aspect of learning, but an ever-present part of life when submitting your work to academic journals. While you may think of an academic as quiet and isolated, tucked away from the world with their books, Andromachi argues it is a very people-oriented job. It involves teaching students and collaborating with colleagues on large group projects, something which she particularly enjoys about the role.
 

Researchers are also incredibly busy people, juggling multiple projects at once. A few of the projects currently on Andromachi’s plate include research into executive coaching, how CEOs develop their careers – including a report on female CEOs – and female leadership.

Academia requires a certain level of passion. Two areas of particular interest to Andromachi are leadership and corporate social responsibility. Her excitement for her research areas is infectious. ‘I think leadership is one of the most fascinating subjects one can study,’ she says. ‘How do people develop those skills? How do they become better leaders? What kind of opportunities did they have as they developed their career? What kinds of decisions do they make as CEOs?’ If drawn into a debate on whether leaders are born or made, Andromachi falls firmly on the side of the latter: ‘I really believe it is possible to develop your leadership potential.

Meanwhile, when it comes to corporate social responsibility, she is particularly interested in ethics and moral dilemmas – how people respond to moral dilemmas in the workplace. Her work looks into, among other things, what sort of organisational behaviours exist within organisations that focus on social responsibility.

Business schools and academia can sometimes feel far removed from day-to-day business practice. While much of research observes and responds to the world around us, the purpose of research is to shape and influence the future of business practice. For researchers like Andromachi, teaching executives, as well as those in the early stages of their careers, immediately puts their research into practice. Research is also regularly condensed and published in business publications, such as Harvard Business Review, read by practitioners on a daily basis.

Andromachi Athanasopoulou is Associate Fellow – Executive Education at Saïd Business School and Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Organisational Behaviour at the School of Business & Management, Queen Mary University of London.