Paul Spee

Paul is a leading scholar in strategy and qualitative research. His research reflects his passion to identify the relevance of theory in practice, and how practice can inform theory. He has been part of and leading several research teams, in the context of entrepreneurship, health, reinsurance, telecommunication and the petrochemical industry.

His research is at the forefront of theory development, in particular strategy-as-practice and advances qualitative research methodology. His work appeared in a number of top-tier journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science and Organisation Studies amongst others.

Paul’s work has made an impact to practice and academe. Based on a global ethnography of reinsurance trading, his book ‘Making a market for acts of God’ has been highly influential leading to contributions in the Financial Times, The Economist, ABC News - The Business and Actuaries Digital amongst others. He has been invited to contribute to webinars and several professional development workshops for instance on process research methods and on career advice for doctoral students and early career researchers. Recently, one of his published manuscripts received the Emerald Citation Award recognising the impact of his work. His work has also received several prestigious distinctions including best paper awards from the leading professional associations in business and management, the Academy of Management and the European Group of Organisation Studies.

His experience and drive to explore the relation of theory and practice is reflected in his approach to teaching. Currently, Paul delivers and oversees the strategy course in the Master of Business. Paul also delivers a popular strategy capstone course into the Medical Leadership Program.

Paul actively supervises Master thesis and doctoral students, whose work has received several awards, including the prestigious Carolyn Dexter award (awarded by the Academy of Management).

Paul has been very engaged shaping the academic profession of strategy scholarship. Currently, serves as Chair of the Strategizing, Activities and Practices (SAP) interest group in the term 2017-2018. SAP is a rapidly growing interest group within the Academy of Management, a global association. To foster debates in the academic community, Paul has organised numerous workshops and convened streams at several national and international conferences.

Paul serves as Senior Editor at Organization Studies, a leading journal included in the Financial Times 45 list. He is also an invited member of the editorial board serving Long Range Planning, a leading strategy journal, and Organizational Research Methods, the leading journal advancing innovation in research methods.