Dr. Tao Bai is a lecturer in International Business. His research interests include multinational firm strategy, non-market strategy including political activity and social activity, and the intersection between, with the focus on emerging market multinationals as a field of research and practice. He has published articles at Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Research Policy, Long Range Planning, Management International Review, and Journal of Business Research, and in top Chinese academic and practical journals.
Dr Vicky Comino is a Senior Lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law at The University of Queensland. Dr Comino's main research area is corporate law, and in particular the regulation of corporate misconduct. Before commencing an academic career, she practised as a solicitor working at a top tier law firm in the fields of corporate law, leasing, commercial and residential conveyancing, strata development, securities and opinion work. Over the years, Dr Comino has worked voluntarily for Legal Aid, South Brisbane Immigration & Community Legal Service, Women's Equal Opportunity (WEO) and Justice and the Law Society (JATL) (UQ). She has also served on numerous committees, most recently as the chair of a major Queensland Law Society accreditation committee for the accreditation of lawyers as Business Law Specialists. Dr Comino's recent articles have addressed important topics in the corporations law area. Those topics include the difficulties facing the use of civil penalties by calling for Parliament to pass legislation to resolve procedural obstacles, the adequacy of ASIC's 'tool-kit' to deal with corporate and financial wrongdoing, including the deployment of 'new' enforcement tools, such as enforceable undertakings and the possibilities and limits of the use of 'corporate culture' as a regulatory mechanism. Her 2015 monograph Australia's "Company Law Watchdog" – ASIC and Corporate Regulation, which focuses on exploring how, and to what extent, a public authority like ASIC can achieve more effective regulation certainly comes at a time when ASIC's performance is increasingly under the microscope. This is in view of its mixed record of success in some highly publicised cases and a seemingly endless procession of corporate and financial scandals, such as those that engulfed the major Australian banks, prompting not only a number of parliamentary inquiries into ASIC's performance and capabilities, but the establishment of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. Her book also consolidates her position as a leading Australian researcher on corporate regulation, with her work cited in the Final Report of the Banking Royal Commission and reports of the Australian Law Reform Commission on Corporate Criminal Responsibility. Dr Comino's research has global relevance and she has extended her work beyond Australia to evaluate international developments, especially in the US and the UK. She is examining the different responses of regulators to the dilemmas presented by policing corporate and securities violations in the aftermath of, and since, the GFC to try to resolve the issue of how policy-makers and regulators should deal with corporate wrongdoing more effectively in the future. She also travelled to the UK in 2018 after being awarded a Liberty Fellowship from the University of Leeds to undertake collaborative work comparing corporate regulation there and in Australia. Dr Comino holds the degrees of BA, LLB (Hons), LLM and PhD (UQ), and is a Fellow of the Australian Centre for Private Law (UQ).
Thomas Maak is the inaugural Professorial Chair in Ethics at the University of Queensland Business School. A business ethicist by training, he previously served as Director Centre for Workplace Leadership and Professor of Leadership at the University of Melbourne. Thomas is global authority in the field of responsible leadership, business ethics, and the micro-foundations of CSR. His research links the individual, group, and organizational levels, combining ethical theory, political philosophy, relational thinking and stakeholder theory. His research interests include ethical decision-making, political CSR, and organizational neuroscience. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Academy of Managment Learning & Education, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Organizational Researdh Methods, and the Journal of Business Ethics.
Thomas has extensive experience in leadership development and has worked for several years with PricewaterhouseCoopers on their award-winning senior executive program ‘Ulysses’. He has also worked with other leading companies, including BMW, Volkswagen, Shell, UBS, Dong Energy, and Novo Nordisk. Through his work with leading social entrepreneurs in South Asia and South America, including Gram Vikas, Hagar, and Fundacion Paraguaya, he is also interested in social innovation and the advancement of human dignity in a fractured world. Before coming to Australia, Thomas started his academic career at the University of St. Gallen, home to the world’s best MSc in Management, and is a graduate from the INSEAD International Director’s Program. From 2004-2008 he held an appointment as Senior Research Fellow at INSEAD, France, and co-directed a research stream within the PwC-INSEAD initiative on high-performing organizations, before being appointed Full Professor at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, one of the top-ranked MBA schools in the world, and a leader in corporate executive education. In 2014 he was a visiting professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Thomas is the immediate past president of ISBEE, the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics and has chaired the 2022 World Congress in Bilbao, Spain.
Dr Thea Voogt is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and the Director of Business Law.
She specialises in income tax law, agriculture tax policy tools, the impact of climate change on the financial fortitude of farming families, corporate governance and business structures.
Thea leverages her significant business experience in senior executive roles and her background as a chartered accountant in industry projects. She holds a Doctorate in Financial Management and Master of International Commercial Law (UQ).
Thea is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an award-winning law teacher. She is the 2017 recipient of the prestigious UQ Business, Economics & Law Faculty Teaching Award. She also received the 2017 Inspired me to learn Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course, and the 2016 Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course from the UQ School of Law.
Prior to joining UQ, Thea was the CEO (Principal Officer) of the superannuation funds of the University of Johannesburg, a Professor in Accounting and managed large tenders for this institution. Over the course of her career in South Africa, she was closely involved with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants as sought-after speaker, researcher and umpire for the national qualifying exams for chartered accountants. Thea also held a Ministerial appointment to the Board of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).
