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I first met David Hickson in March 1961. He was one of four
people interviewing me for the post of research assistant at the
then Birmingham College of Advanced Technology, later to become the
University of Aston and the home of the Aston programme of
organizational studies. David had arrived at that position by an
unusual route. After a time as Assistant Secretary of the Bristol
Stock Exchange, he had gone to the University of Manchester
Institute of Science and Technology to pursue his ambition of
becoming a personnel manager. However, Reg Revans spotted his
potential as a researcher and he went on to do a Master's degree,
studying restriction of output in a machine shop. It was from there
that he was recruited by the new head of the Department of
Industrial Administration at Birmingham CAT, Tom Lupton, and his
career as an academic researcher took off. Fortunately for me, the
group of interviewers decided to hire me and so began a lifelong
association with David as a friend and colleague.
It is a great pleasure and honour to be able to chronicle some of
the many events of David's life that have given him such an esteemed
place in our occupation, generally, and to EGOS, specifically. He
was an important contribution to the Aston studies. Two qualities
began to be apparent during that programme. One was his keen sense
of the relationship between theory and data. Yes, he wished to spend
time sorting out concepts, but equally, it was important to him to
collect and analyse data. Another, was his tremendous attention to
detail; no one could get away with shoddy work in David's presence.
Nothing was to be missed, no stone to be left unturned. These are
qualities that have been with him all of his life and have been
important to the mark he has made on our field.
But during this time, he was able to appreciate the role of
theory more and more and when he was invited to spend time at the
University of Alberta, the project he led there bore all the
hallmarks of his approach to research. What became known as the
strategic contingencies theory of power showed his commitment to
theory, his concern with data, and the rigour and thoroughness of
his approach to research. From this came his invitation to apply for
a professorship at the University of Bradford, where he was to spend
the central part of his academic life, from 1970 to now. It was also
from the work that he had initiated at Alberta that his lifelong
interest in decision making became crystallised.
For the past 28 years, David has worked extensively on issues
related to decision making. The book that he and others produced,
entitled Top Decisions is an important, far-reaching
contribution. It was, and remains, a pathbreaking, benchmark study.
During this time, David has dealt with issues of the production of
strategic decisions, the shape of the decision making process, the
implementation of those decisions, and the nature of organizational
processes within which decision making is embedded. David Hickson's
name is synonymous wit the study of strategic, macro, organizational
decision making.
So, from an academic research perspective, David's contribution
has been much more than most of us can hope to achieve. He has been
centrally involved in three major studies, which have become part of
the accepted canon of literature on organizations, namely, the Aston
studies, the strategic contengencies theory of power, and strategic
decision making. Surely this is more than enough for any one person.
But no, David has also made a massive contribution to our
professional community through the European Group for Organizational
Studies, and our journal, Organization Studies.
David was one of the small group of people who made EGOS a
reality. Soon after arriving back in Britain after his two-year
sojourn in Canada, David began to explore the possibility of a
European grouping of organizational researchers. While in North
America he had seen the influence of bodies such as the American
Sociological Association and the Academy of Management, and, as a
committed European (unlike so many British of the 1970s), he also
saw the possibilities on a European scale. So, a small group of
people, including David, launched EGOS, with its first colloquium in
Breaux-sans-Nappe in 1975.
David's major interest quickly became the possibility of a
European-based journal of organizational studies. Again, his
experience at Aston and in Alberta had demonstrated the influence
and importance of ASQ, but he wanted to see a journal with a
non-North American focus come into prominence (although he had
doubts about whether it was really a possibility). The birth of
Organization Studies has been chronicled by David in an 'Inside
Story' in O.S., with its beginnings in a bedroom in Speyer in 1977.
Suffice it to say that David was an important midwife in the birth
of the jorunal in 1980 and then, of course, served for 11 years as
its Editor-in-Chief. It was in this role that David ensured that not
only did O.S. get off the ground, but that it became the leading
European-based journal for organizational analysis. As an editor, he
was tireless in searching out papers and authors, encouraging
submissions, giving critical but positive feedback, and encouraging
all things associated with the journal. Very few of us have any idea
of what it takes, as an Editor, to launch a journal and build it
into a leading journal, and when one thinks of this being done in a
multi-cultural environment, across nation states and languages, then
the challenge is enormous. We owe a great vote of thanks to David
for what he has done for us as a community in establishing
Organization Studies, and we have to remember that he did this
while occupying a chair at Bradford and leading a groundbreaking
series of research studies on strategic decision making.
The qualities that made David such a good researcher stood him in
excellent stead as an editor. Organization Studies
established itself under his editorship because of his concern with
theoretical issues; his continued commitment to rigorous empirical
analysis; and his commitment to first-class work in every aspect of
research and publication. He set standards for all of us who aspired
to publish in O.S. that have been continued under the subsequent
editorships of Stewart Clegg, John Child and Arndt Sorge. I am sure
that all of them recognise the indebtedness that they have to the
standards that David set during his tenure as Editor-in-Chief from
1980 until the end of 1990.
It has been a great privilege for me to have been given the
opportunity to reflect on the 37 years that I have known David
Hickson as colleague and friend, to be given this opportunity to
praise his contribution to the set of ideas that make up our field
and to what he has done for our professional community of EGOS. But
it would be remiss of me not to mention two other aspects of David's
life that I know he regards as important. The first is his
commitment to teamwork. Right from the days of Aston, David has
worked in teams for research and professional purposes. In doing
that, he has contributed immeasurably to the life of colleagues and
they have contributed in the same way to his life.
The second is his commitment to his family and the reciprocal way
that this has operated in his life. Many of you will know his wife,
Marjorie, and the difficulties that she has surmounted with
incredible strength and optimism. She is an extremely important part
of David's life and his success as an academic. His children, Adrian
and Lucie, and their spouses, Cheryl and Paul, together with his 5
grandchildren have been, and are, important in providing a space
away from academia, in which other interests and activities can be
indulged.
So, David, it is with a sense of great privilege that I introduce
you as the first Honorary Member of the European Group for
Organizational Studies.
C.R. Hinings
Faculty of Business
University of Alberta, Canada
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