Professor Annie Pye

BSc, PhD in Management

Director of Research

Telephone: 01392 262556

Profile

I have an enduring fascination about how it is that people lead and direct action in companies – that is, how do small groups of people come to be in charge and ‘make things happen’ in organizational contexts? My concern with the ‘doing of managing and leading’ and ‘making sense’ of that doing means I take seriously Kurt Lewin’s injunction that ‘there is nothing so practical as good theory’. Practice without theory leaves us without the possibility of learning, while theory without practice makes academic management irrelevant. So combining relevance with rigour (ie. practice with theory), I have a wide-ranging interest an integrated array of macro- and micro-level issues which influence people’s ‘sensemaking’ and behaviour as they try to ‘get things done’: including economic/ regulatory/ financial/ structural/ systems features as well as personal/ emotional/ social/ interpersonal/ power and influence processes through which together, people shape and make sense of what happens in organizational contexts.

I joined CLS in Sept 2007 (from the University of Bath School of Management), where I first took on the role of Director of the MA in Leadership Studies, and subsequently became Director of Research. My own research includes three interrelated ESRC-funded projects, each ten years apart, into how small groups of people effectively ‘run’ large companies, interviewing Chairmen, Chief Executive and directors of firms such as BTR, Hanson, Lloyds TSB, Marks and Spencer and Prudential as well as investors such as Hermes and Gartmore. Starting in 1987-89, then again in 1998-2000 and now 2008-2011 (ESRC £625,000), this unique series of studies provides a unique and fascinating insight into the changing responsibilities, roles and rhetorics of company leadership over time as governance issues have become more centre stage and businesses have become more complex than ever.

Currently, I am also concluding the final stages of a qualitative study with Dr Phyl Johnson (formerly University of Strathclyde, now Cass Business School) into non-executive director development over time as they join a new board. I also continue to work with Dr Louise Knight (University of Aston) on network leadership, learning and change. I have carried out research and consultancy assignments in and for private and public sector organizations, ranging from a building society to a hospital trust as well as for the Institute of Directors where I have now become an external examiner.

I teach specialist courses and run workshops on organizational leadership and governance as well as on network leadership. I co-authored The Doing of Managing with the late Professor Iain Mangham (1991) and my work is published in a range of journals including Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, British Journal of Management, Management Learning, Corporate Governance: An International Review and the Financial Times.

I am also a wife and mother, with a husband and three teenage daughters who help keep my feet on the ground and have fun!

Research Interests

Leadership and governance in and of organizations
Strategy/izing, organizing and change
Sensemaking
Network learning and leadership
Learning and development

Taught Modules

External Positions

Editorial Board member of Organization Studies
Editorial Board member of Leadership
Member of the ESRC’s post-doctoral college
Trustee of the Natural Theatre Company, Bath
Guest Editor of Human Relations Special Issue on Sensemaking, organising and storytelling. Call for Papers

Selected Publications

Pye, AJ & Pettigrew, AM (2006) Change as a political learning process, enabled by leadership’, Guest Editorial of the Special Issue of Long Range Planning, on Strategizing and Organizing, 39: 583-590.
Pye, AJ (2005) ‘Leadership and organizing: sensemaking in action’ Leadership 1(1): 31-49.
Pye, AJ. & Pettigrew, AM. (2005) ‘Studying Board Context, Process and Dynamics: Some Challenges for the Future’, British Journal of Management, forthcoming.
Knight, LA & AJ Pye (2005) 'Network Learning: an empirically-driven model of learning by groups of organizations', Human Relations, 58(3): 369-392.
Knight, LA. & AJ. Pye (2004) ‘Exploring the Relationships between Network Change and Network Learning’, Management Learning, 35(4): 473-490.
Pye AJ & G Camm. (2003) ‘Non-executive directors: moving beyond the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach’ Journal of General Management 28: 52-70.
Pye AJ & G Camm. (2003) ‘Take on board the necessary skills’ Financial Times 17th January 2003:11.
Pye AJ (2002) ‘The changing power of ‘explanations’: directors, academics and their sensemaking from 1989 to 2000’, Journal of Management Studies, 39: 907-926.
Pye AJ (2002) ‘Corporate Directing: governing, strategizing and leading in action’ Corporate governance: an international review 10:153-162.
Pye AJ (2001) ‘A study in studying corporate boards over time: looking backwards to move forwards’ British Journal of Management 12: 33-46.
Pye AJ (2001) ‘Corporate boards, investors and their relationships: accounts of accountability’ Corporate governance: an international review 9:186-195.
Bate SP, R Khan & AJ Pye, (2000) 'Towards a Culturally Sensitive Approach to Organization Structuring', Organization Science, 11(2): 197-211.
Pye, AJ (1995) 'Strategy Through Dialogue and Doing: A Game of 'Mornington Crescent'?', Management Learning, 26(4): 445-46.
Pye, AJ, (1994) 'Past, Present and Possibility: An Integrative Appreciation of Learning from Experience', Management Learning, 25(1): 155-173.

Book

Mangham, IL and AJ Pye, (1991) The Doing of Managing, 208 pages, Blackwell, Oxford.