Prof Bill Lee
Professor
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Biography
After working in industry for a number of years, I returned to full-time education to read for a BSc (Hons) in Sociology with Research Training and a subsequent PhD on “The cost conflicts of flexible manufacturing” both at the University of Bath. My PhD thesis married together sociology with engineering and accounting and was the first of a number of research projects involving accounting that has contributed to my transfer from working in departments of sociology to working in accounting divisions. My employment in accounting divisions has included an initial period of twelve years as first a lecturer and then a senior lecturer in the Accounting and Financial Management Group at the University of Sheffield, a year as a professor of accounting at Keele University and the period since the 1st September 2012 as a professor of accounting at the University of Sheffield.
During my two spells at Sheffield, I have taken on a number of administrative and managerial roles including being Director of the Accounting and Financial Management undergraduate programme and Director of the Doctoral Programme. I am currently co-Director of the large MSc in Finance and Accounting Programme. When I had a year away from Sheffield, as a professor of accounting at Keele Management School, I was Subject Leader of the Accounting Group and a member of the Senior Management Team.
Teaching
I teach Financial Management (MGT212) on the undergraduate Accounting and Financial Management programme. Although an important objective of this module is to impart skills and knowledge about the discipline of financial management, this is not done uncritically. From the start, students are encouraged to be reflexive about both the type of knowledge that is generated about financial managers by the traditional methods of academic enquiry used by finance researchers and to think critically about the role that financial managers may play in the economy rather than perceiving them as simply employing neutral techniques to resolve problems for an ill-defined common good.
I also teach Corporate Governance (MGT6067) on the MSc in Finance and Accounting. On this course, students are encouraged to think critically about why corporate governance is necessary, who benefits from corporate governance, why corporate governance systems differ around the world and whether different corporate governance mechanisms are fit for purpose.
Community activities
I am active in the broader academic community and have helped to establish a number of networks to discuss research methods and research practice. I was the founding secretary of the British Academy of Management (BAM)’s Research Methodology special interest group (SIG) and I am the current chair of the Research Methodology SIG and of the Research Methodology track at the annual BAM conference. I was the founding chair of the Research Methods and Research Practice (RM&RP) SIG of the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and I established the Research Methods and Research Practice track as a regular feature of the annual EURAM conference. I continue as chair of the EURAM RM&RP SIG and as principal chair of the RM&RP track at the annual EURAM conference.
I have been elected to serve as a member of the national Council of the British Academy of Management from January 2013–December 2015. I have served as a member of the ESRC’s peer review college and I have acted as a reviewer for a number of other international funding bodies. I have also served as the program-evaluation coordinator of the Management Education and Development Division of the American Academy of Management. I act as a reviewer for a number of publishing houses and international journals. I have held visiting research appointments at a number of overseas universities including Massey University in New Zealand and Griffith University in Australia. I am an associate editor of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management and I am on the editorial advisory board of Qualitative Research in Financial Markets and Leadership and Policy Quarterly.
Research
I have published on a wide range of topics across the accounting, management and related disciplines including articles on the relationship between accounting and technological change, the professional socialization of junior auditors and the origins and history of qualitative research in accounting. My enduring research interests are those that allow me to combine the interests from my own education with my position in accounting. Thus, my research in recent years has tended to focus on two broad areas: Research Methods and Research Practice; and the intersection of accounting and accountability with the organization of work, opportunities for learning and government support of learning initiatives.
As well as publishing articles and edited collections in the area of research methods and research practice, I have received grants from the ICAEW and from the ESRC to organize conferences and seminars and to disseminate knowledge about research methods. I have recently become an editor – in conjunction with Professors VK Narayan of Drexel University in the USA and Mark Saunders of Surrey University in the UK – of a series of books on research methods for Sage publications. As well as publishing widely in the area of the intersection between accounting and accountability on the one hand and the organization of work, opportunities for learning and government support of learning initiatives on the other hand, I have received a number of grants to conduct international comparisons of the relationship between learning initiatives and forms of accountability.
PhD supervision
I am keen to supervise students who wish to conduct qualitative research studies in the areas of management accounting, public sector accounting, social accounting and accountability.
Publications since 2008
Books
Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2011) (eds.): Challenges and Controversies in Management Research, London, Routledge.
Humphrey, C. & Lee, B. (2008) (eds.): The Real Life Guide to Accounting Research: A Behind-the-Scenes View of Using Qualitative Research Methods, Paperback edition, Elsevier, Oxford, in conjunction with CIMA.
Refereed journal articles
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (forthcoming) “Research methods and research practice: History, themes and topics” in International Journal of Management Reviews, Volume 15, forthcoming.
Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2012): “Driving, Steering, Leading and Defending: Journey and Warfare metaphors of Change Agency in Trade Union Learning Initiatives”, in Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Volume 48, Number 2, pp 248-271.
Lee, B. (2012): “New Public Management, accounting, regulators and moral panics”, in International Journal of Public Sector Management, Volume 25, Number 3, pp 192-202.
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2011): “Learning to count: A challenge facing trade unions in their educational role” in International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Volume 31, Number 5-6, pp 287-301.
Lee, B. (2010): “The Individual Learning Account experiment in the UK: A conjunctural crisis?” in Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Volume 21, Number 1, pp 18–30.
Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2009): “Trade union learning representatives: progressing partnership?” in Work, Employment & Society, Volume 23, Number 2, pp 213–230.
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2009): “Learning organizations, employee development and learning representative schemes in the UK and New Zealand” in Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 21, Number 1, pp 5–22.
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2008) : “Employee and social reporting as a war of position and the union learning representative initiative in the UK” in Accounting Forum, Volume 32, Number 4, pp 276–287).
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2008): “In-service learning in the emergent learning representative initiative in New Zealand” in Journal of In-Service Education, Volume 34, Number 4, December 2008, pp 497–512.
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2008): “Learning representative initiatives in the UK and New Zealand: a means to “flexicurity”?” in Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, Volume 19, Number 3, pp 341–361.
Book chapters
Lee, B. (2012): “Using documents in organizational research” in Symon, G. & Cassell, C. (eds) The Practice of Qualitative Organizational Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges, London: Sage, pp 389-407.
Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2012): “Creating environmentally friendly office spaces” in Saunders, M.N.K., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. Research Methods for Business Students, Harlow: FT Prentice Hall, pp 587-589.
Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2011): “Introduction: Key Debates, Challenges and Controversies in Management Research” in Cassell, C. & Lee, B. (2011) (eds.): Challenges and Controversies in Management Research, London, Routledge, pp 1–14.
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2010): “In-service learning in the emergent learning representative initiative in New Zealand” in Alexandrou, A. (ed): Union Learning Representatives: Challenges and Opportunities, London: Routledge, pp 103–118.
Lee, B. (2009): “Case 10: Students’ and former students’ debt problems” in Saunders, M.N.K., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. Research Methods for Business Students, Harlow: FT Prentice Hall, pp 355-357.
Humphrey, C. & Lee, B. (2008): “Introduction” in Humphrey, C. & Lee, B. (2008) (eds.): The Real Life Guide to Accounting Research: A Behind-the-Scenes View of Using Qualitative Research Methods, paperback edition, Oxford, Elsevier, pp xxiii-xxx.
Research reports
Lee, B. & Cassell, C. (2009): Learning Representative Initiatives in the UK and New Zealand: A Comparative Study, London, TUC Unionlearn.