Let Your Passions Lead
Strome College of Business faculty are not strangers to awards and recognition. A global ranking has been added to that list.
A recent Stanford University study ranking the top 2% of the most-cited scientists worldwide in 22 major disciplines and 176 subfields included eight Strome College of Business faculty: Li Xu (ITDS), Anusorn Singhapakdi (Marketing), Ling Li (ITDS), Wu He (ITDS), John Doukas (Finance), Wayne Talley (Economics/Maritime), ManWo Ng (ITDS) and Bill Judge (Marketing). This ranking is the "cherry on top" for Dr. Bill Judge, who modestly signs his emails, "B", as he will be retiring after a dynamic 30-year career. He discusses what his career as a scholar has been like, from an ambitious graduate student to a confident and highly regarded management scholar.
Dr. Judge's career has been spent trying to advance knowledge in strategic management. His research focuses on two main tracks: international corporate governance and strategic leadership and change, both of which he feels are neglected in strategy. It took a while for him to find his niche in research and academia. He says, "As a junior scholar I was most worried about being published, focusing on topics that sometimes others were interested in. As I published more articles, I started writing about what I found interesting and was passionate about, propelling my research." "Publishing and getting your research cited is a long process and being passionate about your research helps fuel the process," he added.
Dr. Judge spoke candidly about the struggle to find the balance between the relevancy that practitioners care about and the rigor that academic journals demand, while praising Dean Tanner for continuing to push Strome faculty to be mindful of the relevancy of their research. "I got to spend a year interviewing board members and CEOs for my doctoral dissertation by asking questions that they found relevant and interesting," Dr. Judge says. He notes the importance of asking questions that practitioners care about and addressing how they apply research to real world decision making. This method, Dr. Judge believes, is the key to finding that balance between rigor and relevance required by the academic and practitioner worlds.
Dr. Judge has discovered a new passion and plans to keep writing, but in a much more creative genre - poetry and fiction. He also plans to continue mentoring, emphasizing how much "mentorship matters". Dr. Bill Judge shared,"I think it's important to fail and learn from those failures, I've acquired knowledge about scholarship that has been fun to pass onto junior scholars and students over the years."
