Associate Dean presides over Academy of Management

Tom Lee, the Hughes M. Blake Professor of Management, is a busy man. The latest stretch of his 25-year career in academia has been an amazing run of achievement and leadership. Currently serving as associate dean for academic and faculty affairs at the Foster School of Business, Lee also has recently served as editor on the influential Academy of Management Journal and authored, along with collaborator Terry Mitchell, the dominant theory on workplace turnover/retention. This year he’s also president of the 19,000-member international Academy of Management. News Online asked him about this latest addition to his curriculum vitae.

What is the Academy of Management?

It’s the premier professional organization for professors of management in the world. We’re the mechanism through which people in the management discipline organize around professional issues and interests. We publish several top-tier academic journals and organize an annual conference with around 9,000 attendees, 4,000 speakers and nearly as many sessions.

How did you get involved in the Academy?

Shortly after graduate school I began attending meetings, getting involved in divisions, publishing papers in the Academy of Management Journal. Then I was asked to review papers and, eventually to serve on the editorial board for two terms. I became associate editor and eventually editor. I think it’s through this natural progression that your research and professional service gets known by the membership.

You learned that you were elected to the presidential cycle of Academy of Management in dramatic fashion. What happened?

It’s like that old Frank Sinatra song: “That’s life, that’s what all the people say. You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.” In April 2004 I was elected to the Fellows of the Academy of Management and learned that I was elected to the presidential sequence while presenting a paper at the London Business School. I thought, ‘I’m doing pretty well.’ Then in May I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Thirty years ago, I’d have been dead. But the surgery was successful. Now I take care of myself, take my pills, and life goes on.

What do you do as president of the Academy?

In addition to planning the organization’s agenda and running the board of governors and the executive committee, I’m working with the four other officers to create a lasting vision. A few years ago, the elected officers decided that we were going to make this the golden age of the Academy of Management. We’re getting a lot of stuff done.

Such as…?

Increasing publishing opportunities, expanding applications of technology to maintain the profession and maintain professional contacts. Last year we podcasted some of our sessions and set up virtual communities where our members can organize around any topic of interest—professional or personal. We’re also developing partnerships with the leading organizations of other professions, like the Institute of Medicine, for example.

How has your long engagement with the Academy impacted your career?

It’s been a great honor, and certainly a wonderful opportunity to affect the study and teaching of management, and a great way to showcase the Foster School of Business. Personally, it’s allowed me to visit cool places all over the world and meet many wonderful colleagues. Some especially nice faculty at a university in Hong Kong located my ancestral village in southern China, took me there and tracked down my ancestral house. I couldn’t have accomplished this alone.

The Sinatra lyric you quoted before finishes "But I know I’m gonna change that tune, when I’m back on top in June." If you have reached the June of your career, what’s next?

Academically, I feel like a brand new doctoral student or assistant professor again, and I’m trying to figure out, what do I do next? It’s exciting.