Chris Carter

Current Role: Professor in Strategy and Organization, University of Edinburgh Business School (2013-present)

• Co-Chair of the Scottish Fabian Society.

• Board Member of the European Institute for the Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM).

• Member of the Scottish Labour Party's Economic Advisory Board.

Life at the Business School

• I lecture, research, and work closely with senior leaders in Scottish politics and business.

• I have extensive experience in executive education and research management.

• In the 2024/25 academic year, I will teach Strategy, Power & Politics: The Art of Government (u/g), Strategy, Power & Politics: Navigating to Net Zero (p/g), and Strategic Leadership (MBA).

• I co-designed and delivered the John Smith Trust / University of Edinburgh School Ukrainian Women's Programme earlier this year. 

• At Edinburgh, I led the Business School's 2021 REF submission. 

Life before the Business School

• I am from Cornwall and earned my PhD from Aston Business School, where Professor David Wilson supervised me. I have held full professorships at the Universities of Newcastle (2011-13) & St Andrews (2006-11). Before that, I held academic positions at London Metropolitan University (1998-99), Leicester University (1999-2002) and St Andrews (2002-2006). 

Life beyond the Business School

• I work closely with the Scottish Labour Party and serve on the Scottish Labour Party's Economic Advisory Board.

• I am co-chair of the Scottish Fabian Society.

• I am a member of the Advisory Board of FinWorkFutures at King's College London, the International Centre of Public Accountability (Durham University), and the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management.

• Between 2014 and 2017, I hosted a successful chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe. 

Focus:

• I am an interdisciplinary scholar who combines Organisation & Management Theory and Interdisciplinary Accounting. 
• I am focused on research that has an impact. In the most recent REF exercise, I co-authored four impact case studies. 

Recent Publications:

• J. Millar, F. Mueller, & C. Carter (2024) Mediating ESG: Mapping individual responses to a changing field. Critical Perspectives on Accounting.   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102766
• C. Carter, R. Badham, A. Whittle, & S. Clegg. (2024) Reconstituting the centrality of power in management and organization studies. European Management Review, 21(2), 263–276. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12663
• G. Murray, C. Carter, & C. Spence. (2024) The importance of being privileged: Digital entrepreneurship as a class project, Journal of Professions and Organization, Volume 11, Issue 1, February 2024, Pages 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joae001
• I. Jeacle & C. Carter (2023) Calorie accounting: The introduction of mandatory calorie labelling on menus in the UK food sector. Accounting, Organizations & Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2023.101468
• J. Millar, F. Mueller, & C. Carter (2023) Grassroots accountability: the practical and symbolic aspects of performance. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 586-607. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2022-5865

Collaborators:

• I am proud to work with gifted scholars such as Professor Andrew Brown (Andrew Brown - the University of Bath's research portal), Professor Ingrid Jeacle (Ingrid Jeacle – University of Edinburgh Business School), Dr John Millar (Dr John Millar- Durham University Business School), Professor Frank Mueller (Professor Frank Mueller- Durham University Business School), Dr Grant Murray (Dr Grant Murray- Durham University Business School), and Professor Crawford Spence (Crawford Spence | King's College London). With my co-authors,  I  study identity work, field theory, social types, and the symbolic dimensions of leadership. 

• My PhD students are studying the Scottish Parliament (Andrew Burns) and Narratives of Decline (Martin McCluskey MP). 

Awards:

I received the 2022 AAAJ Hall of Fame Award for contributing to Interdisciplinary Accounting research. I won the Strategic Organization journal's best essay prize (with Professor Stewart Clegg & Professor Martin Kornberger) in 2013.  

Prior Research:

I have published widely, but my favourite 'top six' articles from across my career are:

• C. Carter, C. Spence, & A. McKinlay (2020) Strategic Change, Leadership & Accounting: a triptych of organizational reform. Public Administration 98 (1), 62-91.
• C. Spence, C. Carter, J. Husillos & P. Archel (2017) Taste Matters: Cultural capital and elites in proximate Strategic Action Fields. Human Relations 70 (2), 211-236.
• C. Carter & C. Spence (2014) Being a Successful Professional: An exploration of who makes partner in the Big 4. Contemporary Accounting Research 31 (4), 949-981.
• I. Jeacle & C. Carter (2011) In TripAdvisor we trust: Rankings, calculative regimes and abstract systems. Accounting, Organizations and Society 36 (4-5), 293-309
• F. Mueller & C. Carter (2007) 'We are all managers now': Managerialism and Professional Engineering in UK Electricity Utilities. Accounting, Organizations and Society 32 (1-2), 181-195. 
• C. Carter & F. Mueller (2002) The 'long march' of the management modernizers: Ritual, rhetoric and rationality. Human Relations 55(11), 1325-1354.