Chris Carter

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

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

• I teach and research at the Business School

Life at the Business School

• I teach, research and work closely with senior leaders in Scottish politics and business. I have extensive experience in executive education and research management. I teach Strategies for Collective Action (S4CA) and Strategic Leadership. 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

• Research Networks: I am a member of the Advisory Board of FinWorkFutures at King's College London and the International Centre of Public Accountability (Durham University). I am a European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management board member. Between 2014-17 I hosted a successful chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe. 

• Engagement: I work closely with the John Smith Trust and the Scottish Labour Party.

Focus:

• I am an interdisciplinary scholar who combines Organisation & Management Theory and Interdisciplinary Accounting. I focus on how people become successful members of their organizations, how organizations strategise, and how they accomplish things.

• My broader project is to study organised politics using insights from Organisation and Management Theory and Interdisciplinary Accounting.

Recent Publications:

• I. Jeacle & C. Carter (2023) Calorie accounting: The introduction of mandatory calorie labelling on menus in the UK food sector. Accounting, Organizations & Society.

• J. Millar, F. Mueller, & C. Carter (2023) Grassroots accountability: the practical and symbolic aspects of performance. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. 

Collaborators:

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

• My PhD students are studying the Scottish Parliament (Andrew Burns), Edinburgh's Financial Elite (Robert Dawson Scott), and Narratives of Decline (Martin McCluskey).

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.