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 am a 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 a member of the Advisory Board of FinWorkFutures at King's College London and the International Centre of Public Accountability (Durham University), and the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management. Between 2014 and 17, 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 (in press).   
• 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.
• 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 (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, 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.