Jon Billsberry - My Homepage
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Welcome
Welcome to my website..
This website tells you about my teaching and research interests, acts as an online CV, and gives you information on how to contact me. I try to keep this website up-to-date as it acts as a noticeboard for reading groups, seminars and other things I'm organising.
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Research
In the research section you will find out about my various research studies. My main field, and the one my PhD focused on, is person–organisation fit. This subject focuses on the relationships between employees and employers and how this influences employees' behaviour. My particular interests are on employees' perceptions of their fit and the way this influences their actions. My current organisational fit studies are looking at:
- the nature of employees' perceptions of fit
- the antecedents and consequences of misfit
- ways to use the concept of fit as a way of monitoring the psychological health of organisations
- how organisations can recruit and select people based on their anticipated fit
My other organisational psychology research interests are in the fields of recruitment and selection and leadership. I have ongoing studies in each area. In both domains, my main focus is on employees' experience. For example, I am looking at how applicants and recruiters experience the process of recruitment and selection and the impact this has on outcomes. In leadership, I take a socially-constructed approach and look at how people perceive the leaders they follow.
Over the past couple of years my research interests are increasingly in the area of management education. My main interest is looking at how film - feature films, student-shot films, movie stills and other photographic material - might be used in the teaching of management education. I published a paper explaining how the recent film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could
be used to teach recruitment and selection. I recently edited a book with my co-editors Julie Charlesworth and
Pauline Leonard called Moving Images in which many of the most
prominent management educators in the world who advocate the use of film
in the classroom explain how this can be done effectively. I am also in
the middle of a massive data gathering exercise involving the analysis
of more than 800 films. The purpose of this data gathering is to provide
the material for a new book looking at different aspects of the
cinematic portrayal of recruitment and selection. An emerging area of interest for me is how we assess whether new teaching methods are effective or not. And finally, I'm looking at how accreditation pressures are influencing the behaviour of business schools.
My PhD students are looking at:
- links between person–organisation fit and organisational performance (Patrick Nelson)
- person–network fit as an improvement on person–organisation fit (Steve Godrich)
- the nature of misfit (Brenda Hollyoak)
- Australian managers' perceptions of doing business in China (Ruby Ma)
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Teaching
In the teaching section, you will find information on the various teaching-related projects I am currently involved in. I have three ongoing projects. The first of these is rather massive. I'm currently redesigning and relaunching our Master of Leadership course. I've added four new units (and have plans for another four) and I am rolling these out in 2013.
The second project is examining the use of projective techniques in management education. Projective techniques can be anything to provoke reflection or discussion. I'm currently using images of the sky with doctoral students to help them get the most out of their studies. They use the images at the start of their studies to envisage the way ahead and to imagine the ideal outcomes. They use the images at the end of the course to path reflect on their journey and to consolidate the lessons.
The third management education project takes a more strategic view. It is looking at how management education would differ if it were modelled on the way we teach doctors. This intrigues me because medicine is such a practical subject and students emerge from university able to practice. Management might be considered equally practical, but students leave university with only the barest practical skills. By looking at the ways doctors are trained, I not only hope to throw some light on the training of business studies, but I also want to examine what we know about the knowledge and skills required for effective management..
.Word Cloud
This is my word cloud, constructed from the latest news below. It captures my work over the last three years rather well.
Latest News
September 2012: Seem to have spent the whole month catching up with things, and I'm still not there yet. Finally got my hands on copies of my new book, Moving Images: Effective Teaching with Film and Television in Management (2012, Information Age Published, with Julie Charlesworth and Pauline Leonard). Really pleased with it and think it has been worth the years of effort. I started this project when I was at The Open University. Julie and I first thought about doing a book when we gave a conference paper on using film in 2003! The other great news I received was that my revised design for our Master of Leadership has completed its approval process and we're all set for launch in 2013. New name, four new units, and a completely new design. This is an exciting product now and very different to leadership masters degrees at other universities.
August 2012: Getting to the Academy of Management in Boston was a bit of a trek, but well worthwhile. I finished off my stint on the executive positions of the Management Education and Development (MED) division with a series of meetings and presentations as Division Chair. The highlight was introducing our keynote speaker, the great Henry Mintzberg (right), who wasn't just interesting and provocative; he also turned out to be a really nice bloke. I was really delighted to be one of the Academy of Management Learning & Education's Outstanding Reviewers of 2012. On my return to Melbourne, I had notification that my paper and workshop had both been accepted for this year's ANZAM.
June 2012: Catching up and recovering from a month in New Zealand only to jet off to the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference (OBTC) at Brock University, Canada (near Niagara) at the end of the month. Fun conference was made a little less fun by a massive dose of eColi. Gave two reports as the new Journal of Management Education editor, chaired one meeting, and lead two conference sessions.
May 2012: I spent the month at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand on an Erskine Fellowship. Formally, I taught three undergraduate classes, gave three research seminars to staff, and another to the Christchurch chapter of the I/O psychology division of the New Zealand Psychological Society. But more importantly, the trip was about developing research projects, making new friends, and having the time and space to reflect on the recent transitions. I must say that it was incredibly successful and I met some wonderful people. I loved Christchurch dressed in its Autumn colours (quite stunning) and was moved (literally and figuratively) by the impact of the earthquakes the city is still experiencing. It was the first time I have spent a month without a television, which was a strange experience, but I finally caught up with some reading and finished Animal Farm, Man's Search for Meaning, and The True Believer. It turned out to be quite a retreat.
IN MEMORY OF GEOFF MALLORY: I worked with Geoff for more than sixteen years at The Open University. From the earliest days, I found Geoff a bloke who cared deeply about students, colleagues, and research; he was honourable, honest, straight-talking, fun, and had a wicked sense of humour, which was usually aimed at the “dimwits” in charge (I toned this last bit down; apologies for misquoting you Geoff).
February 2012: The highlight of the month was the week-long visit of Ken Brown, University of Iowa and Editor of Academy of Management Learning & Education. Together we gave 'Meet the Management Education Editors' talks at the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and Deakin University, and ran three other sessions together at Deakin. But just is Ken was leaving, I received the heartbreaking news that Geoff Mallory, my best mate at the OUBS, had suddenly died of a massive heart attack just a few days before he was due to retire.
January 2012: It's been so busy that I've not had time to update this page recently. Moving Images has been submitted to the publisher; just collecting the copyright notices from the authors. The chapters for New Directions in Organizational Fit are now with the publisher. Amy and I are just finishing off the introductory chapter. At the start of the month I began work as the Editor looking after new submissions to the Journal of Management Education and have spent about two months configuring the new manuscript submission platform at ScholarOne. Spent the first two weeks of the year as the Acting Head of School and at the end of the month, I was anointed as the new Discipline Coordinator for the OB and HR Group at Deakin Graduate School of Business - sort of like Department Head. Also during the month, my Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand was confirmed for May 2012.
August 2011: The Academy of Management was the busiest yet. I found it strange wearing two hats as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management Education and the incoming Division Chair for MED. But it looks like there will be many synergies and this should make it possible to achieve a few things. Our causal mapping PDW seemed to go very well and we had a large audience and I was excited by the response to the various fit related scholarly sessions on the Monday. The only bad news was that I was so busy (and knackered from the horrendous flight out) that I was not able to find any time for site-seeing and never made it to the Alamo.
July 2011: I am absolutely delighted to have been offered the post of Editor-in-CHief of the Journal of Management Education starting officially in July 2012, although I'll be handling new submissions from the beginning of January 2012. This is one of the 'Big Three' management education journals, alongside the Academy of Management Learning & Education and Management Learning, and has carved out an outstanding reputation for publishing the best new advances in management teaching. I feel very honoured to be offered this role and I hope I don't let OBTS, the journal or the readership down.
June 2011: Well, it's been a busy few months with the wedding and emigration. Now in Australia and loving my new job and colleagues. So far, it's everything I had hoped for and more. Still getting settled though and struggling to find somewhere to live, but I guess a solution will emerge as the container gets closer and closer. With the hiatus, I'm afraid that I've got a bit behind with projects, for which I apologise to everyone, but things are now beginning to return to normal. Please bear with me.
March 2011: Academy of Management results in: Success! One symposium, two papers and three professional development workshops all accepted. It's going to be a busy conference. Oh yes, there is something else. I resigned last week. I'm very excited about taking up a Chair in Management at Deakin University. I'll be on the plane as soon as I'm released by Coventry.
February 2011: After the usual frenzy of activity in January, February has been much quieter and a time for catching up. Despite that, there has been some good news with notification of two papers accepted for the European Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) conference in Maastricht in May and three workshops accepted for the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference (OBTC) in Milwaukee in June. Had news also that my PDWs for the Academy of Management were both accepted. The month ended with the terrible news about the earthquake in Christchurch. I'm relieved that everyone I know there is well, but what an awful catastrophe. My thoughts are with you.
January 2011: Usual start of year frenzy with the Academy of Managemet deadline. Managed to get two PDWs, two papers and a symposium submitted.
December 2010: This month has started excellently with Dannie Talbot successfully defending her thesis and being awarded her PhD. The 4th Global e-Conference on Fit seemed well-received with particularly interesting keynote presentations from Tony Wheeler (University of Rhode Island) and John Kammeyer-Mueller (University of Florida). The Fit Away Days and 'The Fit Project' came to the end of their ten-year run with a final event at the Technocentre, Coventry. After a decade of research, this project has come to its natural conclusion and can boast five books, about a dozen chapters, about two dozen journal papers, literally countless conference papers, the inauguration and four outings of the only conference dedicated to organisational fit, and one PhD completion (with a second hopefully next year). Undoubtedly, it was a successful project that provided an academic home for more than twenty emerging researchers. Other news includes a scholarly visit in December by Dr. Rein De Cooman of Lessius University & Katholieke Universiteit Leuven to The Fit Project at Coventry University. This collaboration has already produced one conference paper (Click here for the PDF) and hopefully more collaborative efforts will follow. Last, but by no means least, I am very proud to be able to announce that I have received official confirmation that I have been awarded a prestigious Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. This will fund a teaching and research visit of between four and six weeks around Easter next year. The University of Canterbury website says, "A visitor must be nominated by the Department concerned and only distinguished academics in their fields are approved for the Visiting Erskine Programme". Click here for more information about the Erskine Fellowship.
November 2010: It seems to have been a busy couple of months but with lots of administrative and catch-up work and little by way of major achievement. I did a 'Meet the Business Professor' session that was half biography and half about my research, which may be posted to iTunesU some time soon. In the mean time, the following link works: http://podcasting.services.coventry.ac.uk/podcasting/. At the start of November, I accepted an invitation to be an external examiner at the London School of Economics and Political Science (exciting). Also at the start of November, I did an invited teaching session at the University of Birmingham where I had the chance to try out ideas from film studies to help students understand how their leadership perceptions are formed.
September 2010: An up and down month. BAM went well and I was delighted by the positive feedback I received on my Coventry University PhD students who were presenting at an academic conference for the first time. My fourth member of Coventry University staff, Amanda Lee, registered for her PhD with me as her Director of Studies. She wants to look at the relationship between homeworking and work/life balance (or should that be conflict?). On a less positive note, my new course Discovering Leadership Through Film was cancelled along with many other 'low volume' courses across the campus in a refocusing on mainstream courses; very disappointing. However, the month ended on a high note when Dannie Talbot submitted her thesis.
August 2010: The Academy of Management seemed to go better than I could ever have hoped for. Everything went off as planned and the track ran well. I picked up two awards; one expected, the other not. The expected one was bestowed on me by the Management Education and Development (MED) division for 'outstanding service to management education and development'. The unexpected award was from the Academy of Management 'in recognition of truly outstanding leadership and service to the Academy of Management, 2008-2010'; love the 'truly'!
June 2010: Winning awards is always nice and I'm thrilled that one of my PhD students, Dannie Talbot, has just won the Association of Open University Graduates Vice-Chancellor Professor Brenda Gourlay Award for the most outstanding final year doctoral student at The Open University in 2010. Dannie has worked incredibly hard on a groundbreaking study and I'm absolutely delighted that she's been nominated and won this prestigious award.
May 2010: Just won funding for a three-year, full-time PhD studentship in organisational behaviour (OB). The award pays for all your fees and carries an annual grant of £12,867. If you want to study for an British-style PhD in any OB-related subject (although fit, misfit, constructionist approaches to leadership, homeworking, and the use of film in management education are preferred areas), please contact me as soon as possible. Click here for the advertisement.
April 2010: I've just accepted an invitation to become an Associate Editor at the Journal of Management Education. My term begins on 1st June 2010. This is one of the 'big three' management education journals alongside Academy of Management Learning and Education and Management Learning and specialises in experiential learning and new and innovative teaching technologies. It's also been very exciting seeing the submissions for the book that Amy Kristof-Brown and I are putting together called New Directions in Organizational Fit coming in.
March 2010: This is a very busy month on many fronts which began well with news that my paper (with Steve Godrich) on blue sky thinking has been accepted for the OBTC conference. I also did a keynote talk at the ESRC Seminar on Trust and a Professorial Lecture on the social construction of leadership. Surrounding all this is a vast amount of work processing submissions for the MED division of the Academy of Management and a similar job for the Organisational Psychology track at the British Academy of Management. Despite this, we've been able to finalise approval for our new 20-week, 3rd year undergraduate course called Discovering Leadership Through Film, which goes live in October and features the screening of ten films in the classroom (in their entirety) and the streaming of fourteen as well. In addition, I've been invited to join the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Management Reviews, invited to serve on the committee to determine the Outstanding Article of the Year in Academy of Management Learning and Education in 2009, got a revise and resubmit completed, and had the symposium on misfit that Dannie Talbot and I organised accepted for the Academy of Management. Time for a break.
February 2010: I'm delighted to announce that my latest book is now out and available. It is entitled, Person-Organization Fit: Value Congruence in Attraction and Selection Decisions. The book is a research monograph that contains my PhD thesis. I decided to get it published like this because I keep getting asked for a copy of my thesis and this is an easy way for people to get hold off it. Also, I hope that the book will re-ignite interest in the assessment of fit during recruitment and selection, which has gone quiet recently.
January 2010: Last two months seem to have been tremendously busy, but I've no idea what I've achieved. One interesting thing. Keith Rollag (Babson College) and I have had our proposal to edit a special issue of the Journal of Management Education accepted and the Call for Papers came out in the February 2010 issue of the journal: Call for Papers. Less good news is our failure to recruit someone to the funded PhD studentship. This will be re-advertised soon. Please contact me if you think you might be interested.
November 2009: Gosh, the number of submissions for the Fit Conference (www.open.ac.uk/fitconference/) was extraordinary and meant an even more draining conference than usual. It was so packed, that we decided to run the conference for an extra day in December. It's going to take weeks to recover.
October 2009: Here it is! The thing you've all been waiting for. This is the Call for Papers for a new book entitled New Directions in Organizational Fit that Amy Kristof-Brown and I are putting together. We welcome submissions from any one interested in the future of organizational fit. Please feel free to distribute the Call to whomever and wherever you want. Call For Papers I am currently recruiting a full-time PhD student to start in January 2010. There is funding for fees and a bursary worth about £11,500 (tax free). The studentship will explore the influence of homeworking on organisational fit. Please click here for further details: PhD advertisement
September 2009: BAM was memorable for a mega party the night before, which took the rest of the conference (and the following weekend) to recover from. Some good papers and excellent developmental paper sessions. Later in the month, three colleagues for their PhDs: Steve Godrich, Brenda Hollyoak and Suki Manak.
August 2009: This year's Academy of Management was unbelievably intense. Arriving in Chicago on Thursday afternoon, I was delivering my first PDW at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. And from there on, my schedule was packed for five days with three PDWs, three papers, a caucus, six pre-arranged meetings, two editorial boards, three MED committee meetings, four parties and a formal luncheon. Despite the tiring, non-stop nature of the conference, it was immensely successful one with many projects getting an injection of energy. One interesting feature of the conference was the packed attendance at fit events. A roundtable session attracted at least thirty people, a symposium attracted about three times that number and there were about thirty people again at a caucus on the last afternoon. The subject really seems to have come of age. I was surprised and delighted to win two awards. The Academy of Management honoured me for 'Outstanding Service to Management Education' and I also won my fourth MED Outstanding Reviewer award in consecutive years.
July 2009: Denise Skinner, Kirsten Krauth and I won one of the funded full-time PhD studentships offered by my faculty worth about £50,000 over three years. The study will look at the influence of teleworking and homeworking on employees' organisational fit. The plan is for the student to start in January 2010 and recruitment will take place in September. I'll post more details on this website as soon as I have them.
May 2009: I'm finally getting settled into my new university, new office and new home and after the hectic period working on the Academy of Management and British Academy of Management conferences, I'm beginning to get more time to think about teaching and research again.
February 2009: This is proving to be a chaotic month. I moved to Coventry University on the 1st to take up the chair in organisational behaviour. A week later we moved home and as a result I am in a world without telephone, email or the internet (except for occasional journeys to internet cafés). Please be patient with me.
November 2008: Everything is gearing up for the 2nd Global e-Conference on Fit, which we have the pleasure of hosting again. It is a virtual conference that runs between the 19th and 21st November 2008 and is free to everyone. This year we are officially opening Fit Island, the world's first academic spa resort. To find out more about the conference and Fit Island, please check out the conference website: www.fitconference.com
I've just received a copy of my new book, Discovering Leadership, hot from the presses. This book is available in December from all good booksellers (and hopefully a few dodgy ones as well) and is published by Palgrave. The book has been designed to support a first course in leadership and comprises 24 articles covering eight key leadership topics: Defining Leadership, Effective Leadership, Leadership: Image or Substance?, Exploring Followership, Leadership Gestation, Inspiring Others, Gender Issues and Ethical Issues. I was very fortunate that I had a completely free hand to choose whatever papers I wanted regardless of permissions costs. Hence, the book contains seminal articles by Keith Grint, John Kotter, James Kouzes and Barry Posner, Daniel Goleman, David Boje, Barbara Kellerman, Henry Mintzberg, Gareth Morgan, Joanne Ciulla and many other eminent people as well. One noteworthy quality of the book is that it takes a broadly social constructionist approach to leadership and the articles have been edited to aid digestion.
Professor Keith Grint, Cranfield University, kindly supplied the following recommendation which has been added to the back cover: 'This aptly named collection provides an excellent introduction to the contemporary world of leadership studies. For once we have a volume that challenges the solid ship of taken-for-granted heroes and creates a melting map of contested accounts. A great addition to the literature.'
October 2008: I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I have been offered a chair at Coventry University, which I have gratefully accepted. My title will be Professor of Organisational Behaviour in the business school; I start on the 1st February 2009. Exciting times ahead.
September 2008: It's been a busy couple of months with the Academy of Management and British Academy of Management conferences. The highlight was probably the 'If we taught managers like we teach doctors...' symposium in Harrogate. There was a large audience, much interaction and discussion and a lot of post-session interest. It looks like the project has life and we hope to develop the ideas further.
July 2008: I stood in the election for the Governing Council of the British Academy of Management. There were eleven candidates and five vacancies. In my pitch, I talked about the vocational underperformance of undergraduate management education and my desire to use my council membership to explore the issue. I'm delighted to say that I was one of the five successful candidates and my service begins at the start of 2009 and runs for three calendar years.
June 2008: This month, UEFA Euro 2008 got under way and interest in my penalty shootout research grew tremendously. The website received more than 10,000 visitors during the tournament. In addition, I was interviewed by The Sun, Britain's largest newspaper by circulation, and my penalty shootout research was prominently featured. They described me as a 'top football boffin'! Click here to read the article in The Sun.
May 2008: 1st May and I walk into my office, switch on the computer and there is an email telling me that the paper I published last year in the Journal of Managerial Psychology has been chosen by the editorial team as their best paper of 2007. This is going to be a good month. ... I was right; I've also won a Best Paper award from the organisational psychology at the British Academy of Management. But best of all, I won the election at the Academy of Management for the executive roles of the Management Education and Development division. This is a four year appointment with different jobs each year:
- 2008-2009 Professional Development Workshop (PDW) Chair (Chicago)
- 2009-2010 Program Chair (Montréal)
- 2010-2011 Division Chair-Elect (San Antonio)
- 2011-2012 Division Chair (Boston)
April 2008: Wow, another month and another honour. I have accepted an invitation to join the editorial board of the world's leading management education journal, the Academy of Management Learning & Education (AMLE).
March 2008: I'm honoured to have been nominated as one of two candidates to run for the Program Chair of the Management Education and Development division of the Academy of Management. The election takes place during April and May.
January 2008: I've just begun a new research project with Sharon Williams of Warwick University Medical School looking at how management education would change if we modelled it on the training of doctors. We are currently putting a symposium together for BAM. Click here for more details.
November 2007: Although every effort is building towards the fit conference later this month, I've just had tremendous news from Wiley that they are keen to support our New Directions in Organizational Fit project that I've been developing with Amy Kristof-Brown (University of Iowa) and Dan Turban (University of Missouri).
October 2007: Just had acceptance of a second paper in the Journal of Business Ethics. This one is co-written with Andreas Birnik from the National University of Singapore. It addresses the relevance vs. rigour debate and ask whether righteousness might offer a synthesis.
August 2007: I've just been appointed co-editor of the Organization Management Journal, the refereed online journal of the Eastern Academy of Management. Please go to www.omj-online.org to find out more about journal. Subscribe now; at the moment it is free!
July 2007: I've just launched the promotional website for the 1st Global e-Conference on Fit for which I am the conference organiser. As far as I know, this will be the first conference dedicated to the topic of fit. It will be conducted online (the environmentally-friendly way to conference) and it is completely free. Please go to www.fitconference.com to find out more.
June 2007: I'm delighted to say that we've just signed contracts with Information Age Publishing for the publication of the Moving Images book. This book is a series of commissioned articles by experts in the field about teaching in HE using film and other visual images. I'll be in touch with prospective authors as soon as we have agreed the production schedule with the publishers. There are still one or two gaps in our coverage, so if you are interested in contributing, please get in touch.
April 2007: Just had an amazing run of success with conference submissions. Two papers and a Professional Development Workshop have been accepted for this summer's Academy of Management in Philadelphia. Three papers have been accepted for the British Academy of Management annual conference in Warwick. And I've had papers accepted at EGOS and EAWOP. I've also finished my latest book (thanks once again to all the critical readers) and have handed it over to Wiley. But the best news of all has been acceptance of my Willy Wonka paper by the Journal of Management Education. I've been working hard on this slightly wacky paper for more than five years so I'm delighted that it'll finally be published.
March 2007: My book entitled Experiencing Recruitment and Selection is nearing completion and will go out to critical readers shortly. If you'd like to help me by critically reading the draft, please contact me. I'd certainly appreciate your help. In the meantime, the graphic artists at Wiley have finalised the cover design.
February 2007: The special issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology on person-organisation fit has just been published containing one of my articles.
January 2007: Just had a successful run of paper submissions at journals with papers accepted at the Journal of Business Ethics and New Technology, Work and Employment.
November 2006: We've just analysed some data on penalty shoot-outs in international football tournaments and appear to have some startling findings. Two conference papers and two journal articles are under review. There'll be more later once the findings are fit for human consumption.
September 2006: With colleagues, I've just had three papers accepted for the 40th Occupational Psychology conference being held in Bristol in January 2007. Two are on matters to do with the Fit Project and the third is on my narrative study of contemporary recruitment and selection.
August 2006: I gave a keynote speech at the 2nd Association of Commonwealth Universities' Human Resource Management network in Kuala Lumpur where I talked about adding an organisational research function to university HR departments.
john bilsbury
jon bilsbury
john bilbury
jon billsbury
Fit Project Fit Conference Fit Island Sky Pictures Penalty Shootouts