Mark Dodgson is currently Executive-in-Residence, University of Oxford; Visiting Professor, Imperial College London; Broman Scholar, University of Gothenburg; and Emeritus Professor, University of Queensland. He has written or edited 19 books and 100+ articles on innovation, and studied and taught innovation in over 60 countries. He has advised numerous governments around the world and has been on the Board of two multiple billion dollar companies and five start-ups. His current research explores the development of nuclear fusion power and innovation in vaccines. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2019 for distinguished service to business innovation.

Seminar topic:

• Innovation in professional services firms

Professional services firms, in fields such as consulting and engineering management, are archetypal knowledge-intensive organizations. As well as being important in their own right – the ‘Big Four’ professional service firms for example employ over 1.1 million – they advise companies and governments worldwide and essentially help shape modern economies. This seminar reports on research into a large and successful, 3-year, transformational innovation program in PwC UK as the firm experienced digitally-led transformation so as to improve its performance and better advise clients. It ‘technology enabled’ the organization by a process it developed called the 3C’s – commitment, catalysts, craft – and the development of ‘intellectual’ and ‘experimental’ space. The study used a novel methodology of ‘cooperative inquiry’ where the two senior leaders of the transformation program were full members of the research team. Lessons will be drawn from the case for the management of innovation in knowledge-based organizations, and the conduct of academic research of relevance to and with impact on management practice.

The research will be published in December 2022 in Academy of Management Discoveries.

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