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Hi Everyone,

There is some sad news to share.  Walter Klein, one of the founders of the SIM Division, passed over earlier this week.  Walter had been living near Baltimore in the past couple of years and had lost his beloved wife Rosemary earlier this year. 

A link to the obituary is below:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/baltimoresun/obituary.aspx?n=walter-h-klein&pid=153371776&fhid=4093

Below is a short biosketch of Walter illustrating some of his contributions to our field:

Walter Klein, Professor Emeritus, Boston College

Walter Klein was a true pioneer in the social issues in management field, both within Boston College and in the broader world of the Academy of Management and the AACSB.  He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pittsburg in labor economics and industrial relations.  While working on his doctorate at Pittsburgh, he took courses in the then Carnegie Institute of Technology (now part of Carnegie-Mellon), where he encountered such luminaries as Herbert Simon, Richard Cyert, and William Copper. 

He received an MA in Economics from Pittsburgh, then taught for two years at St. Francis College of Loretto, PA, where over the course of two years, he taught at least 15 different courses (including accounting, statistics, economics, mathematic of finance, money and banking...among others). 

While serving as Instructor of Economics at Villanova, and still writing his dissertation, Walter was asked to organize and chair a new department, Industrial Administration, and was ultimately appointed Associate Dean.  He also served as Chairman of the Institutional Planning Council, Villanova's first effort to do long-range planning, and by 1968 had become Associate Dean of Villanova University's College of Commerce and Finance, where he was in charge of curriculum and faculty development during the AACSB preparation process. 

Walter Klein was at Boston College for many years and is Professor Emeritus of Strategic Management at the Carroll School of Management.  He is a past Chair of the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management and was the second recipient of the division's highest award, the Sumner Marcus Distinguished Service Award (for contributions to the field).

Walter joined BC in 1969 as part of an effort by BC's administrative team to review the MBA program's curriculum in light of then new AACSB accreditation requirements, which called for expanded instruction about the social and political environments of business.  The outcome of that was the implementation of a new required course in the MBA program called PACE, Problems of Administration in a Changing Environment.  That course, still in the evening MBA curriculum, is now called Social Issues in Management and is part of the Management Practice sequence (MP IV) that frames the MBA curriculum today. 

Walter was a true pioneer in the Academy of Management Social Issues in Management Division (SIM), which he joined in 1971 for its second-ever division meeting (the Academy had divisionalized only the year before).  Not only did he make a presentation about PACE at that second meeting, but he also later became part of an important task force that met with the AACSB in 1974 and drafted a position paper on the importance of including ethical, social, and political considerations in management education. 

Best to all,

Sandra

Sandra Waddock, Galligan Chair of Strategy

Professor of Management

Boston College

Carroll School of Management
Chestnut Hill, MA  02467
 
617-552-0477
f:  617-552-0433
waddock@bc.edu
www2.bc.edu/sandra-waddock 

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