Discussion: View Thread

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

 

 

 

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

 

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

David Jacobs Associate Professor of Management Graves School of Business and Management Morgan State University Baltimore, Maryland 21251 Http://sites.google.com/site/dcdavidjacobs Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcd

Barry,

 

Thank you for this fitting memorial to Bill.  I was fortunate, very fortunate, to be among Bill's doctoral students. Bill skillfully supported each student's unique research questions.  That was his way of serving scholarship – with an expansive mindset and generosity of spirit.  He served the field at large in the same way, and his creativity and  visionary leadership will be greatly missed ---while it continues to be greatly influential.  

 

With deep appreciation,

 

Diane L. Swanson, PhD

Professor of Management

The Edgerley Family Chair of Distinction  in Business Administration

Founding Chair, Business Ethics Education Initiative

Kansas State University, USA

 

On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 10:57 PM Mitnick, Barry M <MITNICK@pitt.edu> wrote:

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

 

 

 

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

 

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

--

David Jacobs Associate Professor of Management Graves School of Business and Management Morgan State University Baltimore, Maryland 21251 Http://sites.google.com/site/dcdavidjacobs Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/davidcd

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

A kind, thoughtful man - he will be missed,

Tony

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 17, 2018, at 10:57 PM, Mitnick, Barry M <MITNICK@PITT.EDU> wrote:

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

From: Social Issues in Management Listserv <SIM@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG> on behalf of Anthony Buono <ABUONO@BENTLEY.EDU>
Reply-To: Anthony Buono <ABUONO@BENTLEY.EDU>
Date: Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:44 PM
To: "SIM@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG" <SIM@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG>
Subject: Re: [SIM] William C. Frederick

Tony

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

 

 

 

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

 

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

Thanks, Barry, for a wonderful tribute to Bill. Bill and I became quite friendly over email after his retirement and I will miss his wisdom and insights, as well as his incisive book reviews. He was a tough critic and always straightforward, bringing a breadth of knowledge to everything he did, and I really appreciated everything he did for the the field. My own work was greatly influenced by Bill's 1995 book Values, Nature and the American Corporation, which to me is a seminal reading for the field, and his papers on the evolution of the field are also well worth reading today. He will be greatly missed. In his last AOM presentation (which was a 20-year retrospective on his 1995 book, so must have been around 2005), Bill urged us to go beyond business as usual, or as he put it, 'same old, same old' in our work. He was a true inspiration for many of us and his voice and presence will be missed. 

Sandra

Sandra Waddock

Galligan Chair of Strategy
Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility

Professor of Management

Boston College

Carroll School of Management

Chestnut Hill, MA 02467  USA

617-552-0477

waddock@bc.edu 

Website: https://sites.google.com/a/bc.edu/sandra-waddock-homepage/ 

Blog: https://sites.google.com/a/bc.edu/healing-our-world-shaman-today/ 

Twitter:  @SandraWaddock and @IntellectShaman

See my books, Healing the World: Today's Shamans as Difference Makers. Greenleaf, 2017. 

and

Intellectual Shamans:  Management Academics Making a Difference (Cambridge University Press, 2015) on Amazon or from Cambridge. 

Check out my CDs at http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/SandraWaddock or other music on Reverbnation (www.reverbnation.com)  

On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 10:56 PM, Mitnick, Barry M <MITNICK@pitt.edu> wrote:

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

Always a gentle and gracious scholar and pioneer in our field.  I first met Bill a number of decades ago when, as a very intimidated junior faculty member at the Academy, I was a discussant on an early version of his "From CSR1 to CSR2." He  will be greatly missed.

Dr. Jeffrey Gale
Professor of Strategic Management
Loyola Marymount University
College of Business Administration
1 LMU Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90045-6359
(310) 338-7406
jgale@lmu.edu

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 18, 2018, at 9:57 AM, Mitnick, Barry M <MITNICK@PITT.EDU> wrote:

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1 _______________________________________________________________________

I will write a few words to remember Bill.

I've informed the sad news by Millie Myers, Bill's wife, and read the messages in memory of Bill posted on the SIM Listserv. Actually, I did not know Bill and Millie, and have not seen each other until Bill's passing.  Bill and I began to communicate through a discussion on the SIM Listserv and continued to exchange opinions on some questions through emails. I feel we share similar understanding that the ultimate force of human activities including management comes from Nature. He recommended me to read his book Natural Corporate Management and paid the publisher to send me a hard copy. Unfortunately, I have not received the copy. I also sent him my papers on CSR and on sustainability as basis for discussion. I feel that we have become co-travelers in intellectual pursuit. I once thought that if I go to America, I will go to see Bill.

In recent months, we communicated little, he did not respond me quickly as usual. I thought it might be that he was tied up with something for a while. I had no idea of his age and failing health. Through the email communication with Bill in the past few years, I can feel Bill was a kind, caring, and thoughtful friend and mentor. Bill's passing makes me lose a sincere friend in intellectual pursuit.

I did not know Bill's academic status and reputation because I do not know much about the American SIM circle until I read the introduction by Professor Barry M. Mitnick. I had no idea that he is a guru and only felt he was a trusted intellectual friend. He is a man who deserves respect and memory.

Sheng Zhao

Associate professor

School of Engineering Management

Zhengzhou University

Zhengzhou, China

On Mar 21, 2018, at 6:11 AM, S Zhao <mhot77@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

I will write a few words to remember Bill.

 

I've informed the sad news by Millie Myers, Bill's wife, and read the messages in memory of Bill posted on the SIM Listserv. Actually, I did not know Bill and Millie, and have not seen each other until Bill's passing.  Bill and I began to communicate through a discussion on the SIM Listserv and continued to exchange opinions on some questions through emails. I feel we share similar understanding that the ultimate force of human activities including management comes from Nature. He recommended me to read his book Natural Corporate Management and paid the publisher to send me a hard copy. Unfortunately, I have not received the copy. I also sent him my papers on CSR and on sustainability as basis for discussion. I feel that we have become co-travelers in intellectual pursuit. I once thought that if I go to America, I will go to see Bill.

 

In recent months, we communicated little, he did not respond me quickly as usual. I thought it might be that he was tied up with something for a while. I had no idea of his age and failing health. Through the email communication with Bill in the past few years, I can feel Bill was a kind, caring, and thoughtful friend and mentor. Bill's passing makes me lose a sincere friend in intellectual pursuit.

 

I did not know Bill's academic status and reputation because I do not know much about the American SIM circle until I read the introduction by Professor Barry M. Mitnick. I had no idea that he is a guru and only felt he was a trusted intellectual friend. He is a man who deserves respect and memory.

 

Sheng Zhao

Associate professor

School of Engineering Management

Zhengzhou University

Zhengzhou, China 

 

---

From: Social Issues in Management Listserv <SIM@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG> on behalf of Rands, Gordon <gp-rands@WIU.EDU>
Sent: 19 March 2018 14:39
To: SIM@AOMLISTS.AOM.ORG
Subject: Re: [SIM] William C. Frederick

 

While my interaction with Bill was not as extensive as that of so many who have written, I too was influenced by him, both intellectually and personally.  I first met Bill in 1985 when I was going to different schools (without prior appointments) and looking at Ph.D. programs.  Bill made lots of time for me and spoke with me about the strengths of different schools.  As I touched base with him again at the end of the day he observed that he thought that with my interests Minnesota might be the best fit for me.  I remembered that comment as I eventually chose to attend Minnesota rather than Pitt or Boston University.  A couple of years later I was on an Academy session with Bill and David Vogel, where most of the attention focused on the debate between those two. Afterwards Bill sought me out and encouraged me, kindly saying more attention should have been given to my presentation.  It was always a joy to read his provocative reviews and see his continued dedication to the field after his retirement.  Indeed, he will be missed.

Gordon Rands

Western Illinois University

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 4:19 AM, Gale, Jeffrey <Jeffrey.Gale@lmu.edu> wrote:

Always a gentle and gracious scholar and pioneer in our field.  I first met Bill a number of decades ago when, as a very intimidated junior faculty member at the Academy, I was a discussant on an early version of his "From CSR1 to CSR2." He  will be greatly missed.

Dr. Jeffrey Gale
Professor of Strategic Management
Loyola Marymount University
College of Business Administration
1 LMU Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90045-6359
(310) 338-7406
jgale@lmu.edu

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 18, 2018, at 9:57 AM, Mitnick, Barry M <MITNICK@PITT.EDU> wrote:

To my colleagues in SIM:

Bill Frederick passed away on Friday. Here is a memorial.

Barry

William C. Frederick

 

William C. Frederick, former Dean of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and professor emeritus in Katz, passed away at age 92 on March 16, 2018.

 

Many of our current colleagues did not know Bill, so it is appropriate to remember the extraordinary contributions he made to the field of business and society/business ethics, in virtually all the respects that academics can contribute to their fields: Via his writings, he structured the conversation about corporate responsibility and about academic thinking in regard to business ethics; indeed, he is considered one of the founders of work on corporate social responsibility. He was one of a small handful of organizers of the world's preeminent professional academic association in the area, the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, becoming its chair and receiving its highest award, the Sumner Marcus Award. As president of the major academic association on business ethics, the Society for Business Ethics, he helped create Business Ethics Quarterly, one of the field's leading journals. He served as president of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics. He wrote many books and articles, receiving the SIM Division's Best Book Award. He wrote one of the earliest books on social auditing. He served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review for six years. He chaired doctoral dissertations from the days when the doctoral concentration in this area at Pitt was one of the first two in the world, giving Pitt an international recognition for doctoral work and research in this area, so that Pitt thus became the parent to doctoral studies now undertaken at universities around the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless academics in the field.

 

With the encouragement of then-Dean Jerry Zoffer, the business and society group at Pitt with Bill at its center was ranked among the very top of world research centers in this area. One study published in the field's leading journal found that participation by faculty and doctoral students from Pitt was far higher than any other school at the sessions of the SIM Division; the research of a colleague, Donna Wood, was ranked as the most influential in the world. Three faculty members of the group at Pitt were chairs of the SIM Division and received the Sumner Marcus Award. At one time, Katz was home to one of the three top journals in the field, Business & Society, when it was edited by Donna Wood. The SIM Division was one of the original divisions of the Academy of Management, in 1971; its first program was in 1972. Pitt's prominence in SIM and in the field at large would never have developed had Bill not been at Katz.

 

Bill's writing changed the way we thought about the corporation's relationship to society, and about the individual's relationship to the corporation. His work was in the core of the literature course in doctoral programs in the area; everyone knew CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, etc. Unlike some academics whose major work is done early in their career, and who spend the rest of their academic lives extending it, Bill continually re-invented his creative research approaches. He moved thinking about CSR from corporate social responsibility, to corporate social responsiveness, to a focus on corporate values, to a series of explorations of how human values and ethical positions are anchored in nature, and, indeed, how human values and organized human behavior in the institutions we study are subtly and fundamentally influenced by the natural world. Throughout it all his work was a model of clear and graceful writing.

 

In his later years he maintained a website, williamcfrederick.com, and posted about 40 reviews of current books on CSR and business ethics, filled with insightful commentary and humor. For anyone seeking a curated tour of the literature of the field, Bill provided a guide.

 

Bill's gifts to the field will live on not only in the literature he shaped and the careers he helped launch, but in memories of a courtly and gracious scholar with an almost fierce dedication to the importance of studying the most fundamental aspects of business life.

-- 

Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.

Professor of Business Administration

   and of Public and International Affairs

Katz Graduate School of Business

University of Pittsburgh

261 Mervis Hall

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Mobile: 412 551-9956

Email: mitnick@pitt.edu

 

--------------------------------------------------

SSRN Author page:

http://ssrn.com/author=95600

--------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the list, send your email to SIM@aomlists.pace.edu

_______________________________________________________________________

Visit the SIM Division website at: http://sim.aomonline.org _______________________________________________________________________

If you wish to unsubscribe from this list or change your delivery options, you can do so online at: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=sim&A=1_______________________________________________________________________