Professor Christopher McKenna, Fellow and Tutor in Management Studies at Brasenose College and University Reader in Business History and Strategy at the Said Business School, has won the prestigious Harold F. Williamson Prize awarded by the Business History Conference.
The prize, first given in 1990, is awarded every two to three years to a mid-career scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of business history. The prize memorializes the contributions to the field of the late Harold F. Williamson. The Business History Conference is a scholarly organization established in 1954, devoted to encouraging all aspects of research, writing, and teaching about business history and about the environment in which businesses operate.
Chris was nominated by the eminent academic, Professor JoAnne Yates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said “Chris…has been a prominent scholar in business history and an excellent citizen of the Business History Conference. His 2006 book The World's Newest Profession, a history of the management consulting industry, has won awards and recognition in business history and much more broadly in the arena of business strategy and in the popular business press. It is, as Al Churella wrote in a Journal of American History book review, a “masterful, impeccably researched, prize-winning study of management consulting”. In addition, Chris has authored book chapters and articles, and is currently working on the history of white collar crime.
Chris has also been an outstanding academic citizen, serving as an elected trustee of the Business History Conference and sitting on the editorial board of Enterprise & Society, among other journals. We are pleased to honor Chris with the 2016 Williamson Prize.”
Reflecting on his prize, Chris commented, “It is one of the great strengths of Oxford that our students are tutored by leading scholars in their field. I’m delighted that this international award recognizes not only my scholarship but, importantly, the teaching that I so enjoy in Brasenose”.
Chris teaches on the Economics and Management undergraduate course as a tutor and lecturer for both the Introduction to Management and the Strategy courses. He also teaches an elective on Business History for the postgraduate MBA.
Read more about Economics and Management at Brasenose.