Award of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) honoris causa, Aston University

14 July 2009

Introduction from Dr. Patrick Tissington

I am proud on behalf of the university to present Professor Derek Pugh AcSS to you for the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Professor Pugh was born in London and after considering a career in medicine, became fascinated by psychology and even though the subject was not then widely taught in British Universities, took a place to read for a degree in the subject at Edinburgh University. In addition to psychology, the course allowed for flexibility in taking subjects in a modular way so Derek took the opportunity to follow through on ideas of philosophy, mathematics and economics – interests which he retained throughout his distinguished career. Derek stayed to study for an MA and then became a Research Assistant working in the Social Sciences Research Centre at Edinburgh. Then (as now), most academics tended to gravitate towards people in their own specialisation but this centre was set up to combine the disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology and industrial relations. Not only was this a ground breaking mixture of specialisations, but was organised in a similarly revolutionary way having no one person in overall charge. The concept has been described by some as a sort of “intellectual kibbutz” where notions of collective cooperation were absolutely necessary in order to survive. However, anyone who has worked with academics will know that some are more cooperative than others. Still, we also know that academics don’t necessarily respond well to being told what to do so perhaps the idea of no leader isn’t so outlandish and maybe an idea that will again have its day.

During this post-graduate appointment, Professor Pugh built on his undergraduate experimental methods training and became an experienced researcher. Not only this, but he started to have his work published – his first at the quite astonishingly young age of 23.

A book of short biographies of the most important management scholars was published in 1996 and quite rightly, Derek was included. In his “autobiographical essay” he describes his decision to move from Edinburgh to Aston as being “the most important single decision” of his professional life. Derek actually came to work at the College of Technology (later Advanced Technology) when there was no real idea that the college would become a University at all, so a definite career risk. Indeed, I hope he won’t mind me quoting his then view of the college as being a “strange low status institution”. He could see the fabulous opportunities in helping working people learn important skills from the social sciences and he relished the chance of working again in a multi-disciplinary group. 

After being promoted to Reader, his teaching load was reduced and he moved into a research focussed role and what would become known as the Aston Studies. It is difficult to over-state the importance of these studies world-wide and they are now acknowledged as being amongst the most influential in the understanding of how people work in organisations. That these studies came from a handful of people working in a Technical College is nothing short of extraordinary. The studies looked in depth at how organisations work and since this hadn’t been done with this detail, breadth and rigour before, the studies are quite rightly regarded as classic in the field. I am quite simply over-awed when I look at the quality and quantity of publications which came from these studies. Just to give you a flavour, academics are judged according to the standing of the journals they publish papers in. Administrative Science Quarterly is in a group of the most prestigious of these and for most academics, being lead author on a single paper published in it would be a career high. For Derek, he had five in the 1960s alone. From the disused basement offices allocated to the research group, Derek and his colleagues had produced the academic equivalent of Manchester United.

Sadly for us at Aston, in 1968 Derek decided to move on and the pull of a Professorship at London Business School was too strong – and indeed it may well be that we missed a trick at Aston in not appointing Derek to a Chair here. Who knows what might have happened if a better promotion decision had been made in 1968. Our loss was undoubtedly London’s gain and Derek went from strength to strength and was influential in building a world class institution in London before moving to the Open University to do the same there.

Derek is without doubt one of the most highly regarded academics ever to have served on the staff here which is reason enough to celebrate him today. But I have one further reason: for without him I would not be standing here today. Derek has always retained a great passion for helping research students into the rather odd career which is that of the academic. This is unusual amongst scholars of his international reputation but is the measure of the man as well as the academic. He is co-author of the PhD student’s bible – How to get a PhD – and for me (as well as so many others) this was practically the only study skills advice I got during the long lonely years of my PhD and the advice contained within it was massively helpful to me. I always give a copy to my PhD students when they start and I know many, many other academics do the same.

Professor Pugh, you of all people know that organizations are not buildings but are made of people. And this is even more true for Universities whose people create and transmit values, knowledge, skills but most of all ideas. Here today, amongst the people who currently constitute Aston University, we salute one of our founding fathers. Aston Business School is now one of the most highly regarded centres for research and teaching of the practice of business. It is a matter of factual record that we who form the current corpus of the School are the beneficiaries of the great work which came before. Especially in the Work and Organisational Psychology Group, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before and it is our great privilege that we are truly standing on the shoulders of a giant.

Chancellor, for services to the scholarly study of organisations and the teaching of doctoral research, I present Derek Pugh for the degree of Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa.


Reply from Professor Derek Pugh
Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Members of the University, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you very much, Patrick, for those kind words. It is rather chastening to hear your career set out like that - inevitably being a bit generous with the truth, but so what - to-day of all days, we graduands are entitled to feel rather expansive.

It is a great privilege for me to be awarded an honorary doctorate from Aston University, because this institution has played such a major part in my professional life. I have no doubt that the most important single career decision that I have taken in my life was to listen to my wife, Natalie, when she urged me to apply for a lectureship at the Birmingham College of Technology, and then to accept the post when it was offered.  This was in spite of the head shaking and warnings from my then colleagues in Edinburgh that if I went to a technical college, I would never get back to a job in a university. In those days (the 1950s) none of us could have conceivably imagined that within a decade that college would itself have become a university in its own right.

Natalie and Derek Pugh and their
children Helena and Jonathan
at the Aston Graduation

But it did, and I was fortunate to participate in, and benefit from, the many changes that followed from that transformation. The university-to-be encouraged research and devoted resources to it, which allowed my colleagues and me to develop the Aston Studies programme of which Patrick has spoken. I am delighted that several of the contributors are here today. I am sure that David Hickson, John Child, Diana Pheysey, Roy Payne and Pat Clark understand that the honorary degree is a joint recognition of the contributions of our whole team.

From Aston I went on to a new institution, the London Business School, and a new subject, Organizational Behaviour. Later, I joined the Open University, the most innovative experiment in higher education of the 20th century. So change has been a key part of my career experience. I have always regarded the phrase 'May you live in interesting times', not as curse but as a blessing, which is why I have just published with my OU colleague David Mayle a 4-volume compendium of academic articles on Change Management. (I should say that I wrote and published my first books while at Aston, and it was also at Aston that I learned never to miss an opportunity to plug them!)

Addressing the graduands 

So if I have one message for to-day's other graduands it is that change is the only constant in the world of business and management. Don't just let changes happen to you unawares; work hard at understanding the inevitable changes in your environment and how to benefit from them by seizing all the opportunities for self-development that come your way in your working lives.

From Aston I went on to a new institution, the London Business School, and a new subject, Organizational Behaviour. Later, I joined the Open University, the most innovative experiment in higher education of the 20th century. So change has been a key part of my career experience. I have always regarded the phrase 'May you live in interesting times', not as curse but as a blessing, which is why I have just published with my OU colleague David Mayle a 4-volume compendium of academic articles on Change Management. (I should say that I wrote and published my first books while at Aston, and it was also at Aston that I learned never to miss an opportunity to plug them!)

So if I have one message for to-day's other graduands it is that change is the only constant in the world of business and management. Don't just let changes happen to you unawares; work hard at understanding the inevitable changes in your environment and how to benefit from them by seizing all the opportunities for self-development that come your way in your working lives.

I have always been most impressed with the way that musicians, no matter how eminent as performers, always give lessons, feeling that the education of the following generations is a task to which they should contribute. That is my view too, and in my teaching now I concentrate on encouraging beginning Management researchers who are studying for a PhD by giving master classes on research, and updating my book which I hope will continue to be as useful to future doctoral students as Patrick found it. I think this is a particularly appropriate task for a senior citizen who has become an Honorary Graduate, which is why I gratefully accept the honour.

Thank you.