Professor John Child MA, PhD, ScD, FBA

Professor John Child

The Department of Strategy and International Business
Professor of Commerce

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 414 8322
Fax
+44 (0) 121 414 2982
Email
j.child@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Birmingham Business School
University House
Birmingham
B15 2TT

John Child is Professor of Commerce at the University of Birmingham, UK, Professor of Management at Plymouth University, and Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business and the British Academy of Management. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the prestigious British Academy [FBA]. In 2012 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association for Chinese Management Research [IACMR]. His degrees are all from the University of Cambridge.

Qualifications

MA (Cambs)
PhD (Cambs)
ScD (Cambs)
FBA (Fellow of the British Academy)

Biography

John Child is Professor of Commerce at the University of Birmingham, UK, Professor of Management at Plymouth University, and Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business and the British Academy of Management. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the prestigious British Academy [FBA]. In 2012 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association for Chinese Management Research [IACMR]. His degrees are all from the University of Cambridge.

Before entering the academic field, Professor Child worked for Rolls-Royce. He then worked as a Research Fellow in the Aston Programme of Organization Studies before moving to the London Business School, returning to Aston in 1973 as Professor of Organizational Behaviour. He served as Dean of the Aston Business School from 1986 to 1989. He was seconded to be Dean and Director of the European Community’s management program in China in 1989-1990, building it into the China-Europe Management Institute, the forerunner of the China-Europe International Business School [CEIBS] in Shanghai. In 1991 he was appointed Diageo Professor of Management in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge.

He returned to the West Midlands in 2000 taking up the Chair of Commerce at Birmingham University. He has also been a Visiting Professor at universities in Brazil, China Denmark, and the UAE.

John Child has published 23 books and approximately 150 articles primarily in the fields of international business and business organization. His book, co-authored with Suzana Rodrigues, Corporate Co-evolution (Wiley 2008) won the 2009 Terry Book Award of the Academy of Management. In 2013 he co-authored The Dynamics of Corporate Co-evolution, published by Edward Elgar. This is a study of how YICT, China’s largest container terminal, developed in relation to its institutional environment. Also in 2013, he co-edited Knowledge and the Study of Organization and Management – Building on the Work of Max Boisot. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Professor Child has been editor-in-chief of Organization Studies and Senior Editor of Management and Organization Review. His current interests are primarily in problems of organizational hierarchy and how smaller firms internationalize.

Teaching

MBA

Postgraduate supervision

Internationalization of SMEs;

New and alternative organizational forms;

Research

Coordinator of a seven-nation project investigating the internationalization of SMEs, with particular reference to decision-making modes, sources of information and other support, and use of networks.

Other activities

Member of the University Court

Publications

2014

Child, John and Linda Hsieh  2014. Decision mode, information and network attachment in the internationalization of SMEs: A configurational and contingency analysis. Journal of World Business, 49 (4): 598-610.

Child, John, Martin Ihrig and Yasmin Merali 2014.  Organization as Information – a Space Odyssey. Organization Studies, 35 (6): 801-824.

Child, John and Svetla T. Marinova 2014. The role of contextual combinations in the globalization of Chinese firms. Management and Organization Review, 10 (3): 347–371.

Child, John and Svetla T. Marinova 2014. Response: Reflections on the Commentaries. Management and Organization Review,10 (3): 405-409.

Puthusserry, Pushyarag, John Child and Suzana B. Rodrigues  2014. Psychic distance, its business impact and modes of coping: a study of British and Indian partner SMEs. Management International Review, 54: 1-29.

2015

Child, John 2015. Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practice, 2nd edition. Chichester: Wiley. 

Luo, Yadong and John Child 2015 . A composition-based view of firm growth. Management and Organization Review, 11 (3): 379-411.

2016

Child, John 2016. Building the innovation capacity of SMEs in China. 

In Arie Y. Lewin, Martin Kenney and Johann Peter Murmann (eds.), China’s Innovation Challenge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 189-218.

2017 and forthcoming

Child, John 2017. Downward accountability.  In Ciaran Driver and Grahame Thompson (eds.), Where Now for Corporate Governance? Oxford University Press (forthcoming).  

Child, John 2017.  SMEs in emerging economies: Strategies, innovation and internationalization.  InRobert Grosse & Klaus Meyer (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

Child, John 2017. Should your research deal with power?  AIB Insights, 17 (4) forthcoming.

Child, John, Linda Hsieh, Said Elbanna, Joanna Karmowska, Svetla Marinova, Pushyarag Puthusserry, Rose Narooz, Terence  Tsai and Yunlu Zhang 2017. SME International Business Models: The Role of Context and Experience. Journal of World Business (forthcoming: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2017.05.004). 

Frynas, J.George, John Child and Shlomo Y. Tarba 2017. Nonmarket social and political strategies – An introduction to new integrative approaches and interdisciplinary borrowings.  British Journal of Management  (forthcoming).

Karmowska, Joanna, John Child and Phil James 2017. A successful failure: The meaning of temporariness in occupational membership-based organizations. British Journal of Management, 28 (2): 213-230.

Narooz, R. & Child, J.  2017. Networking responses to contrasting levels of institutional void: A comparison of internationalizing SMEs in Egypt and the UK.   International Business Review, 26 (4): 683-696.

Vendrell-Herrero, Ferran, Emanuel Gomes, Kamel Mellahi and John Child. Building international business bridges in geographically isolated areas: The role of Foreign Market Focus and Outward Looking Competences in Latin American SMEs. Journal of World Business (forthcoming).

Works in progress/under review

Child, John. Hierarchy (book under contract with Routledge).

Child, John, David Faulkner, Stephen Tallman and Linda Hsieh. Cooperative Strategy (3rd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press (under contract).

Child, John, Rose Narooz, Said Elbanna, Linda Hsieh, Joanna Karmowska, Svetla Marinova, Pushyarag Puthusserry, Terence Tsai and Lulu Zhang. Accounting for network spread among internationally-active SMEs.

Elbanna, Said, Linda Hsieh and John Child.  SME decision-making on internationalization: A critical review and research agenda.

Elg, Ulf, Pervez Ghauri, John Child and Simon Collinson.  MNEs’ microfoundations and routines for building a legitimate and sustainable position on emerging markets. 

Hsieh, Linda, John Child, Rose Narooz, Said Elbanna, Joanna Karmowska, Svetla Marinova, Pushyarag Puthusserry, Terence Tsai and Lulu Zhang.  A multi-dimensional perspective of SME internationalization speed: individual, firm and contextual influences.

Puthusserry, Pushyarag, John Child and Zaheer Khan. Social capital development during stages of internationalization: Relations between British and Indian SMEs.

View all publications in research portal