Thomas Lawrence

Thomas B. Lawrence is the Weyerhaeuser Professor of Change Management at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He received his PhD in organizational analysis from the University of Alberta in 1993, and was on the faculty of the University of Victoria until 2002. Professor Lawrence has also been a visiting scholar at the University of St. Andrews, Chulalongkorn University, McGill University, Royal Roads University, and the University of British Columbia.

His research focuses on the dynamics of power, change and institutions in organizations and organizational fields. It has appeared in leading academic journals including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, and the Journal of Management. He is a co-editor of the recently published, Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, Second Edition.

He was awarded the Western Academy of Management's Ascendant Scholar Award in 2001, and the Research Excellence Award from SFU Business in 2005. Currently, he serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Strategic Organization.

Graham Dover is a 2nd year doctoral student in the Management and Organization Studies area at SFU Business. As a CMA Centre Scholar, Graham is involved in collaborative research with the Centre Director, Tom Lawrence, on two main research projects. The first is a recently funded project to examine the role of "connector organizations" in facilitating innovation in public arenas. This work is funded primarily by the William and Ada Isabelle Steel Fund at Simon Fraser University, and focuses on the role of connector organizations in Vancouver in the opening of Canada's first supervised injection site for intravenous drug users. The second project is the research program (described above in relation to Masoud Shadnam's Centre activity) focusing on study of change processes in the field of drug addiction in Vancouver and across Canada. This project is examining the diffusion and potential diffusion of "supervised injection sites" for intravenous drug users from Vancouver to other cities in Canada