Education: PhD Strategic Management (Surrey), MA Business Analysis (Lancaster), BA Economics (CNAA)
Peter is an FRSA, a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, an Inugural Companion of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS).
Peter began his working life as a Divisional Manager in the Mechanical Engineering sector and progressed to Group Finance Director before joining academia full time in 1982. He has authored or edited many books, including the international best seller 'Sharpbenders' and two volumes on the 'Historical Evolution of Strategic Management'. His research has moved incrementally from strategic studies of fast growing SMEs, sector studies on organisational performance, organisational turnaround and renewal, the interface between strategy and IT in post acquisition management, soft signal 'seeing' and environmental sense-making, scenario planning and strategic foresight, sector history studies, organisational legitimacy and foresight with open innovation. During this work, Peter has raised nearly £1 million in grant funding from sources such as the EU Commission, TMR Marie Curie, DTI Teaching Company Scheme , European Technology and Communication (EU), Houblon-Norman Trust and the ESRC.
Peter has supervised over 20 Doctoral and 32 MPhil theses to successful conclusions. Recent topics include 'An empirical analysis of scenario informed strategic planning: a public sector case' (2010) and 'Rhetorical strategies of legitimation: the 9/11 Commission's public inquiry process' (2011). Currently, he is supervising a doctoral thesis on the 'Powerlessness and the organisational under-life: the case of middle managers in the hospitality industry'.
Peter is co-founder of the European Management Review and sits on the Boards of several academic journals, as well as the scientific committee of the Cambridge University Press's 'Companions to Management' series. While institution building, he has been Vice Chairman, Chairman, President and Dean of the Fellow’s College of the British Academy of Management (BAM) , Vice President and President of the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and the inaugural Head of the School of Management at the University of St Andrews. He is an international member of the Peter Pribilla Foundation (TUM) and the Rheims Management School scientific committee, an executive board member of the ABS, a founding Director of the European Association of Research Directors and of the EFMD/EURAM Research Leadership Programme.
Peter has consulted widely and has been a marketing and strategy coach to many MNCs, including Philips, BP, IBM, Corus, AT&T, BT, Bertelsman-Random House, Ford of Europe and Nestle. He is in demand as a public speaker at many corporate conferences. In addition, he has directed many policy orientated, scenario planning projects, including scenarios for Scotland, the States of Jersey, Fife Council, Stirling Council, Tayside Council, City of Edinburgh Region, Shetland Islands Council, Tees Valley Authority, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Aegon, Forth Ports, Scottish Museums, Carmelite Nuns, SEPA, Scottish Executive (Futures Forum), Common Purpose, Wood McKenzie, amongst many others. He compliments this consultancy activity with Board level experience. He remains a non-executive director of BusinessLab (Aberdeen) and Chairs the Board of Governors at West Lothian FE College (Livingstone) and is an executive Board member of Scotland’s Colleges as well as chairing its HR Committee.
Currently, he is teaching Masters courses at Strathclyde on 'Global Business Environment' and 'Strategy Analysis and Evaluation' plus modules on the Executive Masters in Hospitality and Tourism Leadership.
