Professor George Wright
Management Science
Personal statement
George Wright PhD, ScD
My publications have accumulated about 23,000 citations in the Google Scholar database and my h-index is 62: My Google Scholar page. According to an evaluation by Tiberius et al ("Scenarios in business and management: the current stock and research opportunities", Journal of Business Research, 2020, vol 121, p235-242), I am the most productive author in the World in the topic area of scenarios and also the World's most cited - in terms of average citations per year to my scenario-focused journal publications.
I have undertaken a wide range of consultancy and workshop-based assignments in scenario thinking and decision analysis. I have also designed and delivered management development workshops on decision making, scenario thinking, and strategic analysis, for a variety of public and private sector organizations across the world.
I worked at directorate level within the UK Government Department of Health with scenario thinking and Delphi applications. For a video of this work see: NHS scenarios . I worked with the leadership of Bayer CropScience on food supply issues using scenarios - I led workshops convened in Gemany, France, India, Singapore, and the USA. Another scenario project, funded by the Australian Research Council, utilised a new scenario method - developed with George Cairns - to aid senior members of the regional government, union leaders, business leaders and industrialists develop policy for regeneration priorities within Tasmania. Recent projects provided training/advice on use of the Delphi technique to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and advice on developing energy transition scenarios to Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Plc. I also recently worked with the chief executive and the senior leadership team of Wood Group Plc on scenarios to do with the energy transition. I have just completed a project, with Peter McKiernan, developing post-COVID-19 scenarios for the Glasgow Business Resilience Council. I am currently working with Region Midtjylland, Denmark on designing scenario thinking interventions to develop resilence in the central region's health-care provision. Another current scenario project is with Merck (known as MSD in the UK) on the future of healthcare data ecosystems. The following link contains a recent presentation of mine on scenario thinking and COVID-19: Covid-19 talk
I previously held academic positions at Leeds University Business School, London Business School, Strathclyde Graduate Business School (where I was Deputy and Acting Director), Durham Business School (where I was Head of the Department of Business and Management) and Warwick Business School (where I was Associate Dean for Executive Education and a member of the Senior Management Team). I was awarded a higher doctorate, Doctor of Science, by Warwick University in 2013.
I teach "Exploring the International Business Environment" on the Full-Time MBA Programme. This course is part of the Strategy spine of the Strathcyde MBA - which was rated as the fifth highest quality in the world in the Financial Times' January 25th 2016 ratings of Global MBA offerings. I was presented with a Teaching Excellence award for my teaching at a Strathclyde Students' Association ceremony in May 2016. In October, 2020, I taught scenario thinking within the Guardian newspaper MBA "Masterclasses" series.
My books include "Scenario Thinking: Preparing your Organization for the Future in an Unpredictable World" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, co-authored), "Scenario Thinking: Practical Approaches to the Future" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, co-authored), "Decision Analysis for Management Judgment" (5th Edition, Wiley, 2014, co-authored), "Strategic Decision making: A best practice blueprint" (Wiley, 2001), and "The Sixth Sense: Accelerating Organizational Learning with Scenarios" (Wiley, 2002, co-authored).
Research interests
I research into the role and quality of management judgment in decision making and in anticipating the future. Are such judgments well-made or are there pitfalls and flaws? In fact, sometimes judgment is flawed and decision aiding techniques - such as scenario thinking and decision analysis can be utilised to improve judgment and decision making. The following link is to my July 2022 keynote talk on scenarios and judgmental forecasting at ISF Oxford: Keynote. For a presention on this issue for a less-specialist audience see: Accessible version
Recently, I led a US National Intelligence Agency project on group-based judgment (January, 2017 - December, 2018) that brought an income of £1.1 million to Strathclyde Business School. In November, 2022, I was honoured to be nominated by the UK Ministry of Defence and appointed as a member of the NATO Panel on "Prediction and Intelligence Analysis". In August 2023, I was nominated and appointed as a member of the NATO Technical Team on "Anticipatory Intelligence for Superior Decision Making".
I am a co-investigator on research grants from BAE Systems, the AHRC, and the NERC. I am a co-director of The Leverhulme Doctoral School in Nature Inspired Acoustics. In all these activities, my focus is on improving futures and foresight capabilities.
I am the founding Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Behavioral Decision Making: JBDM. Several recent Nobel prizewinners in Economic Sciences have published within the pages of JBDM and the 2017 Nobel prizewinner, Richard Thaler, published his eighth most-cited journal article in JBDM. Until I recently stood down, I was a Senior Editor of the journal Decision Support Systems and an Associate Editor of two forecasting Journals: International Journal of Forecasting and Journal of Forecasting. I am Editor-in-Chief of the new-start Wiley journal, Futures & Foresight Science, that was first published in March, 2019: F&FS. Here is an interview with me on the content and focus of F&FS: F&FS Editor interview
My publications have appeared in a range of US-based management journals - including Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Management Science, Risk Analysis and the Strategic Management Journal. In Europe, I have published in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, and European Journal of Operational Research.
I have edited special issues of Futures, International Journal of Forecasting, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change on the topics of Delphi methodology, scenario methodology, and group-based judgmental forecasting.
Area of Expertise
Working with many public and private-sector organisations in order to aid managers to think about the future and make decisions in the present.
Qualifications
BSc Psychology (London University)
MPhil Psychology (Brunel University)
PhD Psychology (Brunel Unversity)
DSc (Warwick University)
Publications
- Preparing for the future : development of an 'antifragile' methodology that complements scenario planning by omitting causation
- Derbyshire James, Wright George
- Technological Forecasting and Social Change Vol 82, pp. 215-225 (2014)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2013.07.001
- Augmenting the Intuitive Logics scenario planning method for a more comprehensive analysis of causation
- Derbyshire James, Wright George
- International Journal of Forecasting Vol 33, pp. 254-266 (2017)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2016.01.004
- Promoting articulated action from diverse stakeholders in response to public policy scenarios : a case analysis of the use of 'scenario improvisation' method
- Cairns George, Wright George, Fairbrother Peter
- Technological Forecasting and Social Change Vol 103, pp. 97-108 (2016)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.10.009
- Teaching scenario planning : lessons from practice in academe and business
- Wright George, Cairns George, Goodwin P
- European Journal of Operational Research Vol 194, pp. 323-335 (2009)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2007.12.003
- The critical role of history in scenario thinking : augmenting causal analysis within the intuitive logics scenario development methodology
- Bradfield Ronald, Derbyshire James, Wright George
- Futures Vol 77, pp. 56-66 (2016)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2016.02.002
- A decision-analysis-based framework for analyzing stakeholder behaviour in scenario planning
- Cairns George, Goodwin Paul, Wright George
- European Journal of Operational Research Vol 249, pp. 1050-1062 (2016)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2015.07.033
Teaching
I teach scenario thinking within the "Exploring the International Business Envionment" MBA course component.
I also teach a course entitled "Improving management decision making" - which is a mix of the psychology of decision making and decision analysis techniques
Research Interests
I research in the area of scenario thinking and behavioural decision making. Some of my work is laboratory-based and some within organisations.
Professional Activities
- Member NATO Panel on "Prediction and Intelligence Analysis"
- Recipient
- 23/11/2022
- Scenario Planning and Foresight 2018
- Participant
- 2018
- External Examiner, MSc Decision Sciences, LSE
- Examiner
- 2018
- Regional Scenarios for Scotland: supply and demand for energy
- Consultant
- 2018
- Futures & Foresight Science (Journal)
- Peer reviewer
- 2017
- Scenario Thinking
- Speaker
- 2017
Projects
- Design HOPES (Healthy Organisations in a Place-based Ecosystem, Scotland)
- Rodgers, Paul (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) Galloway, Stuart (Co-investigator) Inns, Tom (Co-investigator) Tapinos, Efstathios (Co-investigator) Wodehouse, Andrew (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Co-investigator)
- Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. The more we ignore the climate emergency the bigger the impact will be on health and the need for care with poor environmental health contributing to major diseases, including cardiac problems, asthma and cancer. Many of the actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change and improve environmental sustainability also have positive health benefits; the Lancet Commission has described tackling climate change as "the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century". The challenges faced present an incredible opportunity to do things differently - to take a design-led approach in designing and making through high-reward demonstrator projects to help transform the health ecosystem. Through wider public engagement we aim to advance societal understanding of design's impact, and the opportunities, barriers, behaviour changes and tools needed to transition to a green approach. This research will unite a wide range of disciplines, research organisations, regional and local industry, and other public sector stakeholders, with policy-makers. The Design HOPES Green Transition Ecosystem (GTE) Hub will sustain a phased long-term investment to embed design-led innovation, circularity, sustainability and impact for the changing market, across product, service, strategy, policy and social drivers to evolve future design outcomes that matter to the people and planet. Our research is organised around seven core Thematic Workstreams, based on the NHS Scotland Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy (2022-2026). Design HOPES will be delivered and managed by interdisciplinary teams with significant expertise in design and making, co-creation, health and social care, with professionals with a sustainability remit, and businesses working in the design economy. Design HOPES encompasses a rich disciplinary mix of knowledge, skills, and expertise from a range of design disciplines (i.e., product, textile, interaction, games, architecture etc.) and other disciplines (computer science, health and wellbeing, geography, engineering, etc.) that will be focused on people and planet (including all living things), from the micro to macro, from root cause to hopeful vision, from the present to the future, and from the personal to the wider system. Design HOPES will design and make things and test them to see how they work, which will help more ideas and things emerge. The Hub will be an inclusive, safe, collaborative space that will bring in multiple and marginalised perspectives and view its projects as one part of a wider movement for transformational change whilst not overlooking existing assets and how we can re-use, nurture and develop these sustainably. Design HOPES aims to be an internationally recognised centre of excellence, promoting and embedding best practice through our collaborative design-led thinking and making approaches to build a more equitable and sustainable health and social care system. We will create new opportunities to support both existing services and new design-led health innovations in collaboration with NHS Boards across Scotland, the Scottish Government, patient and public representatives, health and social care partners, the third sector, academia and industry. Our seven Thematic Workstreams and associated projects will deliver a rich mix of tangible outcomes such as new innovative products, services, and policies (e.g., sustainable theatre consumables, packaging, clothing, waste services, etc.) during the funded period. With award-winning commercialisation and entrepreneurial support from the collaborating universities, we will also look to create new "green' enterprises and businesses. We will achieve this internationally recognised centre of excellence using design-led thinking and making to build a more equitable and sustainable health and social care system.
- 01-Oct-2023 - 30-Sep-2025
- Technology Innovation in Defence-platform Energy-efficiency
- Turan, Osman (Principal Investigator) Aktas, Batuhan (Co-investigator) Atlar, Mehmet (Co-investigator) Barlow, Euan (Co-investigator) Boulougouris, Evangelos (Co-investigator) Jennett, Kyle (Co-investigator) Paton, Steve (Co-investigator) Revie, Matthew (Co-investigator) Seth, Sampan (Co-investigator) Tapinos, Efstathios (Co-investigator) Theotokatos, Gerasimos (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jul-2023 - 30-Jun-2026
- Nunavut Search and Rescue (NSAR) Project: Supporting Inuit Health and Well-Being, Food Security, Economic Development, and Community Resilience
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Howick, Susan (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Co-investigator)
- 06-May-2022 - 05-May-2025
- scenarios for SSE
- Wright, George (Principal Investigator)
- 10-May-2018 - 15-Aug-2018
- Bayesian ARgumentation via Delphi
- Belton, Ian (Co-investigator) Bolger, Fergus (Principal Investigator) Crawford, Megan Michelle (Co-investigator) Hamlin, Iain (Co-investigator) MacDonald, Alice (Co-investigator) Rowe, Gene (Principal Investigator) Sissons, Aileen (Co-investigator) Taylor Browne Lūka, Courtney (Co-investigator) Vasilichi, Alexandrina (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Principal Investigator)
- BARD was a 23-month project funded by the US Government Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and formed part of the larger Crowdsourcing Evidence, Argumentation, Thinking and Evaluation – “CREATE” – program. In BARD, we designed and produced Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to assist in the construction of Causal Bayesian Networks (CBNs) as the underlying engines for the analysis of arguments and evidence. BARD thus allows analysts to build and test competing or complementary arguments, and to examine the impact of different pieces of evidence, in an intuitive environment. BARD makes use of the Delphi technique – an iterative survey method that minimizes negative effects of cognitive and social biases – to manage the interaction between users.
In addition to the Delphi Team based in Strathclyde, BARD also consisted of teams based in London (UCL and Birkbeck) – who are experts on the psychology of causal reasoning – and in Melbourne, Australia (Monash University) – who are expert in CBNs and software engineering.
IARPA - https://www.iarpa.gov/
CREATE - https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/create - 01-Apr-2017 - 30-Nov-2018
- Exploring the International Business Environment
- Crawford, Megan Michelle (Visiting Academic) Wright, George (Principal Investigator)
- An extended workshop learning the techniques of the intuitive logics method of scenario planning. Exploring the International Business Environment aims to help students understand and become comfortable with the inherent ambiguity and uncertainty in the contextual (or macro) environment where the irreducible uncertainties lie and which impacts all organisations but which they essentially have no control over; this is distinct from the stakeholder or internal environments of organisations over which they have varying degrees of control.
- 26-Sep-2016 - 07-Oct-2016