Skip to content

Dr Alex Wright

Lecturer in Strategic Management

You can email Dr Alex Wright directly; but for media enquiries please contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Staff profile

See below for Dr Alex Wright's:

Biography

Alex is Lecturer in Strategy at The Open University Business School. As an academic he has extensive experience of creating, managing and delivering postgraduate modules and awards. As a consultant he has worked at executive and departmental levels leading and facilitating organisations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. He has provided consultancy and delivered educational programmes in the UK, Ireland, Hungary, Egypt and Thailand focusing on helping senior executives, managers and administrators understand and improve their managerial effectiveness. He has contributed to Oxford University's Templeton College's Executive Education programme.

 

Teaching interests

The majority of my teaching experience has been at postgraduate level: Module leader for postgraduate module 'Research in Management Studies' Module team member for postgraduate module 'Strategy' Supervised over 50 MBA/MAIB/MAM UK and overseas students to successful completion of their final year 30 and 60 credit dissertations.

Research interests

My research interests lie in the areas of; strategizing or strategy-as-practice, dynamic routines, scenario planning, narrative, sensemaking, trust, actor-network theory, and research methodologies.

Research student supervision

Publications

Journal papers
Wright, AD  (2005)  'The role of scenarios as prospective sensemaking devices', Management Decision, vol. 43, issue 1, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 86-101.
Wright, AD  (2005)  'Using scenarios to challenge and change management thinking', Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, vol. 16, issue 1, Routledge, pp. 87-103.
Wright, AD  (2000)  'Scenario planning: A continuous improvement approach to strategy”', Total Quality Management, vol. 11, issue 04/06/10, pp. 433-438.
Book chapters
Wright, AD, Ehnert, I  (2010)  'Making sense of trust across cultural contexts', Organizational Trust: A Cultural Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-126. Abstract
Wright, AD  (2007)  'Making sense of ambiguities through bricolage', Müller-Christ, G, Ehnert, I and Arndt, L (eds) Nachhaltigkeit und Widersprüche: eine Managementperspektive [Sustainability and Ambiguities], Munster, Lit-Verlag, pp. 287-301.
Conference papers
Wright, AD  (2009)  'Consultants are strategists too you know: Consultants creating and becoming in strategy work', EGOS, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain.
Wright, AD, Venter, P  (2009)  'I think therefore I strategize": One South African middle manager’s journey towards becoming a strategist’', EGOS, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain.
Wright, AD  (2009)  'Management consulting as a dynamic routine', Academy of Management conference, Chicago, USA.
Wright, AD  (2008)  'Consultants are strategists too you know: How consultants' knowledge co-constructs strategy', SMS, Cologne, Germany, October.
Wright, AD, Starkey, K  (2008)  'Ostensibly different: scenario planning in practice', EGOS, Free University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, July.
Wright, AD, Ehnert, I  (2007)  'Building, maintaining and repairing trust across cultures: towards a practice-based research agenda', EGOS, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria, July.
Wright, AD  (2007)  'A narrative analysis of EEDA’s use of scenario planning in its construction of the RES', AIM Capacity-Building Workshop, Engaging with practice: Doing strategy as practice research, Aston Business School, March.
Wright, AD, Ehnert, I  (2006)  'Making sense of trust within and across boundaries', EGOS, University of Bergen, Norway, July.
Wright, AD  (2005)  'Sensemaking in peripheries', EURAM, Technical University Munich, Germany, May.
Wright, AD  (2004)  'Enhancing inductive strategizing through sensemaking and scenario thinking', IFSAM, Gothenburg, Sweden, June.
Wright, AD  (2004)  'Prospective sensemaking through scenario thinking: a facilitator of inductive strategizing', British Academy of Management, St. Andrews University, September.
Wright, AD  (2004)  'The role of scenarios as prospective sensemaking devices', 7th International Conference on the Dynamics of Strategy, Surrey Business School, Surrey University, April.
Other
Wright, AD  (2004)  'Enhancing inductive strategizing through sensemaking and scenario planning', University of Wolverhampton Business School working paper series, issue WP002/04.
Wright, AD  (2004)  'A social constructionist’s deconstruction of Royal Dutch Shell’s scenario planning process', University of Wolverhampton Business School working paper series, issue WP004/04.
Wright, AD  (2003)  'Quality’s strategic failure', University of Wolverhampton Business School occasional paper series, issue OPO2/03.
Wright, AD  (2003)  'Using scenarios to challenge management thinking', University of Wolverhampton Business School working paper series, issue WP009/03.