Dr Sam Wells

Biography/ Background

Sam graduated from The University of Adelaide in 1978 with 1st Class Honours in History. As South Australia’s 1979 Rhodes Scholar, he completed his doctorate at Oxford in 1983.  His doctoral research focused on a group of monastic letter writers in the late eleventh, early twelfth centuries.

After one year lecturing in his undergraduate History Department in Adelaide, Sam spent 18 years in corporate human resource management and organisational development – from brewing to plastics, banking to agribusiness. He established his own consulting business in 2001 and continues to advise CEOs and executive teams on cultivating organisations in which employees at all levels can ‘be everything they are’. 

In 2005 Sam was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide.  In 2007 he was appointed as the MBA Program Director  and in 2008 Discipline Leader for the Management Discipline in the Business School.  He teaches an MBA core course, Managing Contemporary Organisations, and offers an MBA elective in organisational sustainability.

Sam’s research interests focus on sustainability - for communities and for organisations, including within the organisation.

Qualifications

BA (Hons - 1st Class)

D.Phil. Oxon

Research Interests

Organisational sustainability - including 'authenticity' inside organisations

Community sustainability and civic/social entrepreneurship

Dynamics of the paradigm shift to sustainability

 

Publications

¨       Wells, S 2005, ‘From scarcity to abundance - organisational sustainability and the role of the civic entrepreneur’, paper presented at the Enterprise and Innovation Research Conference, 7-8^th July, Waikato, New Zealand.

¨       Wells, S and Prest, P 2005, ‘The performance appraisal that’s not: Keeping up appearances’, paper presented at the 19^th ANZAM conference, 7-10^th December, Canberra. (Selected for the Best Paper Award in the stream of ‘Organisational Development and Change’).

¨       Wells, S 2006, Current Practices in Performance Management by Local Government Managers, report prepared for Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA), on the basis of research undertaken in conjunction with McArthur Management Services.

¨       Wells C and Wells S 2007, Room 27:  Age, Community, and the Right to Healing, Zeus, Brisbane.

¨       Wells, S 2007, ‘The performance appraisal that’s not: Keeping up appearances’, Monash Business Review, vol. 3(1), pp.34-37.     (Complete academic version on-line.)

¨       Wells, S and Betz, S 2009, ‘From scarcity to abundance - organisational sustainability and the role of the civic entrepreneur’, International Journal for Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp. 211-228. 

¨       Muzychenko, O,  Zalan, T and Wells, S 2008, 'Developing competencies for international entrepreneurship: The role of a global mindset', paper delivered to the Academy of International Business Annual Conference, Milan, 30 June-3 July.                                 

¨       Muzychenko, O,  Zalan, T and Wells, S 2008, 'Developing competencies for international entrepreneurship: The role of a global mindset', International Journal of Entrepreneurship Education,  vol 6: Issue 4, 2008.

¨       Muzychenko, O, Seet, PS and Wells, S 2008, 'Working in culturally diverse groups: How to enhance the learning experience of MBA students', Proceedings of the International conference on Educational Leadership in Cultural Diversity and Glaiobalisation, Phuket, Thailand, 8-10 April.

¨       Wells, S 2009 ‘What holds us back from the big shift?  Time to stop the hand-wringing and start envisioning what we really want’, in O’Brien, J (ed), Opportunities Beyond Carbon, Melbourne University Press.

Entry last updated: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009