Dr Sam Wells

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 in all sectors 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.  He was the MBA Academic Director from 2007 to 2011 and Discipline Leader for the Management Discipline in the Business School from 2008 to 2011.  Sam was appointed Acting Head of School for the School of Marketing and Management in November 2016, interim Director of Academic Experience for the Business School in November 2017, and Academic Director for the MBA program 2014-19.  

    He is the inaugural Director of the Yunus Social Business Centre, University of Adelaide.

    Sam teaches an MBA core course, Managing Contemporary Organisations, and offers an MBA elective in Systems Thinking for Managers.

    Sam’s research interests focus on

    • Community sustainability and social enterprise
    • Organisational sustainability - including sustainability of the human environment
    • The complex systems view of change, and the dynamics of a paradigm shift to sustainability

     

  • Qualifications

    BA (Hons - 1st Class)

    D.Phil. Oxon

  • Research Interests

    Organisational sustainability - including sustainability of the human environment

    Community sustainability and social enterprise

    The complex systems view of change, and the dynamics of a 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, 7-8th July, Waikato, New Zealand.

    -  Wells, S and Prest, P 2005, ‘The performance appraisal that’s not: Keeping up appearances’, paper presented at the 19th ANZAM conference, 7-10th 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.

    -  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.

    -  McLean, J and Wells, S 2010 'Flourishing at the Edge of Chaos: Leading Purposeful Change and Loving it', Journal of Spirituality, Leadership and Management, vol 4, no. 1, pp.53-61.

    -  Wells, S 2011 'Setting people up for success: Sustainable performance management', in Clarke, M (ed), Readings in HRM and Sustainability, Tilde University Press, pp. 51-63.

    -  Wells, S 2011 'HRM for sustainability:Creating a new paradigm', in Clarke, M (ed), Readings in HRM and Sustainability, Tilde University Press, pp.133-46.

    -  Bryan , B et al 2013 'The second industrial transformation of Australian landscapes', Current Opininon in Environmental Sustainability, vol. 5, nos 3-4, pp. 278-87.

    -  Wells, S and McLean, J 2013 'One Way Forward to Beat the Newtonian habit with a Complexity Perspective on Organisational Change', Systems, vol 1, no.4, pp.66-84.

    - Summers, D et al 2015 'Simple models for managing complex social-ecological systems: The Landscape Futures Analysis Tool (LFAT)', Environmental Modelling & Software, vol. 63, pp.217-29

    - Meyer, W et al 2016 'Regional engagement and spatial modelling for natural resource management planning', Sustainability Science, vol 11, no. 5, pp.733-747.

    - Summerfield, L and Wells, S 2017 'Essential learning for sustainability:Gifford Pinchot’s lessons for educating leaders today, Journal of Sustainability Education, vol 16

    - Ouyang, L Wells, S 2017 'A possible journey from inside out?: Drawing complex living systems awareness from traditional Chinese knowledge in pursuit of sustainability for China', International Journal of Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context, vol. 13, no. 3, pp.25-40

    - Quartey, S Wells, S 2017 'Local knowledge for sustainable development: A pragmatic view', International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, vol. 8, no. 3-4, pp.259-272

    - Nguyen, P Wells, S 2018 'Systemic Indicators for Rural Communities in Developing Economies: Bringing the Shared Vision into Being', Systemic Practice and Action Research, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 159-177

    - Nguyen, P Wells, S Nguyen, N 2018 'A Systemic Indicators Framework for Sustainable Rural Community Development', Systemic Practice and Action Research, 27 April 2018

    - Quartey, S Wells, S 2018 'Sustainability-oriented learning: evidence from Eyre Peninsula’s fishing industry in Australia', Environment, Development and Sustainability, 7 December 2018

    - Quartey, S Wells, S 2019 'The fishing industry's perception of its contribution towards the sustainability of the Eyre Peninsula region',  Australasian Journal of regional Studies, Vol. 25, no. 2, pp.135-176.

    - Agarwal, A Sandiford, P Wells, S 2019, 'Exploring the ‘X Factor’ to Excavate the Value of an MBA', Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings 08/2019; 2019(1):18947 (online)

    - Sandiford, P Agarwal, A Wells S (2020) 'Three scholars at work: making siese of the twenty-first-century academy', in Antoniadou, M nd Crowder, M (eds) Modern Day Challenges in Academia, Edward Elgar Publishing

    - Quartey, S Wells, S 2020, 'Knowledge contribution within the Eyre Peninsula’s fishing industry in Australia', Knowledge Management Research & Practice, DOI: 10.1080/14778238.2020.1767518 (onine)

    - Wells, S and McLean, J 2021, “Organisational change as emergence: a living systems perspective”, in Handbook of Systems Sciences, Springer

     

     

The information in this directory is provided to support the academic, administrative and business activities of the University of Adelaide. To facilitate these activities, entries in the University Phone Directory are not limited to University employees. The use of information provided here for any other purpose, including the sending of unsolicited commercial material via email or any other electronic format, is strictly prohibited. The University reserves the right to recover all costs incurred in the event of breach of this policy.

Entry last updated: Friday, 13 May 2022