Personal Summary
Retired Chair of the Management Information Systems Department
Retired Professor of Management Information Systems
After a twenty-three year academic career Dr. Lawrence retired from the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥. . In addition to being a Full Professor, he also served as Department Chair for the Management Information Systems Department, which is the largest academic unit within the College of Business. He holds a Ph.D. from the and completed a program at the Harvard Business School that is designed to improve the effectiveness of corporate boards.
Dr. Lawrence's research interests are focused on technological mediated organizational transformation, the application of neo-institutional theory into information systems research as well as the organization and management of the IT function within large organizations. His teaching interests are in the areas of management information systems, technology and organizational strategy, quantitative methods and corporate governance.
While teaching at the London School of Economics he was awarded the highest teaching award that can be bestowed upon Ph.D. candidates for demonstrated excellence in the classroom. Dr. Lawrence's undergraduate and graduate teaching evaluations were consistently among the highest in the College of Business at the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥. He was awarded the outstanding professor award an unprecedented ten times. In addition to the aforementioned awards, he was honored by the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥'s Division of Student Affairs for the support and encouragement he provided to UM's Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ through the years. Dr. Lawrence academic service included membership on the Admissions and Curriculum Committees for the MBA and Master's of Accountancy programs. He was also selected by his colleagues to serve multiple terms on the Faculty Senate at the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥..
Dr. Lawrence's academic work was published in some of the leading international journals in the field of Management Information Systems including the European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Systems Education, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Education Journal and the Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application. During his career he was an active reviewer for numerous academic journals and conferences. He also served as co-editor for teaching cases for ISEDJ.
His business background spans technology startups, consulting and real estate including a that employs a sophisticated portfolio of technologies to manage security and site access. Throughout his career he has also served on corporate and non profit boards including the , which does incredible work in the state of Montana and beyond.
Prior to entering the hallowed halls of academe, Dr. Lawrence spent six years assigned to the U.S. Forest Service and BLM Smokejumper programs where he made approximately 145 parachute jumps using the Ram-Air, FS-12 and FS-14 canopy systems. If you would like to learn more about the smokejumper program click or . He is also a former member of the and currently teaches skiing at . When Dr. Lawrence has a break from teaching and writing, he can usually be found skiing, messing about on rivers or on the golf course with his wife who is a much better golfer. He can be reached through his personal website, which can be found .
Education
Dissertation: The Transformation of IT Governance: A Neo-Institutional Interpretation