Q&B Academic Research Working Group

Convenor - Nicholas Burton,
PhD, Senior Lecturer, Northumbria University

The convenor of the research working group is Nicholas Burton - Senior Lecturer, Strategic Management and International Business, Northumbria University. Nicholas is an experienced strategist and ethicist with an interest in the role of Quakers and responsible business. Author of the chapter, "The Quaker Business Method, past, present & future"  book: "Quakers, Business and Industry" published by the Friends Association in Higher Education December 2019

Member profiles 

Yochanan Altman, Professor in Human Resource Management at Middlesex University, London.

Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Shalem Institute, has served as Chair of the Academy of Management's Management, Spirituality, and Religion Group. She also serves as Co-chair of the Christian Spirituality Group of the American Academy of Religion, and has held various leadership roles in Spiritual Directors International. Author of Soul at Work and The Soul of a Leader, and co-editor of The Soul of Supervision, Dr. Benefiel has also written for The Leadership Quarterly, Management Communication Quarterly, Managerial Finance, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Organization, Personal Excellence, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, America, Presence, The Way, Studies in Spirituality, Radical Grace, and Faith at Work. 

Martin Brigham, PhD, lectures in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology and is Director of the Centre for the Study of Technology and Organisation at Lancaster University Management School, UK. He is the Academic Director of the International Masters Programme for Managers. His current research interests are focused on practices for developing managers and organisations, with a particular interest in reflective management practice including the Quaker Business Method. His research has been published in leading international journals. Martin is a member of the European Group for Organisation Studies and the Academy of Management and regularly contributes to international conferences. 

Roland Carn, software developer, software engineer, consultant, independent businessman, contract manager, furniture restorer, and Quaker warden. Publications include peer reviewed papers, international conferences, and contributions to The Friend. One of the founder members of the Quakers and Business group and lead author for the original Good Business: Ethics at Work publication.

Ben Pink Dandelion, Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. Honorary Professor of Quaker Studies Director, Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies.

Winston Duguid, Co-project Leader for Q&B of Quaker Business History doctoral research program.

Andy Fincham, PhD in Quaker Studies, “Beliefs and Wealth Creation within the Religious Society of Friends”. 

Antony Froggett, Group Analyst and organisational consultant. He was originally a teacher and then later a psychotherapist in the NHS for 15 years. Currently employed by Birmingham University as a tutor on the MSc in Healthcare Leadership (for the NHS Leadership Academy). He is also a supervisor on the IGA Diploma in reflective organisational practice. He is exploring whether there is a coherent "Quaker" model of leadership and if so what this might look like. 

Bill Gardiner, NHS Non-Executive Director, Chairman MIND (Beds/MK) and Area Meeting Trustee.

George Gawlinski, I am Director of Planning Together Associates a public and voluntary sector management consultancy working in the UK and Europe. I have been professionally concerned with helping find solutions to poverty and injustice for 40 years. I have spent the last 20 years supporting both trustees and senior managers of national and international voluntary organisations in development and change,as they have had to face up to huge challenges in public policy, service delivery and impact. These include number of Quaker charities and international NGO's. I have considerable experience of facilitating and chairing complex professional and policy discussions. I have been an active member of the Society of Friends for 40 years, have held most local Quaker roles and am currently an elder of Kings Lynn Local Meeting and Trustee of Norfolk AM. I have a special interest in relating the quaker business method to complex decision making in third sector organisations. I am a visiting lecturer at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage postgraduate programme. 

Alistair Heslop, Trustee for a small number of charities, including Q&B and the Tim Field Foundation. Previously founder and managing director of the BiT Group.

Roger Hill, retired academic. Ph.D., Fellow Institute of Physics, Past project management in physics research and consultancy: financial and investment expertise: past cooperative director, company director: retail management. Q&B member. Quaker for 45+ years.

Stuart Hill, PhD student at the University of Brighton researching the role of the living wage in realising fair pay in the United Kingdom. Founder and Executive Director of Pay Compare: a not-for-profit organisation promoting fair pay ratios.

Donncha Kavanagh, Professor of Information & Organisation at University College Dublin. 

Jon R. Kershner, Honorary Researcher at Lancaster University (UK) and Lecturer in Theology and Church History at Pacific Lutheran University. His recent publications include a forthcoming essay on global Christianity for the Cambridge Companion to Quakerism. He has also published on eighteenth century Quaker theologies of antislavery reform such as “‘Come out of Babylon, my People’: John Woolman's (1720-1772) Antislavery Theology and the trans-Atlantic Economy,”(Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808, 2015); “'A More Lively Feeling': The Correspondence and Integration of Mystical and Spatial Dynamics in John Woolman's Travels” (Quaker Studies 20:1, 2015); and, “‘Diminish not a Word:’ The Prophetic Voice of John Woolman,” (Quakers and Literature, 2016). He serves as co-chair of the Quaker Studies Group at the American Academy of Religion, co-chair of the History of Christianity/North American Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion - Pacific Northwest Region, Associate Editor of Quaker Religious Thought, Executive Committee Member with Friends Association for Higher Education, and is a member of the International Advisory Panel for Quaker Studies. 

Mike King, author, published over sixty papers, book chapters, film and book reviews, and five books in various fields. Focussing now on economics and monetary theory. Author of Quakernomics: An Ethical Capitalism. 

Georgeanne Lamont, author and consultant.

Geoffrey McLean, academic and marketing professional, significant financial services sector experience, university lecturer until 2015 and current DBA Candidate at the University of Wollongong. Currently writing a book chapter for a forthcoming edited volume on Quakers, Business & Technology. 

Rachel Muers, Senior Lecturer in Christian Studies, University of Leeds. Among her books: Testimony: Quakerism and Theological Ethics (2015). She has recently conducted research on 'threshing meetings' in British Quakerism, and on the impact of the First World War on British Quaker thinking about social action. 

Tim Phillips. 40+ year career in HR, Business Management, Direction and Education, with BP, Rolls-Royce, Anglian Water, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, EFMD and Scott Bader Commonwealth. Previous Clerk to Q&B. Co-project Leader of the Q&B Quaker Business History doctoral research program since its inception in 2004.

Elizabeth Redfern, Chair, Clerk and Trustee of the Quakers and Business Group from April 2011 to April 2017. Retired Engineer, Process and Systems Modeller, and Software Manufacturer. Business mentor for mainly start-up businesses.

Nicola Sleapwood, PhD candidate in Quaker Studies, “Quakers, Business and Change in the Twentieth Century” 

Revd Richard Turnbull, PhD, CA, Director of the Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics.