Quinnipiac University
Robert M. Yawson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Management at the School of Business, Quinnipiac University, CT. For six years ( 2014 - 2020), he was the Graduate Programs Assessment Coordinator. Robert serves on the Faculty Senate and a member of the Senate Executive Committee. He is the Chair of the University Education Committee, a member of the Research Policies Committee, a member of the University Learning Assessment Council, and a member of the Board of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Service to Students. Robert is the recipient of the prestigious Center for Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018. He was named the 2018 Faculty Scholar of the Year, and the recipient of the 2020 James Marshall Award for Service. Robert is also an adjunct Associate Professor of Leadership and Organizational Studies at the University of Southern Maine.
Robert has a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development from the University of Minnesota, and MS in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. He also has BS in Chemistry, and an MPhil in Biochemistry from the University of Ghana, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Food Management, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Prior to joining Quinnipiac University, he worked as Quality Control Officer of S. C. Johnson Wax (Ghana) Ltd.; General Manager of Animens Industries Limited, Ghana; Scientific Secretary and later as Head of Administration (HR) of the Food Research Institute (FRI), Ghana; a Research Analyst for the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota; Instructor at the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development, University of Minnesota; and a Senior Research Fellow with the International Consulting firm, Partners for Change. Robert has consulted for the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and has worked on several multilateral and bilateral projects in Africa. As a Research Analyst for the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, Robert worked with a team of Consultants from Deloitte, LLC on the Destination 2025 project: a state-wide 20-year visioning initiative and roadmap to help give clarity to the nature and timing of investments that are needed for Minnesota to sustain a long-term competitive position in the biosciences industry.
Robert is an Associate Editor of the Organization Management Journal, Associate Editor of the Human Resource Development Quarterly, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Business and Systems Research, Editorial Board Member of the Human Resource Development Review, Editorial Board Member of the Advances in Developing Human Resources, and Editorial Board Member of the Industrial and Commercial Training. He has served as the Track Chair Editor of the Organization Development and Change Track of the 2015 Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) International Research Conference in the Americas, the Associate Proceedings Editor of the 2016 Conference, the Proceedings Editor of the 2017 Conference, and the Program Chair of the 2018 Conference. Robert was the Track Chair Editor of the Business Strategy Track of the 54th Annual Eastern Academy of Management 2017 Conference and the Track Chair Editor for the Leadership Track of the 56th Annual Conference in 2019. Robert also serves as an Associate Editor for the Social Issues in Management Division of the Annual Academy of Management Conferences.
Robert is a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences and several other professional bodies. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Human Resource Development; member of the Board of Governors of the Eastern Academy of Management; served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management as the Chair of the 2019 Best Book Award Committee. He has also served on the Wayne R. Pace Book of the Year Committee of the AHRD since 2014. In 2015, Robert served as Grant Applications Reviewer for the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space.
Robert has over 90 publications including peer review papers in leading academic journals such as the Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Human Resource Development Quarterly, R & D Management Journal, Human Resource Development Review, Journal of Vocation Education Training, Human Resource Development International, among several others. His current research is on using the "wicked problem construct" for leading organizational development and change, and using a systems approach to human resource development for emerging technologies.
The Leadership Letters is a business and social-science Journal dedicated to advancing multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary understanding of leadership.
A peeriodical is a lightweight virtual journal with you as the Editor-in-chief, giving you complete freedom in setting editorial policy to select the most interesting and useful manuscripts for your readers. The manuscripts you will evaluate and select are existing publications—preprints and papers. Thus, a peeriodical replicates all the functions of a traditional journal, including discovery, selection and certification, except publication itself.
Why set up a peeriodical? The traditional journal has changed remarkably little in centuries and many people feel that scientific publishing is stuck in a rut, subject to a corporatist drift, and is not serving science optimally. The advent of preprints in many fields beyond those served by the ArXiv is liberating the dissemination of research, but most other journal functions have not been replaced effectively. Now you—all researchers—have the opportunity to select and certify research according to your own criteria. We expect peeriodical subject matters and editorial policies to be extremely varied. Some peeriodicals may wish to target narrow domains, while others will adopt a generalist approach. Some peeriodicals will be inclusive, focusing on discovery, whereas others may aim to enforce stringent quality criteria, prioritising certification. The point is that all approaches are permitted and supported—we hope you will innovate! You can create multiple peeriodicals. It will be users and readers who decide which peeriodicals they find useful and interesting. Users can sign up to receive alerts from any peeriodical they wish.
A peeriodical has one or more editors. Anybody can set-up a peeriodical and either operate it alone or invite colleagues to form an editorial board or community. The editors can select "manuscripts"—existing papers or preprints—to consider, either spontaneously or through suggestions from other researchers, including of course the authors. Note that there is no obligation that the manuscript be recent; for instance, we expect that some peeriodicals could focus on underappreciated classics. After all, predictions about scientific impact are generally more accurate for the past than the future. If the editors wish, they can solicit reviews for the manuscript via the Peeriodicals interface. Reviews will be published and the referees will have the option of posting anonymously or signing their review. Editors may decide at any time to accept, reject or comment on the manuscript, taking into account the comments received. They may of course suggest improvements to the manuscript or underlying study. If they justify their decision, their editorial decision will also be published.
How will Peeriodicals fit into the publishing landscape? We see them as a space without entry barriers in which researchers can innovate and explore new approaches to scientific dissemination, in parallel to the traditional publishing industry. There are related and complementary initiatives, notably the overlay journals promoted by Tim Gowers, exemplified by Discrete Analysis, but also Science Open Collections, PLoS Channels, the APPRAISE initiative and Peer Community in... Each of these projects has their own specificities and goals. Nobody yet knows exactly what the future will look like, but we strongly believe that we are about to experience a period of rapid evolution in the dissemination of science and we hope that Peeriodicals will inspire and help you to share your imagination and expertise with the whole research community.
For those starting a peeriodical, you will discover that the hardest part is building up an audience. Unfortunately, we can't yet guarantee you the exposure you would get from a paper in a glamour journal. Reviews with scientific content will be mirrored on PubPeer, offering an audience through the PubPeer browser and Zotero extensions. However, it will be largely up to you to run your publicity, most likely through social media. We are on Twitter (@PEERIODICALS) and will of course help out as we can.
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