Maris Martinsons

For the Latvian film director and producer, see Maris Martinsons (director).

Maris Martinsons is director of the Pacific Rim Institute for the Studies of Management and a professor of management currently associated with the City University of Hong Kong, the Stockholm School of Economics and the University of Toronto. He received his B.A.Sc. (Engineering Science) and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Business Studies from the University of Warwick. He has served as editor for the following scholarly journals: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, the Journal of Applied Management Studies, the Journal of Information Technology Management, the Journal of Management Systems, and the Communications of the ACM.

Martinsons is a leading authority on strategic management, organizational change, and knowledge management/information systems. His research and insights have been published widely in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Russian and Spanish as well as English.

Martinsons also has extensive experience as a business consultant, mostly in association with Ernst & Young, DRI/McGraw-Hill and McKinsey & Co.. He has successfully completed more than 30 large-scale projects in Western, Chinese and cross-cultural settings, and has served as an external advisor to leading organizations and institutions around the world, including the governments of Hong Kong and Latvia.

Martinsons received the Distinguished Young Scholar Award from the International Association of Management in 1995. He has been a keynote speaker at meetings of scholarly societies, industry groups and professional associations, such as the Baltic Business Congress, the East Asian Executive Forum, the International Association of Management, the Pacific Rim Leadership Summit, and the World Knowledge Forum.

As a Latvian-Canadian who was educated in both North America and Europe, has been a visiting professor at leading universities on six continents, and is now based in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region, Professor Martinsons exemplifies a new generation of global scholars. He played instrumental roles in establishing the world-wide Association of Information Systems (as a member of its original Organizing Committee) and internationalizing the (U.S.) Academy of Management primarily by bridging the East-West divide.

Professor Martinsons is an influential researcher on the strategic management of competitive enterprises in uncertain business environments as well as the diagnosis, planning and implementation of transformational organizational change. The level of analysis in his studies has ranged from individuals (top management decision making) and small groups (knowledge management systems) to organizations (business performance management, links between business strategy and information technology/systems) and entire industries and economies (strategic intelligence in pre-handover Hong Kong, post-Soviet reform in Latvia, e-commerce in 21st century China). Martinsons also pioneered the research of both green business issues (sustainable development and environmental technologies) and information ethics in the context of Hong Kong and China. According to Google Scholar, Maris Martinsons has authored four of the 10 most cited articles on Chinese management.

Professor Martinsons has also been a pioneer with action research and e-learning. Based on a philosophy that stresses the integration of theory and practice and the application of systematic frameworks/models and principles, the "Martinsons on Management" learning platform and a series of "Management by Martinsons" masterclasses have played significant roles in professionalizing management in transitional economies such as mainland China and the Baltic States. The programs incorporate various intellectual and physical challenges that take participants beyond their comfort zones in order to develop both greater confidence and competence. He has also used IT extensively to develop multimedia teaching materials and online education environments that take the learning process far beyond the classroom.

Professor Martinsons was the first double winner of a university-wide teaching excellence award in Hong Kong. In winning these awards, he was cited for his thoughtful teaching philosophy, meticulous course planning, deep knowledge of international business and management, creative presentations, and ability to foster a high degree of interaction in both the classroom and online.

Martinsons is also an accomplished athlete, having represented Canada, Latvia and Hong Kong in international sporting competitions.

His philanthropic activities focus on developing and improving international relationships, particularly between academic and business communities in Baltic Europe and East Asia. Professor Martinsons was a co-founder of TALKA, the Far Eastern Latvian Cultural Association, and has served on its board of directors since 1989. In recent years, he has cultivated social entrepreneurship among the younger generation in Hong Kong and southern China, helped to set up student exchange programs at both the university and secondary school levels, and collaborated with the Clinton Global Initiative to popularize the best practices and useful innovations in higher education.

Publications

Book

• Information technology and the challenge for Hong Kong / edited by Janice M. Burn and Maris G. Martinsons. Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, c1997. ISBN 9622094201

Dissertation

• Strategic Intelligence in Hong Kong, How chief executives managed information/knowledge amidst the environmental uncertainty of pre-handover Hong Kong / University of Warwick

Scholarship

His paper "Comparing the Decision Styles of American, Chinese and Japanese business leaders" from the Academy of Management meeting in 2001 is a seminal study in international business and management. It has over 500 hyperlinked citations and has been downloaded more than 3000 times by members of the Social Science Research Network.

His most cited peer-reviewed journal articles (according to Google Scholar) are:

• Martinsons, M., Davison, R., Tse, D. (1999). The balanced scorecard: A foundation for the strategic management of information systems Decision Support Systems, 25 (1), pp. 71-88. Cited more than 250 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Westwood, R.I. (1997). Management information systems in the Chinese business culture: An explanatory theory Information and Management, 32 (5), pp. 215-228. Cited more than 200 times in Chinese and 120 times in English.
• Davison, R.M., Martinsons, M.G., Kock, N. (2004). Principles of canonical action research Information Systems Journal, 14 (1), pp. 65-86. Cited more than 150 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Chong, P.K.C. (1999). The influence of human factors and specialist involvement on information systems success Human Relations, 52 (1), pp. 123-151. Cited more than 100 times.
• Martinsons, M.G. (1993) Outsourcing information systems: A strategic partnership with risks, Long Range Planning, 26 (3), pp. 18-25. Cited more than 70 times.
• Martinsons, M.G. (1995). Radical process innovation using information technology: The theory, the practice and the future of reengineering, International Journal of Information Management, 15 (4), pp. 253-269. Cited more than 50 times.
• Martinsons, M.G. (2002). Electronic commerce in China Information & Management, 39 (5), pp. 71-79. Cited more than 50 times.
• Martinsons, M.G. (2004). ERP in China Communications of the ACM, 47 (7), pp. 65-68. Cited more than 50 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Hempel, P.S. (1995). Chinese management systems: historical and cross-cultural perspectives, Journal of Management Systems, 7(1), pp. 1-11. Cited more than 30 times in English and 80 times in Chinese.
• Burrows, G.R., Drummond, D.L., Martinsons, M.G. (2005). Knowledge management in China, Communications of the ACM, 48(4), pp 44-48. Cited more than 30 times in English and 60 times in Chinese.
• Martinsons, M.G., Martinsons, V. (2002). Rethinking the value of IT, again. Communications of the ACM, 45 (7), pp. 25-26. Cited more than 30 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Hempel, P.S. (1998). Chinese business process re-engineering, International Journal of Information Management, 18(6), pp. 393-407. Cited more than 30 times in English and 40 times in Chinese.
• Martinsons, M.G. (1994). Benchmarking human resource information systems in Canada and Hong Kong Information & Management, 26 (6), pp. 305-316. Cited more than 25 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Martinsons, A.G.B. (1996). Conquering cultural constraints to cultivate Chinese management creativity and innovation, Journal of Management Development 15(9), pp 18–35. Cited more than 25 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Schindler, F.R. (1995). Organizational visions for technology assimilation: The strategic roads to knowledge-based systems success IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 42 (1), pp. 9-18. Cited more than 20 times.
• Martinsons M.G., So, S.K.K., Tin C., Wong D. (1997). Hong Kong and China: emerging markets for environmental products and technologies, Long Range Planning, 30(5), pp. 277-290. Cited more than 20 times.
• Martinsons, M.G. (1997). Human resource management applications of knowledge-based systems, International Journal of Information Management, 17 (1), pp. 35-53. Cited more than 20 times.
• Martinsons, M.G., Valdemars, K. (1992). Post-Soviet reform in Latvia: Early progress and future prospects, Journal of Economic Studies, 19(6), pp. 35-53. Cited more than 20 times.

External links

• profile, awards and honors,

faculty profile, City University of Hong Kong publication portfolio, SSRN author profile

Persondata
Name	Martinsons, Maris
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1960
Place of birth	CANADA
Date of death
Place of death