Professor Crawford Spence
I am a Professor at King's College London. After receiving my doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 2005 and working there as a lecturer for three years, I then lived and worked in Canada (Concordia University, Montreal) and the UAE (United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain) before taking up a Chair at the University of Warwick in 2013. I have been at King's since 2017.
An eclectic set of interests has taken me down different intellectual paths. While based in accounting I draw from the wider social sciences, notably political theory and sociology in order to understand calculation, valuation, financial expertise and financial intermediation, as well as the roles that these play in structuring the economy and society. I have undertaken major projects looking at Corporate Accountability, Careers in Professional Service Firms, Audit & AI and the congealed nature of Financial Intermediation.
My work has been published in a range of disciplines including accounting (Accounting, Organizations and Society; Contemporary Accounting Research; The Accounting Review), economic sociology (Economy & Society), the sociology of work (Work, Employment and Society; Human Relations), economic geography (Geoforum), organization studies/management (Journal of Professions & Organization; Public Administration), education (Higher Education) and business ethics (Journal of Business Ethics; Business Strategy & the Environment). I am currently writing a book for the sociology division of Columbia University Press on Inertia in Financial Markets with Yuval Millo and James Valentine.
In addition to my scholarly work I have taken on a number of leadership roles in the last few years. At Warwick I was Associate Dean in charge of external programmes with responsibility for the Exec MBA and MSc programmes running out of the Shard campus. At King's I was Vice Dean for Corporate Relations and oversaw a significant uplift in our Executive Education portfolio, expanding our open programmes as well as establishing a number of bespoke relationships with public and private sector clients. I continue to lead on a number of these programmes. I was also Associate Dean in charge of accreditation at King's, leading the Business School successfully through its first accreditation cycles with AACSB and Equis in 2022. I currently direct the FinWork Futures Research Centre at King's along with Alex Preda and Rita Samiolo which explores the future of financial work in the context of technological change.
