ABSTRACT
172 173The good life requires sacrifice and commitment but also embodies contrasts and choices. As I sit here in a remote part of Herefordshire in England drafting this essay, I wonder both why I am doing it (beyond the automatic response to a generous invitation) and why I am doing it at this stage in my life. My nearest neighbor, a farmer John Powell, has just appeared and we have been joking that does someone know more about my life than I, for it appears strange to be writing an autobiographical essay having just turned 53 years of age. Intellectually I am just moving into another stage of my work where I am taking on a scale and complexity of theoretical and empirical inquiry that I have not attempted before. The new challenges involve combining comparative case study work with the surveying of organizational transformations in organizations in the UK, Europe, Japan, and the United States. This work also involves leading an international team of scholars based in universities in the UK, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Alongside this work is another large empirical project on boards and directors in the UK that I have waited 25 years to do.
