Professor John Pheby (24 October 1949-21 October 2008)

Citation

Deakins, P.D. (2009), "Professor John Pheby (24 October 1949-21 October 2008)", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijebr.2009.16015aaf.002

Professor John Pheby (24 October 1949-21 October 2008)

Article Type: Obituary From: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Volume 15, Issue 1

John Pheby, the founding editor of IJEBR died on 21 October 2008. Before retiring in 2004 John was employed as Professor of Entrepreneurship at Luton Business School (1996-2004) where he was also Head of Strategy and Entrepreneurship (1996-2000) and Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies (2000-2002). After retirement he was appointed visiting Professor at the University of Luton (now the University of Bedfordshire). Earlier he worked as Professor of Economics at De Montfort University (1990-1996) and held various positions at Birmingham Polytechnic (1979-1990) where in 1987 he was awarded his first Professorship in Economics. He was also a Visiting Professor at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA (1989), California State University, USA (1990) and Lincoln University, New Zealand (1993). John was a Fellow of the Institute of Business Advisers (2001-2008) and a member of the Institute of Small Business Affairs (1996-2004).

John was great friend and a very highly respected academic colleague. He was a pioneer in number of academic fields, drawing inspiration from his beloved Malvern Hills and surrounding countryside, where he lived and worked for a good part of his academic life. He was always prepared to find humour in any situation, which made it a great pleasure to share some of my working life with him. Those that did enjoy the pleasure of working with John will fondly remember his sharp academic wit as well as his contribution to the development of academic knowledge. Throughout his career he took a genuine interest in the academic careers of his colleagues and students. He would selflessly promote opportunities for others and I can recall his abilities to galvanise academics at the former Birmingham Polytechnic into collaborating on a textbook that he edited. John also loved classical music, the theatre and walking on the Malvern Hills from where he derived inspiration for much of his academic work.

John was always prepared to develop new areas of publication. This led to a discussion between him and a small group academic colleagues including myself and Stephen Batstone which led to the founding of the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research. However, it was only John’s infectious enthusiasm for the project that led to IJEBR’s creation with John as Editor in Chief. John organised several international entrepreneurship conferences (including three IJEBR Conferences) that brought together academics, practitioners and business support staff. These conferences attracted leading scholars such as David Storey, Colin Mason, Bob Garratt, Colin Coulson-Thomas, Paul Westhead, Monder Ram, and David Smallbone. This provided a rich seam of articles for early editions of the journal.

Within economics he contributed to the fields of methodology and Keynesian scholarship. His book Methodology and Economic was the first of its kind when published in 1988. The book has been published in four overseas editions and has been reprinted on several occasions. John also founded the Review of Political Economy and many eminent economists such as Jan Tinbergen (the first Nobel Prize Winner in Economics), John Kenneth Galbraith, Tibor Scitovsky, Sir Charles Carter and Mark Blaug contributed to the journal providing adequate testimony to its credibility.

He also organised the Malvern Political Economy conferences for ten years (1987-1996), which were highly regarded. Indeed Sir John Hicks and James Meade (both Nobel Prizewinners in Economics) presented at the conference as well as Lord Skidelsky, Kenneth Boulding, Geoff Harcourt, Ian Steedman and A.W.Coats. However, he also provided many young scholars with the opportunity to present papers at a prestigious conference. For all his work associated with the organising of the Malvern Political Economy conferences he was presented with a festschrift in his honour to celebrate the tenth conference. The volume, edited by Steven Pressman (1996), is entitled Interactions in Political Economy: Malvern After Ten Years.

John was series editor for Macmillan’s Contemporary Economists Series and an Editorial Board Member for Advances in Austrian Economics. He also edited two volumes; New Directions in Post-Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar (1989), and Freethinker of the Social Sciences: J. A. Hobson after Fifty Years, Macmillan (1994). He published many journal articles, book chapters and conference papers.

John’s contribution was pioneering in many respects, he will be fondly remembered by his colleagues and former students with great affection and his warm humour and generosity for others will be sadly missed.

12 November 2008

Professor David Deakins