Mark de Rond is Professor of Organizational Ethnography at Cambridge University (Judge Business School). He studies people by living with them under similar conditions so as to better understand how they experience, and develop meaningful relations to the world around them. His fieldwork has included stints with war surgeons in Afghanistan, elite rowers in Cambridge, biochemists in Oxford, comedians in London and Edinburgh, and peace activists on a protest march from Berlin to Aleppo. It also includes an effort to row the length of the Amazon River so as to learn, first-hand, how collaboration unfolds and how problems are solved under trying conditions.
His book Strategic Alliances as Social Facts: Business, Biotechnology & Intellectual History received the 2005 George R Terry Book Award from the Academy of Management, awarded annually to the book judged to have made the most significant contribution to advancing management knowledge. His subsequent book The Last Amateurs was selected by The Financial Times as one of 12 Best Business Books of 2008, and by BBC Sport as one of 10 Best Sporting Reads of 2008. His portfolio of work was awarded the 2009 Imagination Lab Award, given to one academic each year for scholarship that is both innovative and rigorous, and the 2016 Sandra Dawson Research Impact Award. His most recent book, “Doctors at War”, was awarded the 2018 EGOS Best Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2018 George R Terry Award and 2018 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award. An article based on this fieldwork received the 2016 Best Article Award from the Academy of Management Journal.
His research has featured widely in the press, including in The Economist, TIME magazine, Forbes, The Financial Times, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Week, Der Spiegel, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and on the BBC. His photographs have been published in The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and on the BBC News.
In 2011 de Rond embedded with a team of surgeons in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, to understand how they collaborate, organize and think about their work. As an extension of his research into teaming in difficult environments, de Rond and a Cambridge colleague completed the first unsupported row of the entire length of the River Amazon, securing a Guinness World Record in the process. In 2017, he spent time with peace activists on a walk from Berlin to Aleppo (Civil March for Aleppo), and is currently conducting fieldwork with civilian activists and police forces involved in combating online child sexual exploitation. All of his work is tied together by an interest in what makes for more, and less, effective collaboration and problem-solving.
Career
Books
There is An I in Team studied the reasons behind the success of high performing elite athletes and world-class sports teams, featuring de Rond's interviews with players and sports coaches from around the world.
The Last Amateurs: To Hell and Back with the Cambridge Boat Race Crew (foreword by Sir Steve Redgrave) is de Rond's first-hand account of living for a year with the Cambridge boat race team as they prepare for their annual sporting rivalry with Oxford University in the famous Boat Race. Noted as being as 'the first ever ethnographical study of one of the most famous rowing clubs in the world' and described as "de Rond's intense and deeply personal account of freezing early-morning training sessions, booze-fueled crew 'formals'; the tenderness of camaraderie, the pain of self-doubt, and the tantrums and testosterone of crew members, each set on becoming a Cambridge Blue".
It was favourably reviewed by The Times'''("Sports journalism of the highest order", Patrick Kidd, The Times, August 2008),The Times – Arts & Books The Guardian and was named by The Financial Times in their 'Best Business Books of 2008' and by the BBC in their 'Best Sporting Reads of 2008'.Strategic Alliances as Social Facts de Rond's account, based on three in-depth case studies, emphasises the social dimension and the importance of the individuals involved inside business alliances. For Strategic Alliances, de Rond became in 2005 the then youngest ever recipient of the George R. Terry Book Award from the Academy of Management.
Camp Bastion
In 2011, as part of an ethnographic study, de Rond spent six weeks observing Army surgeons at work in Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan. De Rond prepared for his deployment there with UK-based training, and the deployment itself was as a result of two years' work and training with the military.