Career lessons from economists’ life stories: Brian J. Loasby as an Exemplar
通过分析经济学家布莱恩·J·洛斯比的职业生涯,探讨其早期困境与最终成功的原因,为经济学研究者提供职业发展启示。
Abstract This paper derives career lessons for economists by examining the unusual career of Brian J. Loasby in terms of Loasby’s own key ideas. Loasby’s early career ran into difficulties after he chose to become a postgraduate for lifestyle rather than career reasons, with his insufficiently ambitious reference standards resulting in unduly narrow search for both options and new connections. His eventual success came because of a path-dependent process whereby he developed an organizing framework that was conducive to finding problems and making intellectual connections. It was a process in which making personal connections also had a key role, though some intellectual connections that he earlier failed to make resulted from trusting other people. In the market for contributions to knowledge, his way of branding and positioning his work in relation to management decision-making and the growth of knowledge gave it a wider appeal than would have been the case if he had aligned himself with a particular school of thought or ‘heterodox economics’ in general.