A Tribute to Lionel Stapley

The editors and editorial management committee of Organisational & Social Dynamics offers this tribute to Lionel Stapley as the journal makes its transition into a new phase of development with a changed group of Associate Editors and a changed International Advisory Board.

The idea of a journal dedicated to exploring conscious and unconscious organisational and social dynamics was something Lionel had felt strongly about ever since the journal Human Relations had veered off from its original basis in this area to become a multidisciplinary social science journal focusing on human relations at work. There is no doubt whatsoever that without the unstinting commitment of Lionel from its very inception our journal would not be in the healthy state it is in today, seventeen years later. As Chair of the journal's original Editorial Management Committee Lionel cemented the relationship with Karnac, the journal's publisher, and was instrumental in the development of its early editorial team, providing enthusiastic and consistent support to the journal's first two editors, Larry Gould and Paul Hoggett. He helped oversee two changes of editor, first with Michael Moscowitz and Anne-Marie Cummins replacing Larry and Paul, and then with the arrival of the journal's most recent team, Aaron Nurick and Nadine Riad Tchelebi.

Lionel embodied the integration of theory and practice. Much of his career was spent in operational and strategic leadership roles in the Metropolitan Police Force and yet, in his later years, he was able to undertake a successful shift into research, consultancy, and publication. Since his first book The Personality of the Organisation: A Psychodynamic Explanation of Culture and Change (Free Association Books, ), Lionel has authored or edited six further volumes taking in subjects from international terror to football leadership. This unique combination of research, consultancy and publication activity, in the best tradition of the early pioneers of the Tavistoc