James March passed away yesterday. Much will be written in the days ahead about his writing, his contribution to the literature, and the enormous impact he has had in a career spanning sixty years. There is nothing I can add to the accolades that will come from scholars far smarter and more accomplished than me. I can only add to the appreciation of his life some personal memories of an extraordinarily generous man.
I first came across his work, as many do, when I was a first year doctoral student in 1995. I was fascinated by his paper "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning". To better understand the paper I tried to replicate his model and failed - so I found his email on the then very new Internet and sent him a message asking if he could help me getting the model to work.
Almost immediately, he replied, not just with suggestions, but with the source code. I was astounded that a scholar of his stature would take the time not just to respond thoughtfully, but to generously share his code. That led to a meeting a year later when he visited Fontainebleau, an interesting discussion, and an offer of a glass of wine were I ever to be in the Bay Area. It was an offer I gratefully accepted four years later.
The next phase in my life came when Judith asked me to go back to California. I asked Jim if there might be a way for me to have access to Stanford's libraries as I finished my PhD. His solution, and one that was phenomenally rewarding, was to invite me to Scancor as a visiting scholar. For 3 years I had the privilege of attending talks and classes at Stanford, and most importantly of continuing our conversations about learning and model building.
Despite his enormous knowledge, insight, experience and wisdom, he suffered fools like me with warmth, patience and understanding. He was truly one of a kind. I will miss you, Jim March.
I first came across his work, as many do, when I was a first year doctoral student in 1995. I was fascinated by his paper "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning". To better understand the paper I tried to replicate his model and failed - so I found his email on the then very new Internet and sent him a message asking if he could help me getting the model to work.
Almost immediately, he replied, not just with suggestions, but with the source code. I was astounded that a scholar of his stature would take the time not just to respond thoughtfully, but to generously share his code. That led to a meeting a year later when he visited Fontainebleau, an interesting discussion, and an offer of a glass of wine were I ever to be in the Bay Area. It was an offer I gratefully accepted four years later.
The next phase in my life came when Judith asked me to go back to California. I asked Jim if there might be a way for me to have access to Stanford's libraries as I finished my PhD. His solution, and one that was phenomenally rewarding, was to invite me to Scancor as a visiting scholar. For 3 years I had the privilege of attending talks and classes at Stanford, and most importantly of continuing our conversations about learning and model building.
Despite his enormous knowledge, insight, experience and wisdom, he suffered fools like me with warmth, patience and understanding. He was truly one of a kind. I will miss you, Jim March.
No comments:
Post a Comment