R. Duane Ireland

Robert Duane Ireland is an American former management professor, author, and a former interim dean of Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. Ireland was acting dean of the school from January 1 to June 13, 2021, and interim dean from June 14, 2021, to August 14, 2022.

Early life and education Ireland was born in Lima, Ohio. He later moved to Amarillo, Texas, with his mother and grandmother, who both worked at the Amarillo Air Force Base.

Ireland earned an Associate in Science degree from Amarillo Junior College (A.S. 1967). He then earned his Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A. 1969), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A. 1971), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. 1977) degrees at Texas Tech University, where he was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the Rawls College of Business in 2018.

Career In 1977, Ireland began at Oklahoma State University as an assistant professor. He chose Oklahoma State because he wanted to join the faculty with Howard Kirk Downey, who Ireland described as a "very productive scholar", and his undergraduate advisor at Texas Tech, Michael A. Hitt. He later became an associate professor of management at Oklahoma State, where he continued teaching until 1983. Ireland's tenure as dean was succeeded by Ricky W. Griffin, who became interim dean on August 15, 2022.

Ireland served as the 69th president of the Academy of Management in 2014.

Personal life Ireland and his family – including his wife Mary Ann and their two adult children – have endowed a $50,000 scholarship to Mays Business School.

Publications Ireland has authored or co-authored more than 20 books. The thirteenth edition of his Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization appeared in 2020, and the sixth edition of Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures was published in 2019.

He has been published numerous articles in journals including but not limited to five Academy of Management academic journals, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, and Journal of Management Studies.

Recognition Ireland has been included on four separate occasions in the Economics and Business section of the list of "Highly Cited Researchers" (compiled by Clarivate).