Dr. Thomas Begley

Dr. Thomas Begley, dean of the Business School at University College Dublin (UCD), has been appointed dean of the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, effective July 1. The announcement was made April 22 by Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson.

“Tom Begley brings to the Lally School a wealth of academic administrative experience, and a well-refined view of the attributes a leading business school requires for the teaching and research relevant to the students of the 21st century,” Jackson said. “His work at University College Dublin, along with his experience teaching in some of the top business programs across the world, will serve him well as he leads the Lally School to higher levels of prominence.”

“I am delighted to be joining the Lally School of Management and Technology as its next dean,” Begley said. “The school is poised to increase its already substantial contribution to management education, and I look forward to working with its members and Rensselaer’s leadership team to advance its development.”

Begley has served as dean of the UCD Business School for more than five years, having joined the school as chair of organizational behavior in 2004. When he was appointed dean of the Business School in 2005, his mandate was to increase research productivity of the faculty in the business school and to develop an executive education program. He built partnerships with companies, raised external funding, and strengthened the international focus of the school.

University College Dublin Business School, which includes the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, is the leading business school in Ireland, and Begley served as its first executive dean. UCD Business School’s “triple crown” of accreditations includes the UK-based AMBA (Association of MBAs), EQUIS, which is the European-based accrediting body, as well as U.S.-based AACSB International. Regarding AACSB activity, Begley has served as a business school mentor, participated in peer review visits, and currently serves on its Maintenance of Accreditation Committee. Begley also has advanced UCD’s position in the Financial Times rankings of the Global Top 100 MBA programs. Since becoming dean, he has moved UCD Business School’s ranking in The Economist Global Top 100 from 53rd to 31st.

Prior to joining UCD, Begley was a faculty member in the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, where he served as chair of the Human Resources Management Department and director of the Bachelor of Science in International Business program.

Begley holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees, both in social psychology, from Cornell University, and a B.A. degree from Seton Hall University. He most recently held the Governor Hugh L. Carey Chair in Organizational Behavior at UCD. His primary teaching and consulting interests are in the areas of organizational change, cross-cultural management, and team development. His consulting clients have included Fortune 500 companies, governments, and nonprofit organizations in several countries.

Begley has held visiting appointments at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the Prasetiya Mulya Graduate School of Management in Jakarta, Indonesia, Reims Management School in France, and Boston University. He has published numerous articles on organizational change, cross-cultural management, and global issues in human resource management in academic and practitioner-oriented sources. One of his articles was reprinted in The History of Management Thought. He served as research director for “The International Entrepreneurship Project,” a 20-country investigation of factors contributing to entrepreneurial activity. His practitioner-oriented articles have appeared in outlets such as the Sloan Management Review, Organizational Dynamics, Business Horizons, Human Resource Planning, and Mergers & Acquisitions.