Biography

Pugh was born in London, and education has been his total life commitment. In 1953 he received his MA in psychology from Edinburgh Uuniversity, followed by an MSc in industrial sociology in 1956. He then moved to Birmingham College of Advanced Technology, where he was a Senior Research Fellow from 1957-1968.

It was while at Birmingham that he established his international reputation, beginning his foundation project in 1963. The aim of his research was to understand the dynamics of an organisation by comparing the workings of a cross-section of management structures. 

It became known as the "Aston Study", which anticipated the college's change of name to Aston University. The distinction of the project was that three of the papers attained the very rare status of "citation classics".

Pugh's career continued as Professor at London Business School and then at The Open University, where he devised their doctoral programmes. As Emeritus Professor of International Management at the OU, he continued to add to his list of books, which include joint-authorship of How to get a PhD.

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