Schroeder, Harold (Hal)
Dr. Harold (Hal) Schroeder, former associate professor in the Faculty of Management (now Dhillon School of Business), passed away Feb. 2, 2025, at the age of 88. Hal was born in Rosengard, Manitoba on August 22, 1936. He graduated with a B. Comm. Degree from the University of Manitoba in 1965. After studying toward an M.B.A. at the University of British Columbia he returned to Winnipeg to serve as a senior internal management and systems auditor for a national retailer. During this time in Manitoba, Harold and Willo were married on February 25, 1967. In 1968 he made a drastic career change from management and auditing to teaching. After a year in the Kenora, Ontario campus of Confederation College, he joined the Faculty of Commerce at St. Mary’s University in Halifax in 1969. He would say later the job in Kenora made him realize he loved teaching and wanted a career in it.
In 1973 Harold embarked on a program of inter-disciplinary studies in Ethics and Business involving the Midwestern Theological Seminary in Kansas, Missouri and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1974, while at St. Mary’s, the Mennonite Brethren Church hired him to preach for one year.
In 1975, following a year back at St. Mary’s, Harold and Willo with their two children moved from Halifax to Los Angeles to start his inter-disciplinary Ph.D. studies in Social Ethics and Business Policy and Strategy. With coursework completed, he rejoined St. Mary’s in 1977 and later completed his dissertation and other degree requirements.
In 1981 Harold joined the University of Lethbridge as an associate professor and founding member of the School of Management. Over that time, he served as acting associate dean for two years and upon stepping away from his full-time teaching duties, was a sessional instructor. In 1985 he was selected to serve as a one-semester exchange professor at Hokkai-Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan.
In 1999 he was selected by the Canadian Federation of Business School Deans to serve on a team of four Canadian instructors conducting a series of courses for practicing managers at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2000 he was again selected for the professor exchange program in Hokkai-Gakuen University in Japan.
In 2002 he was asked to delay his retirement to spend a summer at the Edmonton campus of the University of Lethbridge to teach and provide some mentoring in the Strategic Management course. He retired in 2003 after 22 years at the University of Lethbridge.
During much of his career at two universities Harold was very involved in the broader academic community. He served in the management of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) for nine years, with three years at the divisional level and six years on the national executive, including two years as treasurer. In the latter part of his career, he got very involved in case research and authored numerous cases. “Bringing real-life management cases to the classroom”, especially for students in western Canada, increasingly became his passion as he was approaching the end of his career. In the mid-1990s he led a group of University of Lethbridge faculty members and several other case researchers in a case writing project which culminated in several editions of Cases and Readings in Strategic Management, edited by him. Published by Nelson Canada, it became the first custom case publishing project in Canada.
Over the years, he was frequently invited to serve on expert panels to promote case research and assist aspiring case researchers at conferences of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), the World Association for Business and Society, the World Association for Case Research and Application (WACRA) and various regional associations. In the role he influenced or mentored numerous younger case researchers from places like Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Japan and various locations in the US and Canada. In 1996 one of his cases was selected for the plenary session of the WACRA conference in Warsaw, Poland. In 1997 he was given the outstanding service to the world case research community award at the WACRA conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. On many occasions he also served as reviewer for The Case Research Journal published by NACRA.
Harold was a long and active member of McKillop United Church and for many years served on Presbytery. In retirement, he volunteered for the Ecumenical Campus Ministry and he and his wife served on the ECM Board of Directors.
Above all his accomplishments Harold was deeply loved and loved deeply.
Sources:
Condolence Notice — Dr. Harold (Hal) Schroeder | Notice Board;
Dr. Harold Schroeder Obituary | Feb 2, 2025 | Lethbridge, AB