The Best-Laid Plans: Finding opportunities in unexpected places
Hilary Becker had no intention of becoming an accounting professor when he embarked on his post-secondary studies in the 1980s. His interests lay in the biological and pharmaceutical sciences, but he changed course after a shortage of funds prompted him to launch a business that sold swag for company giveaways.
“I had way too much fun with that,” he says. “And made too much money.”
As a result, after completing his biology degree, Hilary switched his focus to business, earning a BCom and MBA at the University of Windsor, and then working toward Certified General Accountant (CGA) status at DuPont.
His plan was to work in the company’s pharmaceutical division, but when DuPont decided to spin the division off in a joint venture with Merck & Co., he pivoted and accepted an invitation to teach introductory financial accounting at Queen’s University.
“I thought I would do that for a semester while figuring out what to do next, and that was thirty-two years ago.”
Although he taught as an adjunct at both Queen’s and the University of Ottawa, Hilary felt most at home at Carleton, where he has taught since 1996.
Soon after his arrival here, he joined a project between Carleton and the University of Havana funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This project launched his longstanding collaboration with various Cuban universities and organizations and inspired his decision to complete his PhD.
His research about Cuba remains central to Hilary’s exploration of the ways small business, community engagement, performance management, sustainability, and tourism contribute to economic development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
His current work in this area focuses on Dark Tourism: The act of travel to places associated with death, suffering, or the macabre. Of particular interest to Hilary is the balance between the economic opportunities, educational aspect, and ability for locals to tell their story that dark tourism provides versus the unique ethical questions that dark tourism raises—from the desecration of monuments to neighborhood intrusion or tourists who, say, take selfies of themselves and trivialize places like Chernobyl, the 911 Memorial, or Auschwitz. Moreover, revenues generated by local tour operators remain in the communities, while some earnings of large national tour operators do not.
Originally drawn to dark tourism because of its potential to enrich the Cuban tourist industry, Hilary has extended his exploration of the subject to develop a Strategic Management case study about New Orleans, arguably the epicenter of dark tourism, and a book chapter on Sensory Tourism.
Another branch of Hilary’s research program stems from Blue Ocean Strategy, a methodology for developing new market spaces. The Blue Ocean metaphor invokes the contrast between this strategy’s uncharted markets and the bloodied waters of traditional competition.
“An example would be Cirque de Soleil. People didn’t like the cruelty to animals, so Cirque eliminated animals and combined the acrobatic element of traditional circus with a theatrical storyline, creating something new.”
In “The Ying and Yang of Blue Ocean/Red Ocean Strategic Management,” Hilary argues that companies need to embrace both management strategies. His other work in the area has been similarly bold and innovative: he challenged Cirque de Soleil on whether in simultaneously staging seven Vegas shows they were not creating their own red ocean, and he has pushed the boundaries of Blue Ocean thinking to include alternative uses in areas such as performance management and firm valuation.
A reciprocity of influence unifies Hilary’s research and teaching activities. He first learned about Blue Ocean Strategy while preparing a course on Enterprise Development, and his interest in tourism extends naturally from a teaching career that has taken him to Hong Kong, Bogota, Shanghai, and Qeshm (Iran). Hilary even manages to translate arcane research experiences for the classroom.
“When I started working on dark tourism, I wasn’t expecting to encounter paranormal experiences while on tours or meeting with members of the Vodou/Voodoo, Witch/Wiccan, Vampire, Santeria, and Palo communities in New Orleans, Cuba, and Salem.”
Nevertheless, those experiences have equipped him to serve as a guest lecturer for FASS’s “Philosophy of the Paranormal” course.
Altogether, Hilary’s teaching dossier includes over 50 separate courses in Accounting, Strategy, Marketing, Enterprise Development, Finance, Statistics, Economics, International Business, the CGA Canada curriculum (for which he authored courses), and the CPA Canada curriculum (for which he was a subject matter expert).
Always looking for ways to engage his students, Hilary inspires lively class debates and has even employed magic tricks to demonstrate how companies can manage earnings, a pedagogical innovation that earned him recognition from the American Accounting Association.
In both his research and his teaching activities, Hilary displays a creativity and curiosity infused by Blue Ocean thinking. “Blue Ocean methodology looks for opportunities, and I’ve learned to pursue whatever’s possible.”
Wherever that pursuit takes him, Hilary’s far-ranging expertise will equip him to chart the waters successfully.