Professor Deborah Blackman is a member of the Public Service Research Group in the School of Business at UNSW, Canberra. She publishes extensively in international journals such as Public Administration Review, Management Learning, Management Decision and the Journal of Knowledge Management and is invited to present her work at conferences across the world.

Deborah researches knowledge transfer in a range of applied, real-world contexts. Her primary interest is using philosophical and systems explanations to understand why things do not work when theory implies that they should. From these enhanced understandings, new theories and applications can be developed to support the implementation of change or reform. The common theme of her work is developing effective knowledge acquisition and transfer in order to improve organisational effectiveness.

Deborah was the lead researcher on a joint collaborative project with the Australian Public Service Commission entitled the “Strengthening the Performance Framework”. The result was a new framework for diagnosing the effectiveness of a performance management system and the tool is being used in a range of contexts and organisations.