Dr. Ken Jones

PhD
Dean, Faculty of Business

Dr. Ken Jones is the founding Director of The Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity (CSCA). On July 1, 2005, Dr. Jones assumed the role of Dean, Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University.

Under his guidance, the CSCA has grown into a leading centre for business geomatics research and has the support of over 50 government and corporate members in the retail, financial, business development, real estate, hospitality and health care sectors.

In his role as a principal investigator at CSCA, Jones attracted and managed more than $6.3 million in research grants and contracts. He was a founder of and currently teaches in the Master of Spatial Analysis program, jointly run by Ryerson University, and the CSCA.

Jones holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from York University and has published extensively, including three books that have examined the contemporary retail environment in Canada: Specialty Retailing in the Inner City (1984); Location, Location, Location (1987, 1992); and The Retail Environment (1990). Jones has contributed chapters for a variety of university texts and has been published in many professional journals. These works have discussed issues associated with retail site selection methodologies, market area analyses, retail corporate concentration, e-commerce, and future trends associated with Canadian retailing.

In addition to his activities as a researcher, Jones has been a consultant to numerous retail chains, financial institutions, and shopping centre developers on aspects of store network planning, sales forecasting, market area evaluation, and site evaluation. He shares his expertise in his role as a guest lecturer and presenter to professional and academic audiences on leading edge topics that relate to the emerging retail economy.

Jones has served as Chair of the Economic Competitiveness Committee for the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Trade; Director of the Ontario Retail Sector Strategy Project; and Project Leader for the GEOIDE (Geomatics for Informed Decisions) Networks of Centres of Excellence, where he was responsible for co-ordinating the research activities of several universities. He is currently a member of an Appraisals Committee for the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies, which has been responsible for reviewing all graduate programs in business in the province.

E-mail: kjones@ryerson.ca