Mark Thompson has been Professor Emeritus since 2002 at the University of British Columbia, after teaching in the Sauder School of Business for over 30 years. He is a member of the ILO-UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Academic Personnel and is a past president of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association. He was a governor of the Workers' Compensation Board of B.C. representing the public interest from 1991 to 1995, was appointed a Commissioner to review employment standards in British Columbia in 1994, and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Labour Management Relations in the Federal Public Service, 1999-2001. He has served on the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Arbitrators and the executive of the Industrial Relations Research Association.

His latest edited volume, Beyond the National Divide--Regional Differences in Industrial Relations, is edited by Mark Thompson, Joseph Rose and Anthony Smith. He edited "Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector: Beginning of the End or End of the Beginning?", "Conflict or Compromise: The Future of Public Sector Industrial Relations", and "Industrial Relations in a Decade of Economic Change". He received a Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.