Research Collaboration: Orientation to the Future

Research Collaboration: Orientation to the Future

Any experiences you may have had in the past good or bad with collaborations? Would you manage things differently now?

The impetus for my taking on these studies was an APEC Asian Research Project Proposal that came my way via linkedin and a former Wollongong resident now manager of a Boutique NGO recruitment business in Bonn, Germany. He had found my listing which includes training in operations and research management already through my studies at UOW and Concordia/FITT (Forum for International Trade Training Canada) which would have been applicable to the TOR requirements of a Pan Asian analysis of operational food security provisions.

Following the proposal rejection after application and approval process which took a few months I realized the best way to capitalize on such a marvellous missed opportunity was to acquire more training in the role of an RM to add curbside appeal to my already excellent future potential usefulness to similar organisations who might be found fishing around Korea in future. As Paige recommended at the beginning of the course by trying to imagine the role of RM as an impending future reality ~ something I wouldn't mind juggling parallel to my teaching position ~ I look forward to realization of such a goal by positioning myself here in Korea as perhaps one of the rare few who might then hold such qualifications without having had to leave here or sacrifice gainful employment to achieve in the meantime.



Discuss any issues that may occur when running a research project funded by both an industry collaborator and a seperate unrelated grant.

Many of you have mentioned here the potential pitfalls of a multi-sponsored research project including the competitive interests of business versus researcher goals namely the possible divide between commercially viable and IP protected or academically publishable and socially beneficial knowledge sharing results and the conflicting milestones which might prevent benefits for both without sacrificing one facet or goal of joint venture research over the other. The other perspective is that you might end up running two seperate projects which might see conflicts in terms of informational cross-over which might tend to encourage some forms of moral hazard.

To address Paige's issues regarding moving from informal to formal terms of cooperation and collaboration one might easily consider the generally accepted practice of recommended export practices and procdures. Appreciate any comments to see whether these procedural issues have any actual cross-over.

1. Where one could compare a university to a domestic economy or at least at times smaller cities those rare instances of external or export sales/short-term contract collaborations will provide a company or research department with a record of transactions and/or potential industry partners when seeking larger scale collaborations in future. It would seem reasonable to expect collaborators to proceed on a mutual interests level of progressive gains over time.

2. To pursue foreign market oriented sales or further industry research collaborations many companies/universities often need to employ new middle management team techniques and more warm bodies to ensure the goals of future research collaboration growth are being met at the level of which core decision makers may have overall control. Many researchers would need to delegate and designate an RM other than the lead researcher out of a lack of extra time above and beyond their regular duties to solicit or respond to unsolicited enquiries, stack a date book of future projects well in advance of milestones for larger scale future exports or research collaborations.

3. Focusing on a key market for future export or research collaboration itself requires significant market research itself in terms of research competitors and dynamic global environments as others have pointed out. Decision makers might not need to rely exclusively on subject matter experts or even core research personnel if they possess the resources to hire consultants in country or to canvass the corporate world to provide new contacts and possible corporate research funding leads then they are recommended to do so.

4. Possibly the best university to corporate research collaborations rely heavily on key contact relationships which may have evolved personally over lifetimes of friendship, professional association, university alumni groups, etc. Regardless of the actual contractual details if there are not strong extra-curricular linkages for many I'm sure the research scale will remain minimal in its synergies. While many of our paper readings this week suggested otherwise, face to face contact is still integral if not with regular site visits then through localized up and downstream research consortia which appear not dissimilar to supplier-based JIT systems in terms of factory and industrial site collocations all over Asia. The same appears to be happening in Australia with the increased incidence of incubator and innovation parks adjacent to university sites. This cannot be a coincidence and makes for cozy bedfellows I'm sure.

5. While the financing and budgets of the research itself need to be closely monitored no small scale collaboration will evolve into a large and long term association or joint venture until real profits are being generated. No increasing scale of budgets will be supported without direct industry or consumer adoption or utilisation of the results of the research. This is the corporate monkey mantra: See no results, Hear no results, Have no more bananas. While I realize there are many academics who would be quite satisified to make repeated progress without commercial results aside from possible CSR or dog and pony shows (as BP's recent scandal fueled Gulf of Mexico gaff indicates) even essential corporate research is often overlooked or under-performed.



In another word: Toyota.

6. It is the RM's responsibility to look beyond the actual terms of agreement to forsee future problems before they are encountered and some understanding of corporate terms of agreement such as binding versus non-binding letters of intent and possible tutelage in the agreements on general terms and conditions terminology as well as consultation with a university lawyer would probably be of benefit to any future RM on campus.

These would be some of the steps in accessing a foreign export market. Is there not some alignment with RM collaboration needs?

Proposals, Grants and Funding Cycles

Proposals, Grants and Funding Cycles

1. How do research proposals for established companies vs. university grants differ?

I would think as many of our resources this week indicate that corporate research is better funded, structured and managed to lead to profit-based results which will increase the value of product or service and shareholder interests. In terms of Brian Martin's Assessment Orientation Table 1 corporate funding appears to rely more heavily upon administrative and performance-based funding decisions. In contrast university resources appear to be more publicly funded and thus more accountable to administrative requirements in terms of disbursements with a greater focus on peer review and equal allocation. Perhaps fewer information sharing limitations might exist which encourage more open data sharing? Does the public and university research sphere provide the proving ground for more confidential corporate research?

Our global innovation industry profile indicates the software & internet, health, computing & electronics, technology, aerospace & defense and automotive research fields are the largest and most competitive in terms of sales ratios while probably also the most highly commercialized and corporately funded. "Everything else" from humanities to creative industries or community-based projects would more highly contend with university-based research grant allocations. Independent self-funding researchers might enjoy this short presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert on the nature of creativity among non-sciences based researchers.

2. Why is it important to be aware of grant cycles?

The research proposal itself would need to be iteratively reviewed and updated to ensure that the grant funding cycles do not end prior to completion of research. If various grants are being cobbled together to complete a longer term of research than a few months at a time there would need to be many consecutive milestones or sets of results to achieve some level of entrenchment to carry over from one stage of research to another. It appears many grants are short-term in orientation and so without consecutive successful applications to provide for various sequential results based elaborations on previous research conclusions it would be at times impossible to meet research goals and time constraints in funding sources.

Spring in Korea

Universities look into the future

Universities look into the future (BBC)

By Mike Baker

Will universities in the future still look like this?
The current funding crisis will transform Britain's universities by 2020.

University campuses will be unrecognisable.

The conventional image of today, which is still fondly perpetuated in the media, is already as antiquated as college scarves and sherry with the tutor.

The 18-year-old school leaver, living on campus, studying full-time for a purely academic, three-year undergraduate degree is fast becoming a minority species.

The current financial squeeze, which is set to continue for the next decade, will accelerate a transformation that has begun in many universities.

Already more than one in three students studies part-time and one in six is from overseas. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Commentary: If things look this bleak in the UK how much better can they be in Canada?

IB Dream Jobs: Vienna University of Economics and Business PhD Studentship

The Institute for International Business (IIB) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business is seeking to fill two positions for Research and Teaching Associates. Positions may be filled at the doctoral level. The successful candidates will provide part-time support to the IIB faculty in teaching and administrative work while pursuing an active program of research. English is the operating language of the group.



Members of the IIB group are active in research in a variety of areas of international business, international management, and strategy. The group maintains a strong collaborative atmosphere with active research-oriented programs for doctoral students. IIB faculty serve on the editorial boards of major journals including the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Management, Management International Review, and Global Strategy Journal. One of our members currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Long Range Planning. We have published in journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Management, Management International Review, International Business Review, Research Policy, Organization Studies and many others. IIB also regularly hosts academic visitors from major North American, European and Asian universities.

Established in 1898, Vienna University of Economics and Business has over 20.000 students and 400 full time faculty. It is one of the largest business schools in Europe. The university offers Bachelors, Masters, Executive Masters, and PhD programs in traditional and specialized areas. The University is ranked in the Financial Times European top 50 and the FT top 25 for Business Administration. The joint Masters in International Management (CEMS) is ranked first in Europe by the FT. The university maintains partnerships with 200 universities on all continents and has strong ties to the business community.

Vienna is the capital of Austria and a major center of business for the region. Vienna also is world renown as a center of culture. The city offers exceptional attractions in music, art, and popular culture, as well as world-class dining and a high standard of living. Vienna hosts a variety of international organizations including the UN Atomic Energy Agency, UNIDO, and OPEC. Vienna also serves as the gateway to Central and Eastern Europe; it is the European regional headquarters of more than 200 multinational corporations in IT, financial services, pharmaceuticals and other industries. Vienna is consistently ranked one of the world’s most livable cities by Mercer Consulting.

Minimum requirements for the positions: Candidates must possess a university degree in business studies, social sciences, or a related field.

Informal inquiries should be directed to Professor Björn Ambos. Tel. +431313365121, Email: Bjoern.Ambos@wu.ac.at

To apply please visit the following link (http://www.wu.ac.at/structure/servicecenters/hr/jobs) or send your applications to Vienna University of Economics and Business, HR Department, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria. Ref. 1532

To be considered for the position, your application including curriculum vitae and three letters of reference must be received by 21.4.2010.

Thoughts on Reading, Writing and Researching

Thoughts on Reading, Writing and Researching

I think there does need to be a balance between the "publish or perish vibe" my classmate and this article (Publish or Perish? Re-Imagining the University Press) describe and having "high but realistic aims" as described by another classmate. My own motivations for formats to publish are somewhere in between and somewhat simplistic or naive. I am often just happy enough and feel I have succeeded in making progress in learning of my discipline just to have the time and inclination to write down and organize my own thoughts in my own chosen way whether that should earn value or exceed requirements among any community is often above and beyond my intrinsic needs.

A recent CBC Ideas podcast by Frank Faulk discussed the importance of internalized codes of moral certainty which are exceedingly difficult to adapt to situational contexts and may even be genetic in their patterns of cognitive expression. This might explain cultural in group versus out group aspects impacting on choices of (or lack of) formats of publication where larger market monopolies and returns on investment may have turned against constructive intellectual debate.

While academics often appear to defend their theses with excessive statistical data which obviously requires greater investment in review they often isolate those readers who should play a larger role in their primary audience which appears to be lost due to uber-competitiveness to be published. Namely their undergraduate and graduate students should provide an audience eager to learn from their publications. However many humanities disciplines have lost prominence and popularity perhaps because they no longer provide relevant thoughtful debate or communicate directly enough to attract higher rates of enrollment and profit-earning tuitions.

As an English Literature undergraduate I was taught to analyze and give significance to written patterns and symbols of communication to thereby possess an ability to identify values and recognize the vitality of human culture embedded in contexts of written English language and present my results in as vital and interesting a forum as possible. I try to avoid controversy and I make it as far as my own dry blog frequently but even in the beginning of that I was fearful of sharing my own thoughts with a sea of strangers. I have gained confidence in this area over time.

Of course English Literature studies as a base are possibly the most heavily derided and misunderstood humanities subject possible. There is a certain cultural aspect of perceived redundancy and I have noticed if most people read anything at all anymore it is as likely to be a TV Guide or some form of pulp fiction let alone an academic paper or a book of non-fiction or history. Let alone write anything at all other than brief emails or SMS texts. That as many as 50%of my fellow Canadians may be functionally illiterate suggests more of them might be studying English Literature or something (anything) to find a reason to read.

For example, plagiarism appears the norm rather than the exception in some studies a percentage of up to 60% of falsified data and seemingly progressively increasing in frequency at the graduate and doctoral levels (Price & Price:2005). Without exemplary leaders and managers these learners are failing their own potential and they bring being taught to think independently into question rather seem to be refining those skills which lead them to being merely opportunistic. As is often said of children perhaps we get the students we deserve. How much of a link is there between functional illiteracy and plagiarism?

Does such a trend indicate how far research academia has insulated itself from the common interests of our world's intrinsic leadership and managerial needs even at the most basic levels? Are we forgetting that teaching people to read, write and research assists in the self-awareness of developing one's own self-image and embodiment or identification with one's own culture? If so, are we collectively witnessing a lost determinant search for the self in this wilderness of plagiarism? It appears obvious nearly half of all academics are not really reading (even) their own students' works.

Price, J. & Price, R. (2005) " Finding the true incidence rate of plagiarism," International Education Journal, 6 (4), 421-429.

[Accessed: March 25, 2010]

Publication Venues and Research Management Considerations

1. How do you decide what format of publication is optimal for you area of research?

When I arrived at my current position I was told people do not usually publish until they have earned their PhDs and that it would be good to develop an enjoyment of reading and writing about this international business graduate discipline. So that’s what I do and I have been doing for in excess of seven years and I am in that holding pattern without regrets until the right PhD program and faculty may appear or reveal itself to my recognition of mutual interests and I really like this job too much to leave it before that time anyway.

I joined JIBS the Journal of International Business Studies which is top flight and has mostly provided scope in terms of junior faculty conferences available with an active mailing list of global conferences and journal submission requests which is a daily reminder that the day will come when I will prepare and plan some form of submission to one or another which I would consider within reach. As I was considered a perfect fit for this position I would hope to be considered a perfect fit for a PhD program with a well matched and patient advisor who truly values cross-cultural experience, global learning and self-improvement goals and who would mesh nicely with my sense of progression and reasonable renumeration rewards to desire higher goals. That would be a pretext to publications.

Money is a motivator.

As my classmate described even with proper preparation many of those with the necessary training and skills may never lead or manage a research project. I would agree internal growth and motivations beyond training are required and there can be no transformation from one stage to the next without it being natural, necessary and inherently part of one’s character at present. There's no way to force it unless it becomes an essential requirement to my personal measures of success. I even have a few other course goals I would like to complete before making a PhD leap. But perhaps not until this lily-pad becomes untenable.



2. In your research field, what factors should the RM consider before publishing?

For money or consultant motivated publication: I believe the RM needs to consider the Terms of Research (TOR) as the first factor to review if only because the contract needs to be clarified if, when and how the results may or may not be published, deseminated or shared and if possible the terms need be reviewed to ensure that the RM's best interests are being met in engaging the research management of the project in question. For example our notes referred to a case where researchers were restricted from access to all results in a private funded project. This would feel like working ona puzzle with a blindfold on to me. Misrepresentation of possible results became an ethical question.

Furthermore, if the RM is working as a consultant on a multinational project then the abstracts, background, perliminary resources, methodology and processes, requirements, stages and deadlines will need to be prsented, confirmed and addressed clearly and known from the outset to coordinate with a lead consultant whereby the deliverables are agreed as well as payments schedules and budgetary needs fixed and known all prior to start with changes only by mutual consent following contractual agreement.



As a classmate and our resources indicate in cases of patent clearance procedures, restrictions and requirements need to be maintained to ensure IP protection. However many of the procedures appear to place the researcher in a Catch 22 position. In terms of hinting at a new discovery or product development in publications I remember a lot of viral hype about some new gadget to revolutionize the way we think of transport and it turned out to be the Segway -building hype into a product that does not deliver or worse yet is subject to recalls - might damage a researcher's reputation if the marketing has been overblown.

New way of fish farming could help fix environment

New way of fish farming could help fix environment
Biologists study whether sea creatures could be used to counteract damage to ecosystems
By Randy Shore, Vancouver SunMarch 25, 2010 New designs for fish farms could keep them in the ocean and help restore damaged marine environments at the same time, says a biologist working on a five-year nationwide aquaculture project.

Marine biologists in New Brunswick and in B.C. are employing mussels, oysters, sea cucumbers, urchins and seaweed to dramatically increase the amount of food created by salmon farms, and they believe they can extract excess carbon and nitrogen pollution from the sea in the process. FULL STORY HERE

A correction to my post on obtaining unbiased data.

I would like to thank Mr. Feroze Khan Vice President of Stratford University for reading my post on steps to obtaining unbiased data and correcting my misinterpretation of the facts in the Helios Air Accident Flight ZU 522.

On Research Leader's Necessary Skills

1. What do you think are the most important skills of a research leader and why?

I believe in reflection and that there is no complete or sufficient empirical "grand list" that can address the essentially intuitive nature of good leadership. However I heavily rely upon W. Edwards Deming's insights, yet again, as I wholly trust his nature to populate my thinking as his thoughts are so finely and resolutely formed and shared. These points reside heavily within his " five deadly diseases" and I freely adapt them for my own purposes to answer this question. Curiously, I am also not completely convinced that leadership be justly separated from the principles of quality management. I believe in attempting to separate them we lose some aspects of their intangible qualities (duality or pisces nature) essential to their best practice in an over-desire to analyze for competitive advantage alone where the " yin and yang" of self-improvement of both aspects of leadership and management direction do signal the processes of future successful human progress. I believe we do need more good managers who are leaders and good leaders who are managers. No less and no more.

Therefore a good research leader:

1.Has constancy of purpose, plans for the future, and defines long-term goals.

2. Emphasizes long-term profits, benefits and budgets & sustains goals for growth.

3.Evaluates performance in ways which are just and moralizing to followers, encourages systems & long-term thinking, teamwork and abolishes fear.

4.Deeply commits to the research team, with strong history of association, profound knowledge of the team, understanding & empathizing with their problems and challenges.

5.Leads and manages beyond statistical analysis and seeks to include the unknown and unknowable, creatively deviates from traditional schools of thought and thus becomes distinctive, unique and an intangible asset to the research.

6.Knows how to listen and how to speak and is the team's personable PDCA cipher.

2. Do skills differ with different research streams?

Different streams imply the possibilities of there being different skills for successfully leading in those streams. The leader of a logistics company requires different skills and knowledge than the leader of a cosmetics company. Therefore, I would opine different skills would certainly be required if one sought to transfer from one to the other. Some leaders might be able to cross-over successfully from logistics to cosmetics due to basic leadership/needs similarities on the Pavlovian or Maslowvian hierarchies. Non-complementary streams and the nature of the scope of distances or differences between them would suggest some leaders would not successfully navigate from one to the other. In the cases of comparing cognitive knowing versus affective influencing leadership skills, for example, computer skills versus charisma, one might suggest all leaders do share certain core competencies in the latter rather than the former. Even if one had no charisma other leadership skills might present themselves to make up the difference.

In the human brain there is an affective area of influencing the opinions, decisions and actions of followers through which a leader might mirror precedence, competitors, market conditions, and other examples while neither absolutely knowing the level of follower compliance to suggestive guidance nor what particular stimulus or incentive even provides the best follower compliance. This would suggest that leadership is perhaps at the best of times an acting performance and an ongoing experiment in testing out affective change management to a range of cause and effect possibilities and contexts.

No regrets listening to this: The Sociology of Richard Sennett

Flesh and Stone: The Sociology of Richard Sennett - Part Two

I like this tune for some reason?

In case you haven't noticed I punctuate my homework and reflections with musical selections.

ANU PhD Scholarship in IB

PhD Scholarship in International Business
Australian National University

Applications are invited for a full-time PhD scholarship in the School of Management, Marketing and International Business funded by a grant under the Linkage Scheme of the Australian Research Council.

The project aims to understand the factors that impacted on the investment decisions of European companies in Australia and of Australian companies in Europe through firm-level surveys. Some of those factors are the international experience of firms, their core competencies, their asessment of opportunities and risk in the foreign business environment, as well as the ways in which they accommodated and mitigated elements of perceived risk through the choice of location, entry mode, local partners etc.

The student involved in the project will develop skills in implementing and developing surveys and analysing the results of the surveys using both qualitative and quantitiative techniques.

The scholarship includes a tax-free stipend of A$26,140 per year for three years. Applicants are expected to have an honours or Masters degree or equivalent qualification in business studies, commerce or economics, or a cognate field of academic study. Both Australian residents and international students may apply.

Application deadline: Friday 19 March 2010.

Enquiries and applications: rso.cbe@anu.edu.au or +61 2 6125 3664

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Pierre van der Eng, Associate Professor
School of Management, Marketing & International Business (MMIB)
ANU College of Business and Economics, Copland building 24
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
Australia
Tel. +61 2 6125 5438
Fax +61 2 6125 8796
ANU CRICOS provider number is 00120C

Concerning Best Practices in Research

1.What training is required for new research staff and what information do they need to be made aware of?

New research staff should first be made aware of their contractual obligations to observe and maintain policies, regulations and ethical requirements as to safeguard the appropriate application of research funds to ensure best practices are maintained. Beyond also being provided with the opportunities to acquire training in methods to develop good thesis and data collection techniques (such as these eGSA courses?) new staff should be acquainted with terms of research requirements and codes of conduct as exemplified by our resource list.

While there are great similarities among the provided codes such as QUT policies, Australian NHMRC regulations, Dupont and the like academic versus business requirements will vary across national and international domains and possibly the extent of their institutional research domains. It also appears that both academic and business codes of conduct share similar frameworks and influence each other in areas of collaborative interest. Our resource list provides evidence of close interconnectivity and collaboration among research organizations around the world which through their experience have encountered similar challenges in managing their research regulations necessitating quite explicit codification of employee requirements perhaps through bitter experience. Obviously ethical requirements are an often debated subject such as the Milgram Electroshock of 1961 or the Zimbardo Prison Experiments of 1971 at Yale University which were considered overly emotionally stressful for volunteer participants on an absolute versus relative approach to ethics (Zimardo:1973).

Zimardo, P.G. (1973) "On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment," Cognition, 2, 243-256. [Accessed: March 6, 2010]

2. Why do research organizations need retention of data policies?

University and business research programs and institutes provide the environment to develop strategic and profit-making enterprises for the benefit of income earning divisions, shareholders or incubator spin-off corporations who often provide the seed financing required to conduct the research and employ the researchers. Policies concerning the confidentiality and provenance of research conducted seek to ensure competitive advantage in a global business environment often observed to provide challenges in terms of patent protection and infringement of intellectual property rights. The clearest example of recent public document policy oversight concerns the global warming debate and several hacked emails from the University of East Anglia in Cambridge England. Sufficient information security might have prevented the revelation that conflicts of interest and terms of peer review ethics may often come into question "in harsh daylight" even with the prevalence of well organized terms and codes of conduct and policy (Keleman: 2009). On the other hand, large corporations conducting unsustainable business practices have the most to lose from greater regulatory measures to curb industrial influence over research and have often been complicit in the ruination of research reputations among those who question their global business practices as described in numerous publications by Brian Martin at UOW.

Martin, B. (2001) "Environment and Public Health," Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, Volume 2, edited by Derek Jones (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), pp. 740-743. [Accessed: March 6, 2010]

Keleman, P. (2009) "What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change," popular Mechanics, December 1. [Accessed: March 6, 2010]

3.Identify professional divisions at your university and discuss what each of them does.

While this is a brief list (way to go exceeding our posting length!) it did acquaint me with a large number of Daejin University institutes providing confirmation of their associations and involvement where possible with internet references. Please consider this a brief of scan of a lenghty list.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Daejin University Academy of Daesoon Thought: Conducts Daesoon philosophy research considered one of East Asia's fastest growing religions.

Daejin University Institute of Local Economy: Conducts research into local technological competitive growth and innovation strategies.

Daejin University Institute of Construction: Conducts research inconstruction engineering and management to improve efficiency based upon collaborative efforts of industry, academia, and research exchanging and sharing technical knowledge, experience, and information through cooperation.

Daejin University Institute of Environment: Conducts research in energy, agriculture and design best practices.

ENGINEERING/BUSINESS

Daejin University Institute of Industrial Technology/ Institute of High-Tech Materials: Conducts research in association with the KREONET-NOC the Korea National Science and Research Network.

Daejin University Institute of International Trade: Conducts research into developing international growth partnerships and business collaboration.

Daejin University Institute of Basic Science: Conducts science and technology research.

EDUCATION

Daejin University Institute of Education Attached to the Graduate School of Education: Conducts education research.

Daejin University Institute of Reading Culture: Conducts research into literacy and literacy training.

Daejin University Institute of Chinese Studies: Conducts active research program in developing the university's Chinese market specialists orientation and cooperative development of the DUCC China campus programs. Daejin University is a Korean market leader in this offshore development.

Daejin University Institute of Humanities: Active in developing digital humanities archives.

Daejin University Institute of Northern Districts /Institute of Local Government's Policy: Assists in local and regional collaborative research projects in Pocheon County and Gyeonggi Province two of the fastest growing regions adjacent to Seoul.

Daejin University Institute of Social Capital: Conducts research into the value and application of social networks to increase individual and group productivity.

Daejin University Institute of Legal Policy: Conducts research in legal and legislative affairs.

Daejin University Institute of Cyber World's Culture: Conducts research into e-business, webometrics and social sciences.

BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATION

Daejin University Industrial and Academic Cooperation Agency: Provides recruitment and employment assistance in cooperation with four regional growth markets in China and Korea.

Daejin University Center for Inauguration and Nurture of Enterprise Research: A research unit which develops information technology applications concerning security and trust, intelligence, multimedia convergence, wireless and mobile communications in a future oriented ever changing commercial environment.

Daejin University Center for Industrial Academic Cooperation: Through membership in the Korea Association of Industry, Academy and Research Institutes assists SMEs with fast paced and economical technical development. Focus is on next-generation growth industries in biotechnology, green technology, and nano information technology.

Daejin University Center for Intellectual Property: Conducts studies upon Information Security and Assurance such as modeling, simulations and applications including computing systems and devices.

Gyeonggi-Daejin Technopark: An SME business incubator located on campus with assistance and development plans with 80 knowledge-based high tech enterprises and research institutes around the province seeking to lead regional economic growth through local industrial and market development research. Companies include biotechnology, IT/electronics, auto components, medicine/chemistry, nanotechnology and mechatronics among others.

And now for something completely different...

Merry Chrismahanukazuah!

Borrowed from the world wide web!

Sydney Business School Awarded Three Palmes for Excellence

UOW SBS Awarded Three Palmes

"This ranking was compiled from a survey of 1000 selected Business Schools' Deans from around the world. The purpose of these palms is to compare objectively a school of a given country or continent to another one."


Read the full story here.

Always happy to see my alma mater in the news.

Re: Land and Sea "Turning a Green Leaf"

Re: Land and Sea "Turning a Green Leaf"

One of my old classmates Erin Niedermayer McMillin and her family were highlighted in a special Land and Sea Local Food CO2 footprint reduction experiment in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Well I finally got to watch the Turning a Green Leaf Episode and here are my comments and suggestions.

Last year I was asked to participate in an APEC Food Security Research Proposal focusing on Korea. The proposal was rejected but I did a lot of research globally on the topic last winter holiday.

As you may not know many countries like Korea import as much as 70% of their foodstuffs from abroad primarily from the US and increasingly from China. These containerized shipments do not only consume CO2 through their cargo movement. Fertilizers, pesticides, packing materials, insurance costs added damages and delays are all probably unaccounted for in a simple miles/distance to market approach.While local or country of origin produce is clearly marked here in supermarkets the introduction and rapid expansion of supermarkets in developing nations like Brazil, Russia, India, China or regions of Asia and South America have incredibly expanded in the last decade from city centres to suburban areas through similar patterns and Walmartization tactics.

As in early market entry studies reveal large numbers of small farmers are contracted to supply produce at varying levels of quality control and then over time fewer and fewer farmers are selected for larger and larger contracts reducing competitive pricing and unit costs to supermarkets themselves. A good example of this has been the banana wars provisions for small organic banana growers on Caribbean islands representing a minute market share in Europe which large companies like Chiquita in the US have been trying to force out of business.

Here in Korea traditional markets remain but local farmers are an aging and under-developed industry with few organic producers and a large proportion of non-compliance measures on chemical concentrations and pesticide usage recommendations. There are few traceability measures other than country of origin. As supermarkets are introduced traditional food consumption patterns have changed rapidly around the world.

I was glad to see your efforts to purchase locally. If for example Doha Round WTO provisions reduce government subsidies and tarriffs on farm produce will any of us be able to afford what we eat?

Global Climate Change and "Tipping Points"

Major Tipping Points in the Earth’s Climate System and Consequences for the Insurance Sector is a report by the WWF and Allianz Insurance regarding the need for radical climate policies globally.

Master's Degree in Education and Globalisation: University of Oulu, Finland.

Master's Degree in Education and Globalisation: University of Oulu, Finland.

"The aim is to develop the appropriate competencies and knowledge needed in planning, evaluation, research and development tasks in education and related fields in the midst of societal changes, both on the local and global levels.

Students will be awarded an MA (Education) degree with the possibility to continue for doctoral studies. It does not provide students with a teacher's qualification. Education in Finland is internationally known for its high quality which is recognized in international assessments like PISA. There are no tuition fees for university studies in Finland. The programme is open for applications from students with a Bachelor's degree or an equivalent higher education degree."

http://www.oulu.fi/ktk/kasope/edglo/

Listed in the interest of a certain Kwandong's in the Gangwon's Brian. If you are ready to pull up stakes this would be a good destination -Oulu,(sounds like "ural") Finland. What's not to like? Ural-Altic language, warm fires in winter, saunas, quality education, good quality of life, etc.

HOME by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

This movie HOME by Yann Arthus-Bertrand states clearly that our planet earth requires the next tens years of global development to focus nearly entirely on alternative resource strategies otherwise a viable environmental future cannot be assured or maintained for any capital growth systems. It's a short and shortening window of opportunity and I am afraid not enough decision makers realize that.

I have heard the same thing on CBC's Quirks and Quarks that if current CO2 growth rates are maintained the ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere will quickly reach lethal proportions as early as 2025? As far as I know they only interview real scientists there. At the same time one of America's only carbon storage research projects has still not attained a cost benefit profile and claims 25% of generated power will be required to store emissions courtesy of the same radio show with the weird nerdy music.

If any decision-makers need further encouragement there are the dreary and morbid 2008 Massey (Seabass) Lectures by Margaret Atwood (no longer free but they should be?)

A VIDEO CLASS WORTH GIVING...

As I had a strong emotional reaction to it I decided to suspend my normally scheduled speaking class the following day and conduct my first video and listening class. Ever.

I presented the students with the title and length of the movie (1:33 minutes) on the board. Then I gave them each a blank sheet of paper instructing them to divide it up into sections to answer the question (with examples given in the movie), "Why is this video (HOME) important to the future of international trade?" You might like to alter the question to match the major interests of your students in high school or university classes.

Then as the movie rolled (for some reason the English subtitles failed to appear) I moderated the students notes with written points on the board which I instructed them to write down. Then they were told to go home and write up a 150 word essay based on their own notes.

Its been fourteen years since I began this ESL journey. In that time I've never seen a group of students more attentive or silently focused in class. I highly recommend sharing this presentation and assignment with your own students.

India's Monkey Man Revealed!

Cha Sa-soon passes driver’s test after 950 tries

Cha Sa-soo finally passed the written exam scoring 60 points out of 100. I just wonder if she's perhaps dyslexic?

Read the full story here.

The results of poor communication are planning failures.

Poor communication is often a major cause of project difficulties or failure.

We are meant to plan our communications to facilitate the effective deployment of the stakeholders in many cases these might constitute subject or content matter experts and additionally perhaps planning specialists. Under ideal circumstances each provides competent, motivated and improvement-oriented feedback to the communications chain. In the right configurations of dissimilar expertise a group of project oriented experts can assemble a noteworthy endeavour of leadership and change management building value out of bridging value differences and approaches.

I am reminded of up-stream and down-stream external and internal customer interconnectivity and delivery cycles as Gillian recalled cycle time results in an orientation our outbound and inbound messages must provide reasonable and relevant information to avoid the pitfalls listed in our notes. The concept of cellular manufacturing, cross-functional management team training and innovation or quality circles all appear to share some elements of the benefits of effective communication planning in that the goals exceed and refine the skills of participants to balance time/information schedule and hopefully gain communicative experience and expertise.

So in any practice there could be and probably is nothing worse than poor communications time planning. Some businesses appear to fault middle managers as the time and information "sinks" of companies due to conflicting interests between labour and upper management help perpetuate saboteurs of group communications. Even the ever-present and nearly ubiquitous technologies we share at the tips of our tongues and fingernails seems to suggest as a global populace many may be sacrificing planning for perpetual "on-callism" or at the other extreme (as our course somewhat displays) the integral practice of learning or knowledge "swarming" through asynchronous message postings indicating a willingness to sacrifice for real-time interactions in negation of distance and (other) time constraints in even just learning about planning.

However I am bound to recall the Swiss Air 111 crash which foundered near my hometown in Canada and in the inquiry revealed quite the opposite conclusion perhaps to which our course planning for communciations section might seek in reference to prescriptiveness and its practicality to forestalling difficulties or project failure.

Human decision-making can often provide ample root causes for failure even with a seemingly "fool-proof" plan. The inability to functionalize the plan in terms of its application and scope will be found in the flaws of human nature inescapable. In the case of Flight 911 the emphasis of "going by the book" and taking the time to pass over the runway and make an emergency fuel dump at sea as regulations stipulated exceeded the functional electrical capacity of the airplane striken by a fire.

As a result all lives were lost.

A provision of checklists to be followed rather than an impulse concern over the absolute deliverables of getting passengers safely on the ground or a more direct approach which fell outside the WBS checklists was overlooked. Would this be an example of managing by directive?

How will planning communication help?

Composing teams as stakeholders might also be considered collaborative and may often require substantial or little overlap in tasks and information dependent upon the complexity of the WBS. As to consider some of the stages of my thesis proposal there would be little sense in communicating the same information to all stakeholders as their requisite needs do not always coincide and the stages of the project phases themselves may prove not only sequential but also susceptible to sudden required adjustments of the WBS to meet consistently variable human conflicts in time and communication challenges. Time-based communication challenges should provide new, novel, cumulative peripheral learning opportunities.

Fo example, thesis acceptance by department and advisors might simply require their rubber stamping for possible funding approvals. At the other extreme the advisor carries great progressive approval responsibility throughout the entire WBS.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT LESSON LEARNED

PROJECT MANAGEMENT LESSON LEARNED

I learned it’s not a crime to ask for more time, even if it’s the first time you asked for that; that a selection of interests and skills can be framed as a legitimate proposal with the proper management of time, cost and quality factors; deliverables and project scope are intended to be flexible and match the needs of the stakeholders; the project lifecycle is meant to introduce component structural elements to the project; that the project justification defines the purpose; that managing time, cost and quality are interactive, interdependent and are the artful practice of “juggling”; that minimizing assumptions and constraints lends a greater chance of project acceptance; that stakeholders need to agree to work and cooperate together and that their familiarity is essential to consolidate credibility; that managing scope creep is a constant companion to reinforcing, defending and adjusting scope to ever changing circumstances requires prudence; that the WBS is not a sequenced chain of events but an ever evolving set of necessary actions; that the activity schedule can never match projected to actual results but is a useful method of monitoring progress and quality; that costs and resources are absolute measures of reward and benefit for whether or not benefits may outweigh costs or costs may outweigh resources which requires essential budgetary estimates to be useful; that quality planning in advance will minimize rework, and revision; that poor communications will sink a project perhaps before it is even started; that there are no miracles in terms of resources and that exceeding project cost estimates will over consume resources and require rework, reduction of scope or loss of quality; that project risks need to be anticipated so that a possible response may be found under surprising conditions although not all risks can be planned for; that monitoring and control allow for adjustments and tailoring of the plan to be consistently applied as its iterative nature requires iterative adjustments to time, cost and quality management; that project handover and evaluation provides an opportunity for feedback, review, and adjustments made for future planning projects. Finally, I learned to accept that the task at hand was possible and could be completed which is a real accomplishment and that beer tastes better after hard work like this and that I could not have done it without your help.

Blue Blue Sky - Something You Want to See at the End of a Deadline?

Project Monitoring

Any difference between how you plan to monitor your project and how you actually monitored previous ones?

You could say this course is a total learning experience in terms of gaining any insights into project management techniques or planning. Since the project I am designing has apparently become a three year PhD program of study with all of the planning requirements that entails I have tried to anticipate a world of project cueing and positioning that I fail to completely comprehend in terms of reference and whether or not necessary cooperative and/or complimentary monitoring of stakeholders would be otherwise available.



I believe I view project planning from a somewhat historical position in terms of strategies for businesses courtesy of Mintzberg et. al. in Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Strategic Management (1998). One of the key strengths of the planning school is evaluations and "value creations" with delineations of expected results at particular points in a chain of events. So we have been doing a lot of de-compositional sub-stratification of strategies in this course which I find fairly similar in terms of scenarios developments, what-ifs and wherefores.

Measuring actual versus expected efforts, durations, start and finish, completion, costs anticipated or unanticipated problems will be in the interests of improving performance as observance of cost, quality and time management. Therefore my monitoring of this project which I would not undertake without adequate risk mitigations in terms of funding primarily would need to meet iterative strategies and stratifications of evaluation either through forms of interviews, document reviews, questionnaires, telephone or email communication which meet several layers of external auditing standards from stakeholders in the academic and business communities of New Zealand.

Visiting Ten Step I was not surprised to see a twenty minute video which resolves and reviews everything we have been studying so far courtesy of Tom Mochal. At the same time I am learning that the cultural environment in New Zealand is somewhat traditional which might explain some economists' descriptions of generations of forecast growth under-performance over decades and generations of New Zealand's export strategies.



I also realize as Gillian White mentioned that many planners simply fill and slot in requirements rather than really taking the iterative cycle itself apart and calling it for what it really appears to be - it is a re-dressed, rehashed and reoriented PDCA cycle (which has slipped one of its discs). Plan-Do-Check-Act was an original application to permit individual self-monitoring in a collaborative manufacturing environment which allowed for full individual opportunities for improvement which benefit the group in terms of reducing errors, rework, waste and lack of accountability. It belongs to Shewart and Deming. The planners have attempted to roll with it.

This in itself was a revolution in terms of previous monitoring techniques which through Taylorism bordered on the applying or expecting of mechanical efficiencies in the work of human beings. That plans were never at fault and human beings must keep up. Deming helped humanize that a bit.

Did you adjust the time planning worksheets provided in order to be able to record your project’s progress? How will the adjustments help this current project?

I attempted to under-estimate my actual daily output to anticipate a possible increasing or cyclical rate of improvement in measuring or meeting iterative requirements in my first draft of the time and budget schedule of my project for this course. This iterative cycle which again appears to ape or imitate the Shewhart-Deming Cycle implicates critical debate regarding the efficacy of the institutionalization of innovativeness which has been rich in debate at CBC's Cross Country Check Up on the topic of Willard Boyle the latest Nobel Prize winner for Physics in "Does Canada give enough support for its scientists?"

In monitoring I will add the columns recommended in our activity notes and anticipate:

1. Frequently hurrying up and waiting.
2. Exceeding original budget.
3. A flora of multi-tasking challenges.
4. In focus, out of focus and no focus periods in terms of scope.
5. Wheeling and dealing, cajoling and out-foxing micro-managers in terms of deadlines.

As previously stated cyclical improvement cycles originated not in the iterative cycle project domain but in the Deming one with an important exception - perhaps a PC one born of union/management collusion which puts a choke on the fishbones? Personal responsibility is never abrogated from individuals to organisations in fish bone diagrams as quality is managed one person at a time. Individuals are responsible for their performance in organisations. Individual performance monitoring could not exist without it. People don't get hired or fired based on performance without it. How well self-monitoring is conducted depends not only on how well one mirrors one's organisational monitoring standards.

If my stakeholders do not soon realize my quality management training is rigorous and well tested they will miss the opportunity to profit from an asset in monitoring which this planning course learning is helping me realize I have already been taught, learned and somewhat know. This current project will be assisted by my willingness to examine and assist a nation which appears to play the loser in the global growth export game.

The Korea Herald: Investing in Korea needs nerves of steel

Investing in Korea needs nerves of steel
Rob York The Korea Herald October 16, 2009

Costello, currently working as a university lecturer in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, prefers mutual funds to stocks because funds do not require the daily attention that stocks do, he said.

In particular, he likes investing in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, because some of the best global investment funds are found in these rapidly-growing nations. However, even they haven't been immune to the calamities of the financial crisis.

"The last year has been terrible," he said, as he lost up to 30 percent on his investments. Now, however, most of his investments are nearly back to pre-crisis levels, and Costello still sees reason to believe that further investments will pay off.

"I wish I had started investing when I was in my early 20s," said Costello, who was in his mid-20s when he began. "I'm really concerned about my own retirement, so that's what I'm preparing for," he said.

"You're training yourself to put aside part of your monthly income. The closer you are to retirement the more important it is to have a nest egg."

Read the full article here.

Do the BRICs know? US Still Largest Manufacturer?

The U.S.A. Is Still the World's Largest Manufacturer

Full story here.

You Can't Goh Rong: Thieves Market

Worst BRIC China Becomes Best Buy for Fisher, Schiff

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- China’s stocks, the worst performers among the largest emerging markets in the third quarter, are poised to rebound as investors say shares are too cheap to pass up with economic growth accelerating.

Read full story here.

Project Risk Management

Project Risk Management

Having planned the time, cost, quality and risks of your project, is there any impact on your objectives? What re-negotiation of the objectives is necessary with key stakeholders?

Impact of time planning elements: The realities of research planning are catching up with me. There would be few opportunities to work independently of a stakeholder led PhD project other than full-time in nature as my scope requires adjustment to real world standards which I am learning through this course and the realities my classmates appear to be facing.

Impact of cost planning elements: I had to reduce my self-appointed hourly consulting rates by 20% to realistically acquire annual budget resources potentially available. It pains me to make such an adaptation because I see it as a concession to the limitations of research funding evident in the systematic adoption of financial standards - which on the surface - appear to provide no obvious accountability measures for their allotments. I have been taught never to concede in business negotiations without receiving or demanding a reciprocal concession in return. For all of my costs and budget plans I should be able to observe those measures of funding allocations on a fully transparent level considering the best-practices approach I would like to fully integrate into my proposal. Otherwise I might suspect negotiations in bad faith.

Impact of risk planning elements: Attempting to minimize sacrificial income and opportunities costs and losses, I realize there is a trade-off but the net benefit of pursuing a research PhD might in fact be a negative proposition in terms of costs versus benefits analysis. To see a potential and reasonable doubling of income at the conclusion of PhD studies might be delayed or extended an additional two to three years beyond completion of the project itself whereby a sufficient number of published and peer-reviewed articles based upon it could be offered as evidence of competency necessary for the most lucrative research and teaching contracts in the USA. Failure to acquire sufficient funding to minimize opportunities costs would be the most significant risk factor with the potential to shut-down the project completely. Already approaching my forties would I perhaps see better returns on investment simply in mutual funds, indexed bond market funds and other generally applied business investment options? So far my goals in studies have been to make them pay for themselves and at a moderate level of risk.



Renegotiation of objectives: If the stakeholders are amenable to my objectives it would be based on my ability to “sell them” on the novel and unique approach of my research proposal which at the same time requires reorganisation based on the careful tutelage and recommendations of our instructor Gillian White at UTS. For example, I need to reorder assumptions and constraints in line with objectives, provide possibly fewer key focus points in the research objectives to ooze "inkily" with clarity and credibility.

How will you manage the risk you have identified with the highest priority?

Possibly I am the greatest risk to my own project? A Canadian building an Australian educational portfolio acquired while working in the UAE, cramming in OZ and returning to Korea and focusing a research proposal on an island nation called New Zealand? Is that particularly unique? Furthermore the refugee status of my humanities based undergraduate studies in the business world where roughly 80-90% of all business instructors originated should count par for the course where I have applied the precepts of international trade and business to my study and work experiences quite literally.

For example my current job appears to be up for further renewal and at four years in this position it is the longest term of paid employment in my working history. At the same time I am fully aware of this and each day feels like a step into the unknown beyond my generally term-contracted sense of employment. At the same time it sometimes feels difficult imagining working any where else. Even Professor Gugler in Switzerland recommends I remain here.

There might be more than a few Canadians who know exactly the kind of credibility I possess and demonstrate – stubborn persistence- is it grown from adaptations to forty below? I am perpetually unwilling to concede defeat tsomething I appear to share in common with my Korean employers. For a myriad of reasons I find cultural and economic barriers to personal growth greater in my own nation than many others which allows for opportunities of employment and experience with few global limitations as a reciprocal benefit of having few opportunities "at home."



My greatest risk is perhaps that of the approbation of nationally-based academics who often abhor the prospect of overseas work themselves and their perceived quality of my studies and work experiences at committee levels - perhaps a sense that I have failed to achieve acceptable goals.

On the contrary I feel blessed. I am one of the four out of ten people who get to work in the field of study for which they were prepared. For my MIB I didn’t pick UOW by accident. They are out there on the frontiers of international trade and business just the way I am completing contracts onward and upward offshore where the winds of challenge do often blow much stronger than in a cosy home port.

UOW was the longest running first entrant to the UAE market which impressed me. My online studies are sourced from the best of the pack: Concordia, Cornell, Notre Dame, and now fortunately QUT. This course is teaching me how to mitigate risks in this project proposal process and the biggest risk appears to be my credibility. Hard to believe I made the Dean’s List at UOW in 2004. I only found out a few weeks ago when I received a letter recommending me for doctoral research.

At the same time I may appear as simply an egg-head or a pseudo-intellectual no matter what self-improvement efforts I attempt to acquire. Being bald, I know I am not a scam artist. In Korea I appear to remain an asset especially if I keep learning, teaching and smiling.

So far.

Funny...I always thought this was a Korean song...

Joe Clark on Canadian Diaspora