Classifying My Research Potential

Classifying My Research Potential

1.Which elements of your research would you consider ‘pure’ and which ‘applied’? Why? If this distinction makes no sense, or has no use, explain why.

Virtually all of my research could be considered pure in the sense that while educationally qualified for my employment as a lecturer/assistant professor of international trade/business little of my teaching actually required my education beyond a BA degree. Completing MIB in 2004 paid for itself in my current role since 2006. However eight and three-quarters certificates later little of my research is actually applied. Perhaps some of my negotiation training is applied.

Reading and learning have been reliable and loyal entertainments for me while instructing students who increasingly dictate English content and skills development at the university level in South Korea. Over the last decade progressively lower net returns on higher studies have possibly engendered a generation of students perhaps less-equipped to meet the progressive challenges of the 21st century than their parents.

Unfortunately for me Koreans are more likely to apply their own research rather than the interpretations of expatriates. When they officially call on foreigners they appear to prefer Ivy Leaguers to bootstrappers. This may be the only way they can often justify listening to the opinions of outsiders to certain nationalist or protectionist political elements who often attempt to stall any local progressive globalizing of collective thought.

2. Which IP regime is most appropriate to your research in regard to its potential for commercialisation? Can you perceive any challenges to the protection of your IP under this regime?

International knowledge relationships and engagement are most appropriate for the potential of my research commercialization as described in, “Knowledge Transfer And Australian Universities And Publicly Funded Research Agencies” (March, 2006) representing consulting, contract research, or education and training contracts or long-term alliances for achieving goals with mutual benefit, curriculum alignments with industry needs, business and communities or student placements and projects in business and community organizations.

Confidentiality for primary and secondary market research as a paid research associate requires signed articles of nondisclosure. For example, terms of agreement under APEC require giving all rights to research to APEC Secretariat. This is not really a challenge to IP protection. Other unpaid assignments such as columns with the Korea Herald or future assignments with Korea Institute of Management Evaluation would not be generated other than at their request either so agreed monetary payments and/or free local publicity are beneficial gains for contributing research.

3. Describe the circumstances in which it would be necessary or reasonable for you to insist on a written confidentiality agreement. If no such circumstances exist, explain why.

One signs confidentiality agreements often as a contractor for provisional research assignments which usually arrive unexpectedly and offer short-term remuneration for local information gathering activities. For example, if one was acting as a senior national consultant with a large NGO and requested or required an assistant or consulting partner to complete either desk or interview research requirements this would be sub-contracting and it would be in best interests to ensure that terms and conditions were as similar or more stringent to original agreement terms of research as possible.

In future, this might become more relevant if and when developing a larger scope of project proposal submissions then requiring confidentiality agreements would be a common request made to research team members.

However in Korea, terms of legal enforcement and local laws do not often correspond on a global level with many other nations’ and thus the personal relationship and reliability of any and all contractors or subcontractors in terms of confidentiality would be perhaps of greater importance than the terms of research itself. This is the ethical grey area of international business in that ethical people are positioned in every nation globally and it is in the interests of effective project managers to have the skills to quickly find and identify them when needed.

4. What is your definition of ‘commercialisation’, and how does this definition fit with your research agenda?

My personal definition of commercialisation would be to maximize my return on knowledge base and support benefits while working in Korea specifically or abroad generally. Successful commercialisation of my primary and secondary research skills would see me completing at least one and perhaps two local research projects a year with the modest goal of matching my current income or a doubling of that income earned over a period of eight months full-time work with four months paid holidays with concurrent four months durations of paid research contracts on the side.

The topics of such research are as wide as the scope of international trade or business itself or as narrow as my particular capacities in international business planning, global supply chain logistics, international trade research, or cross-cultural management behaviour/quality management policies.

If such a goal could be sustained over a period of the following three years this would provide me with a substantial track record in project research globally and would assist self-financing or supplement scholarship studies under any of a number of possible PhD programs in the field of IB research. Short research contracts would provide for example, “part-time jobs” required to sustain any PhD student during full-time studies. My network is decidedly sparse in this regard.