The new middle class meets the creative class : the Master of Business Administration (MBA) and creative innovation in 21st-century China

‘MBA fever’ in China needs to be understood in the wider context of forces driving structural change in China’s relation to the global knowledge economy. The rise of a ‘new middle class’ in China is connected to the new claims for cultural leadership of an emergent ‘creative class’, which generates new issues about the relevance of the MBA in China, in terms of its relevance to Chinese economic circumstances, and its flexibility and capacity to respond to accumulation strategies that emphasise innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.

An Interview with Sylvère Lotringer, Jean Baudrillard Chair at the European Graduate School and Professor Emeritus of French Literature and Philosophy at Columbia University, on the Architectural Contribution to Semiotext(e), Schizoculture, and the Early Deleuze and Guattari Scene at Columbia University

An Interview with Sylvère Lotringer, Jean Baudrillard Chair at the European Graduate School and Professor Emeritus of French Literature and Philosophy at Columbia University, on the Architectural Contribution to Semiotext(e), Schizoculture, and the Early Deleuze and Guattari Scene at Columbia University, which took place at the Department of French, Columbia University, New York City, July 2003. This interview exists as an audio cassette tape recording.

The Deleuze Spray, New York 1977 : an Interview with Sanford Kwinter, Professor of Architectural Theory and Criticism at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, on the Architectural Reception of Gilles Deleuze in America

So what do you want to know? I was in Paris between ‘75 and ‘78. But about half way through, Sylvère published the Anti-Oedipus issue of Semiotext(e) and, actually, that was for me one of the deciding events that made me decide to come to the United States, to come study at Columbia University. There appeared to be this little group working at Columbia working around these issues. In 1970, in Paris even, Deleuze was a cult – there was an incredibly small number of people following Deleuze... A transcript of my Interview with Kwinter about the Architectural Reception of Deleuze in America, which took place at Jerry’s,' Soho, New York, 15 January 2003. The transcript appeared as an Appendix at the back of my Masters Thesis undertaken at Yale School of Architecture, printed May 2003.

Administrative Placement of the Information Systems Discipline in Universities - A SWOT Analysis of Queensland University of Technology

In some Queensland universities, Information Systems academics have moved out of Business Faculties. This study uses a pilot SWOT analysis to examine the ramifications of Information Systems academics being located within or outside of the Business Faculty. The analysis provides a useful basis for decision makers in the School studied, to exploit opportunities and minimise external threats. For Information Systems academics contemplating administrative relocation of their group, the study also offers useful insights. The study presages a series of further SWOT analyses to provide a range of perspectives on the relative merits of having Information Systems academics administratively located inside versus outside Business faculties.

Trust and strong ties in the selection and evaluation of business advisors by small firms

Principal Topic A small firm is unlikely to possess internally the full range of knowledge and skills that it requires or could benefit from for the development of its business. The ability to acquire suitable external expertise - defined as knowledge or competence that is rare in the firm and acquired from the outside - when needed thus becomes a competitive factor in itself. Access to external expertise enables the firm to focus on its core competencies and removes the necessity to internalize every skill and competence. However, research on how small firms access external expertise is still scarce. The present study contributes to this under-developed discussion by analysing the role of trust and strong ties in the small firm's selection and evaluation of sources of external expertise (henceforth referred to as the 'business advisor' or 'advisor'). Granovetter (1973, 1361) defines the strength of a network tie as 'a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding) and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie'. Strong ties in the context of the present investigation refer to sources of external expertise who are well known to the owner-manager, and who may be either informal (e.g., family, friends) or professional advisors (e.g., consultants, enterprise support officers, accountants or solicitors). Previous research has suggested that strong and weak ties have different fortes and the choice of business advisors could thus be critical to business performance) While previous research results suggest that small businesses favour previously well known business advisors, prior studies have also pointed out that an excessive reliance on a network of well known actors might hamper business development, as the range of expertise available through strong ties is limited. But are owner-managers of small businesses aware of this limitation and does it matter to them? Or does working with a well-known advisor compensate for it? Hence, our research model first examines the impact of the strength of tie on the business advisor's perceived performance. Next, we ask what encourages a small business owner-manager to seek advice from a strong tie. A recent exploratory study by Welter and Kautonen (2005) drew attention to the central role of trust in this context. However, while their study found support for the general proposition that trust plays an important role in the choice of advisors, how trust and its different dimensions actually affect this choice remained ambiguous. The present paper develops this discussion by considering the impact of the different dimensions of perceived trustworthiness, defined as benevolence, integrity and ability, on the strength of tie. Further, we suggest that the dimensions of perceived trustworthiness relevant in the choice of a strong tie vary between professional and informal advisors. Methodology/Key Propositions Our propositions are examined empirically based on survey data comprising 153 Finnish small businesses. The data are analysed utilizing the partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modelling with SmartPLS 2.0. Being non-parametric, the PLS algorithm is particularly well-suited to analysing small datasets with non-normally distributed variables. Results and Implications The path model shows that the stronger the tie, the more positively the advisor's performance is perceived. Hypothesis 1, that strong ties will be associated with higher perceptions of performance is clearly supported. Benevolence is clearly the most significant predictor of the choice of a strong tie for external expertise. While ability also reaches a moderate level of statistical significance, integrity does not have a statistically significant impact on the choice of a strong tie. Hence, we found support for two out of three independent variables included in Hypothesis 2. Path coefficients differed between the professional and informal advisor subsamples. The results of the exploratory group comparison show that Hypothesis 3a regarding ability being associated with strong ties more pronouncedly when choosing a professional advisor was not supported. Hypothesis 3b arguing that benevolence is more strongly associated with strong ties in the context of choosing an informal advisor received some support because the path coefficient in the informal advisor subsample was much larger than in the professional advisor subsample. Hypothesis 3c postulating that integrity would be more strongly associated with strong ties in the choice of a professional advisor was supported. Integrity is the most important dimension of trustworthiness in this context. However, integrity is of no concern, or even negative, when using strong ties to choose an informal advisor. The findings of this study have practical relevance to the enterprise support community. First of all, given that the strength of tie has a significant positive impact on the advisor's perceived performance, this implies that small business owners appreciate working with advisors in long-term relationships. Therefore, advisors are well advised to invest into relationship building and maintenance in their work with small firms. Secondly, the results show that, especially in the context of professional advisors, the advisor's perceived integrity and benevolence weigh more than ability. This again emphasizes the need to invest time and effort into building a personal relationship with the owner-manager, rather than merely maintaining a professional image and credentials. Finally, this study demonstrates that the dimensions of perceived trustworthiness are orthogonal with different effects on the strength of tie and ultimately perceived performance. This means that entrepreneurs and advisors should consider the specific dimensions of ability, benevolence and integrity, rather than rely on general perceptions of trustworthiness in their advice relationships.

Practising public relations in the global community of the 21st century : a comparison of business practices and culture in three world regions

Non-Western practitioners across the globe instinctively attempt to implement Western-based public relations models and theories, often unsuccessfully, regardless of their surrounding environment. This paper reviews business practices and reveals that in Europe, company interests are a main priority, while in Asia, the line between business and personal relationships is extremely blurred. Cultural dimensions and topois were even more varied between the three regions. Implications for the adoption of Western models of public relations practice are discussed.

Diffusion of business improvement processes in manufacturing companies in India

Manufacturing organisations spend more on Business Process Improvement initiatives to make them more competitive in growing global market. This paper presents a Rapid Improvement Workshop (RIW) framework which companies can used to identify the critical factors regulating the diffusion of business process improvement in their company. The framework can then be used address how process improvement can be efficiently implemented. We use the results from case studies at Caterpillar India. The paper identifies the critical factors that contribute to the successful implementation of process improvement programs in manufacturing organisations. We further identify certain technological and cultural barriers to the implementation of process improvement programs and how Indian manufacturing companies can overcome these barriers to attain competitive advantage in the global markets.

For the better or the worse? The impact of business idea changes on new venture performance and novelty

Should new ventures stick to their knitting once they start commercialising or should they engage in frequent changes of their business idea? In this paper we argue that new ventures still need to learn their way in the early phases of commercialisation and that changes are good, but subject to two important contingencies. First is that changes should be aimed at enhancing uniqueness, which in turn enhances new venture performance. Second is that our results show that changes have limited affect on uniqueness and performance for entrepreneurs aiming at maximising opportunities, but that changing the business idea has a significant positive impact for entrepreneurs focusing on minimising losses. Our findings indicate that entrepreneurs aiming at minimising losses may offset their initial disadvantages by engaging in a series of adaptations of the business idea to gain higher performance and a more unique product offering.

A comparative analysis of business analysis (BA) and business process management (BPM) capabilities

Many initiatives to improve Business processes are emerging. The essential roles and contributions of Business Analyst (BA) and Business Process Management (BPM) professionals to such initiatives have been recognized in literature and practice. The roles and responsibilities of a BA or BPM practitioner typically require different skill-sets; however these differences are often vague. This vagueness creates much confusion in practice and academia. While both the BA and BPM communities have made attempts to describe their domains through capability defining empirical research and developments of Bodies of knowledge, there has not yet been any attempt to identify the commonality of skills required and points of uniqueness between the two professions. This study aims to address this gap and presents the findings of a detailed content mapping exercise (using NVivo as a qualitative data analysis tool) of the International Institution of Business Analysis (IIBA®) Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide) against core BPM competency and capability frameworks.

Learning or legitimacy? an exploration of business planning amongst Australian social enterprises

In recent years, the value of business planning for new business ventures and small firms has been the subject of debate amongst entrepreneurship researchers (Brinckmann et al 2010: 24). Drawing on institutional theory, a number of writers suggest that business planning is primarily used to confer symbolic legitimacy on businesses seeking investment and engagement from external stakeholders ( Karlsson & Honig 2009; Zimmerman & Zeitz 2002; Delmar & Shane 2004). In this sense, business planning may not have any significant effects on firm learning, but may be used as evidence of good business operations in order to attract external resources. Meta-evaluation of the available empirical literature contests this proposition, finding that both the symbolic and organisational learning effects of business planning influence small firm performance (Brinckmann et al 2010: 36) While social enterprise – which we define as organisations that exist for a public or community benefit and trade to fulfill their mission - the study of social enterprise is a nascent and pre-paradigmatic area of inquiry (Nicholls 2010). As a consequence, there has been relatively little empirical analysis of the nature or effects of business planning amongst social enterprises (for two exceptions, see exploratory studies by Hynes 2009 and Bull & Crompton 2006). In this paper, we examine business planning practices amongst Australian social enterprises. Drawing on a survey of 365 social enterprises conducted in 2010 and in-depth interviews with 11 social entrepreneurs and managers from eight social enterprises, we find that social enterprises report being more actively engaged in business planning activities than their mainstream business counterparts. Our exploratory research suggests that both legitimacy and learning drive business planning amongst social enterprises, although legitimacy is the stronger driver. Our results also suggest that, as multi-stakeholder businesses led by mission, business planning can serve unique communicative and relational functions for this business type.

Virtual worlds as a model-view approach to the communication of business processes models

The improvement and optimization of business processes is one of the top priorities in an organization. Although process analysis methods are mature today, business analysts and stakeholders are still hampered by communication issues. That is, analysts cannot effectively obtain accurate business requirements from stakeholders, and stakeholders are often confused about analytic results offered by analysts. We argue that using a virtual world to model a business process can benefit communication activities. We believe that virtual worlds can be used as an efficient model-view approach, increasing the cognition of business requirements and analytic results, as well as the possibility of business plan validation. A healthcare case study is provided as an approach instance, illustrating how intuitive such an approach can be. As an exploration paper, we believe that this promising research can encourage people to investigate more research topics in the interdisciplinary area of information system, visualization and multi-user virtual worlds.

Challenges in the context-aware management of business processes : a multiple case study

Current conceptualizations of organizational processes consider them as internally optimized yet static systems. Still, turbulences in the contextual environment of a firm often lead to adaptation requirements that these processes are unable to fulfil. Based on a multiple case study of the core processes of two large organizations, we offer an extended conceptualisation of business processes as complex adaptive systems. This conceptualization can enable firms to optimise business processes by analysing operations in different contexts and by examining the complex interaction between external, contextual elements and internal agent schemata. From this analysis, we discuss how information technology can play a vital goal in achieving this goal by providing discovery, analysis, and automation support. We detail implications for research and practice.

Transnational higher education programs for facilitating inter-university knowledge transfer : University of Indonesia’s experience

This paper explores the impacts and extent of knowledge transfer (KT) in an undergraduate engineering transnational program with an Australian university partner at the University of Indonesia (UI) using an inter-university KT conceptual framework (Sutrisno, Lisana, & Pillay 2012). For the purpose of this paper, the opportunity for KT in curriculum design is examined. Given the explicit nature of curriculum knowledge, assessing each partner’s curriculum was pivotal in allowing UI to enrich its own curriculum. The KT mechanism of face-to-face contact between Indonesian and Australian academics led to not only transfer of knowledge related to the curriculum of the undergraduate program but also to other cooperation beyond the transnational program in the form of joint research and joint supervision of post-graduate theses. Positive inter-university dynamics, such as trust and willingness to work together between the partners were underpinned by the presence of key actors from both sides at the earlier stages of the partnership. Retrospectively exploring the KT process in the UI’s transnational programs with its Australian partner suggests that there have been both structured and unstructured mechanisms, highlighting the ubiquitous and unbounded nature of KT between universities. While initially successful in facilitating KT, due to rapid succession of persons in charge of the program and the increasing focus on revenue generation, the useful lessons and practices unfortunately are being lost. Although the intention to use the transnational program for KT was always implied, it gradually was overlooked by newer staff members. Based on UI’s experience as the first provider of transnational program in Indonesia and other similar cases in China, seemingly transnational programs driven by short-term immediate financial return are unsuccessful in facilitating KT due to sensitivities to unfavourable economic situation. Those that remain operational and contribute to knowledge exchange between the partners apparently have genuine long-term engagement objective.

Fundamentals of business process management

Encompasses the whole BPM lifecycle, including process identification, modelling, analysis, redesign, automation and monitoring Class-tested textbook complemented with additional teaching material on the accompanying website Covers both relevant conceptual background, industrial standards and actionable skills Business Process Management (BPM) is the art and science of how work should be performed in an organization in order to ensure consistent outputs and to take advantage of improvement opportunities, e.g. reducing costs, execution times or error rates. Importantly, BPM is not about improving the way individual activities are performed, but rather about managing entire chains of events, activities and decisions that ultimately produce added value for an organization and its customers. This textbook encompasses the entire BPM lifecycle, from process identification to process monitoring, covering along the way process modelling, analysis, redesign and automation. Concepts, methods and tools from business management, computer science and industrial engineering are blended into one comprehensive and inter-disciplinary approach. The presentation is illustrated using the BPMN industry standard defined by the Object Management Group and widely endorsed by practitioners and vendors worldwide. In addition to explaining the relevant conceptual background, the book provides dozens of examples, more than 100 hands-on exercises – many with solutions – as well as numerous suggestions for further reading. The textbook is the result of many years of combined teaching experience of the authors, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as in the context of professional training. Students and professionals from both business management and computer science will benefit from the step-by-step style of the textbook and its focus on fundamental concepts and proven methods. Lecturers will appreciate the class-tested format and the additional teaching material available on the accompanying website fundamentals-of-bpm.org.

A critical analysis of business process management education and alignment with industry demand : an Australian perspective

Business Process Management (BPM) is accepted globally as an organizational approach to enhance productivity and drive cost efficiencies. Studies confirm a shortage of BPM skilled professionals with limited opportunities to develop the required BPM expertise. This study investigates this gap starting from a critical analysis of BPM courses offered by Australian universities and training institutions. These courses were analyzed and mapped against a leading BPM capability framework to determine how well current BPM education and training offerings in Australia address the core capabilities required by BPM professionals globally. To determine the BPM skill-sets sought by industry, online recruitment advertisements were collated, analyzed, and mapped against this BPM capability framework. The outcomes provide a detailed overview on the alignment of available BPM education/training and industry demand. These insights are useful for BPM professionals and their employers to build awareness of the BPM capabilities required for a BPM mature organization. Universities and other training institutions will benefit from these results by understanding where demand is, where the gaps are, and what other BPM education providers are supplying. This structured comparison method could continue to provide a common ground for future discussion across university-industry boundaries and continuous alignment of their respective practices.