Beedie School of Business News

Every year, corporations establish thousands of joint ventures (JVs), investing hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, between 25% and 40% of all foreign investments take place via equity JVs. The use of JVs and strategic alliances has been rapidly growing. JVs require an open mind, and the willingness to work through testing strategic logic; partnership and fit; shape and design; and operating the JV. Contrary to the perceptions of some, JVs can be just as profitable and survive just as long as wholly owned subsidiaries. They can in fact be effectively managed. They are not going to cause a firm to lose its proprietary technology. True JVs can result in more stable and sustainable business, benefiting all partners, in whatever country they are located.

Paul Beamish is a Professor of International Business at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and has worked as a joint venture facilitator for Fortune 500 and other corporations for many years. He is the author or co-author of over 50 books, and 100 refereed articles. His books are in the areas of International Management, Strategic Management, and especially Joint Ventures and Alliances. In 1997 and again in 2003 he was recognized in the Journal of International Management as one of the top three contributors worldwide to the international strategic management literature in the previous decade, and by International Business Review in 2010 as the second most productive I.B. scholar in the 1996-2008 period.

Date: Monday, September 20, 2010

Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm with reception to follow

Location: 500 Granville Street, Segal Graduate School of Business

RSVP: Admission is free, but seating is limited. Reservations are required. Please register at business.sfu.ca/distinguished.

SFU Business is proud to host the SFU – Nancy McKinstry Awards for Leadership in Diversity at the Segal Graduate School of Business on September 29, 2010. The awards recognize those who have shown exemplary leadership in advancing the cause of diversity in business.  Last year tickets for this inspirational breakfast sold out in only two weeks, so be sure to reserve yours today.

A corporate award will be presented to an organization that exemplifies the values of diversity in the workplace and a graduate student scholarship is given to an SFU Faculty of Business Administration graduate student who has been a leader in promoting opportunities for women. This year’s corporate award finalists are Ernst & Young, KPMG and Scotiabank.

This year’s keynote speaker for this breakfast event is SFU Business alumnus Ms. Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer at RBC. Based in Toronto, Ms. Hirji is recognized internationally for her leadership in the area of diversity hiring, building cultural competency and championing the advancement of women, visible minorities and new immigrants.

The SFU Nancy McKinstry Awards for Leadership in Diversity were established in 2009 to honour Dr. Nancy McKinstry for her contributions to Simon Fraser University as Chair of the Board of Governors. Dr. McKinstry is currently chair of the ICBC board of directors, is a founding member of the Minerva Foundation for BC Women and has served on many corporate and non-profit boards in recent years. In recognition of her industry and community contributions, Dr. McKinstry has received many awards including: the Order of Canada, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and an honorary Doctorate from Simon Fraser University.

Location: Segal Graduate School of Business, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver
Registration and Reception: 7:00am
Breakfast & Award Presentation: 7:20am
Dress: Business attire
Cost: $65 per person

PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT.

If you wish to be put on a waitlist, please click here or contact us at events@sfu.ca, phone 778-782-5913.

Special Thanks to our Event Sponsors

New classroom-inspired research focused on organizational reshuffling from the Faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University is garnering significant international attention, thanks to its publication in the August edition of the Wall Street Journal’s Executive Adviser.

Gervase Bushe, the lead researcher and a professor of leadership and organizational development at SFU Business (pictured right), looked at how to enable the success of “fluid teams” – those workplace teams that are subject to a higher rate of turnover.

His work was inspired by MBA students from his classroom, who as part of their class project identified ways to overcome some of the problems associated with fluid teams, which include a lack of cohesion and low commitment.

The students — Alexandra Chu, Oba Harding, Andrew Johnson, Charles Lo and Jessica Oman – not only identified solutions to unstable membership within organizations, but also coined the the term fluid teams.

Some of the strategies that Prof. Bushe and his students recommend for companies experiencing high fluidity within teams include:

- Standardizing team members’ roles as much as possible, so they don’t need to acquire lots of knowledge on the job
- Making sure teams have some stable membership. Find individuals with lots of accumulated knowledge and keep them on teams to guide new members and help them get the hang of the job.
- Because it’s difficult to achieve a shared approach, making team members’ roles as independent as possible, so that they don’t need to develop shared ways of thinking.
- Making each team member’s actions highly visible to avoid individuals getting a “free ride” at others’ expense

According to Prof. Bushe, the subject of enhancing fluid teams caught his attention because “it breaks all the rules. The way to design organizations for teams where people are always coming and going is in some ways the opposite of how to design for normal teams,” he said.

Bushe has been studying and consulting to teams and team-based organizations for close to 30 years. His recent publications include “Clear Leadership,” a book about the skills required for leading and working in highly collaborative organizations, and a paper on group development and team effectiveness, co-authored with Graeme Coetzer, which won the Douglas McGregor Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science in 2007.

To read the article in the Wall Street Journal in its entirety, visit:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145950278914776.html

The Wall Street Journal’s August edition of WSJ Executive Adviser can be viewed at:
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/executive-adviser-08232010.html

By Peter M. Tingling and Michael J. Brydon

Many managers think they’ve committed their organizations to evidence-based decision making — but have instead, without realizing it, committed to decision-based evidence making. Is that all bad? What can be done to fix it? In recent years, much has been written about evidence-based- or fact-based- decision making. The core idea is that decisions supported by hard facts and sound analysis are likely to be better than decisions made on the basis of instinct, folklore or informal anecdotal evidence. And many organizations have invested heavily in data processing infrastructure and analytical tools based on assumption that better evidence-based decision will follow from these investments.

Research by SFU Business professors Peter Tingling and Michael Brydon, published recently in the MIT Sloan Management Review, suggests that evidence is not as frequent an input to a decision process as managers like to think. Instead, what occurs is decision-based evidence making – sometimes without managers even understanding that it’s happening. The authors address three key questions: Why does decision-based evidence making occur in organizations? Is decision-based evidence making the necessarily bad? And, if decision-based evidence making is inevitable in organizations, what can be done to lessen its negative impacts?

To help answer those questions, the authors explain how decision making is affected by the contexts in which problems are presented- and how those contexts can demand different ways of using evidence, depending on whether the evidence is being used to make, inform or support a decision.

To view the full article at MIT Sloan Management View, click here.

SFU Business is pleased to host this year’s Courage to Soar 2010 Conference, a national event from August 13 to 18 that brings young leaders from across the country to Vancouver to engage with other leaders.

Youth in Motion’s 4th Annual Courage to Soar Leadership Conference — sponsored by Freedom 55 Financial and hosted by Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Business Administration – is a dynamic leadership development opportunity available only to Top 20 Under 20 recipients and finalists.

The Top 20 Under 20 was created by Youth in Motion to celebrate and honour Canadians who have demonstrated a significant level of innovation, leadership and achievement but have not yet reached the age of 20.

The conference program developed this year is highly interactive to maximize learning and relationship‐building, and to enable each participant the chance to gain a broader perspective on leadership and its role in the success of our country and the world. Attendees will take part in team building and leadership development exercises, seminars, workshops and presentations.

In addition, alliances and friendships are forged during Courage to Soar – what has emerged are new social enterprises, new business ventures, heightened passions to make change, and an awareness that those who stand as models in their communities exist and are accessible as friends.

For more information, visit: http://www.top20under20.ca/en/Courage/Courage.htm

For photos of the event, visit: http://www.top20under20.ca/en/Courage/2010Photos.htm

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For more information about this year’s event, contact Sam Thiara, Manager, Student Engagement and Recruitment, SFU Business: sthiara@sfu.ca

It’s possible to run a profitable business in Second Life, a 3-D virtual world where users can socialize with each other through avatars. That’s the conclusion of a Simon Fraser University case study.

SFU business professors Leyland Pitt and Michael Parent, and PhD students Anjali Bal (SFU Business) and Wade Halvorson (Lulea University of Technology, Sweden) have won an award from the Academy of Marketing for their investigation of Second Life’s business and marketing practices.

“Cashing in on the Green Dots: Marketing Ireland in Second Life” earned them the Pearson Education prize for best case study paper at the Academy of Marketing Conference in England. The conference is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom.

The 2010 Pearson Education Prize marks the third year in succession that the best case study honour has gone to SFU’s Faculty of Business Administration. This year’s winner concerns Virtual Dublin, a successful online business in Second Life, where people can create and trade virtual property, travel, and participate in activities.

Virtual Dublin was created by Irish developer John Mahon, whose e-marketing campaign was built around sponsoring a range of events and activities in a digital replica of the real-world Dublin. The business model took full advantage of Second Life’s immersive environment to offer real-world advertisers the opportunity to replicate and extend their advertising campaigns into the virtual world.

The SFU Business case study demonstrated the viability of a moderately profitable enterprise on Second Life – one that included advertising that, unlike traditional ads, was “imbued into the fabric of the experience… residents had an ambient awareness of them.”

The business idea, say the researchers, “combined the virtual and the real-world models, but not by selling the same good or service in real and virtual worlds, but by bringing real-world advertisers into the virtual world.”

Parent says virtual ads can have a greater impact than real ones.

“In the first place, you are attracting real people to the site who already have a predisposition to being there, and a relationship with the brand – in this case, Dublin – being represented. Compare this to a billboard or a newspaper ad, which most people don’t even see, and you can see the power of virtual advertising – when it’s done properly,” he says.

“Most companies and advertisers don’t ‘get’ virtual worlds, Web 2.0, social media, and all of these new applications that are flooding society. Our study shows them how a company can take advantage of an existing market, and draw attention from willing, interested and motivated users.”

Business cases are often used as part of the case teaching method, an experiential learning approach that is popular with some business schools, and one made well known by Harvard Business School. “Cashing in on the Green Dots: Marketing Ireland in Second Life” is already being taught to business students on two continents.

Ahmed Medina, who completed the Management of Technology MBA at Simon Fraser University in 2007, has been selected as a winner in the BC Innovation Council’s Entrepreneurship @ Wavefront competition for wireless concepts. His company, Revonet Consulting, underscores the growing innovation in the wireless sector in British Columbia in recent years.

Medina’s business model, which revolves around a scheduling tool for smart phones, was conceived in the Marketing/Finance course that he took during the technology-geared MBA program.

In addition to Revonet, Wavefront, the community-based commercialization centre supporting the growth of Canada’s wireless and new media development companies, announced seven other companies chosen to participate in the Entrepreneurship@Wavefront program.

The new program is offered in partnership with the BCIC to support and nurture early-stage B.C. wireless companies from concept to commercialization over 12 months.

“We were impressed by the quality of the applicants,” said James Maynard, President at Wavefront. “The response reaffirmed our belief that B.C. is a growing hub for wireless innovation. Many of these ideas and technologies have the potential to be very significant business opportunities.”

Applicants were evaluated by leaders from Wavefront, BCIC, and the venture capital and investment community. Selected companies ranged from an application maker with technology supporting healthy lifestyle choices to one that enables utility companies to identify electrical distribution losses.

Selected wireless companies receive office space in Wavefront’s collaborative wireless incubator environment for one year and access to Wavefront’s advisory and testing services including its handset library, usability services, refinement of business development strategies and industry connections.

Participants for the 2010 Entrepreneurship@Wavefront program are:

• Revonet Consulting Inc.—whose Memor appointment solutions software that uses wireless phones to synchronize appointments between businesses and their customers
• Awesense Wireless—who designed a platform solution to help utility companies identify electrical distribution losses to quickly and easily increase efficiencies and recover lost revenue
• D2D Campaign Solutions—who provide a mobile campaign platform to augment face-to-face communications in building and mobilizing a support base
• ikamobile Limited—who created Movie Finder to help Android users search for movies playing at local cinemas in 16 countries
• Marine Drive Mobile—who deliver universal accessibility for people with visual and dexterity challenges
• PortaLife Solutions, Inc.—who develop mobile solutions for healthy lifestyles including CarrotLines, a mobile application to help consumers make informed buying decisions based on their dietary and lifestyle preferences
• QRL—who increases customer loyalty and profits for restaurant operators by enabling customers to participate in a loyalty program on a self-serve basis using their smartphones
• Single Digit Labs—who are creating new and captivating ways of using camera smartphones

“We were impressed by the quality of the applicants,” said James Maynard, President at Wavefront. “The response reaffirmed our belief that B.C. is a growing hub for wireless innovation. Many of these ideas and technologies have the potential to be very significant business opportunities.”

“These are very promising early-stage wireless companies,” said Dean Rockwell, CEO of BCIC. “Wavefront has a proven track record of finding and nurturing wireless companies. BCIC is proud to partner with Wavefront in the delivery of the Entrepreneurship@Wavefront program. Together we are helping to shape our provinces’ entrepreneurship ecosystem to support technology startups from idea to market, fueling economic development and BC’s position in the knowledge economy.”

Participants, who this week began to move into the office space included as part of the program, will meet with Wavefront staff to present more information about their companies, develop an action plan for commercialization, and determine the most effective mix of Wavefront expertise to accelerate their businesses forward.

A full list of program features and benefits is available online at http://www.wavefrontac.com/entrepreneurship-at-wavefront.html.

An in-depth investigation of business and marketing practices on Second Life by researchers from Simon Fraser University has won a prestigious award from the Academy of Marketing.

SFU Business professors Leyland Pitt and Michael Parent and PhD students Anjali Bal (SFU Business) and Wade Halvorson (Lulea University of Technology, Sweden) have won the Pearson Education Prize for best case study paper at the July 2010 Academy of Marketing Conference in Coventry, England. The conference is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom.

Their study is entitled “Cashing in on the Green Dots: Marketing Ireland in Second Life”. The case concerns Virtual Dublin, a successful online business in the 3-D virtual world of Second Life.

Virtual Dublin was created by Irish developer John Mahon, whose e-marketing campaign was built around sponsoring a range of events and activities in a digital replica of the real-world Dublin. The business model took full advantage of Second Life’s immersive environment to offer real-world advertisers the opportunity to replicate and extend their advertising campaigns into the virtual world.

The SFU Business case study demonstrated the viability of a moderately profitable enterprise on Second Life – one that included Second Life advertising that, unlike traditional ads, was “imbued into the fabric of the experience… residents had an ambient awareness of them.”

The business idea, say the researchers, “combined the virtual and the real-world models, but not by selling the same good or service in real and virtual worlds, but by bringing real-world advertisers into the virtual world.”

Business cases are often used as part of the case teaching method, an experiential learning approach that is popular with some business schools, and one made well known by Harvard Business School. “Cashing in on the Green Dots: Marketing Ireland in Second Life” is already being taught to business students on two continents.

The 2010 Pearson Education Prize marks the third year in succession that the best case study honour has gone to Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Business Administration.