by Jennifer Lewington, Globe and Mail
In a 40-year history of executive MBA education at Simon Fraser University, only 10 aboriginal students came to the program. The abysmal record is typical of the under-representation of First Nations, Metis and Inuit students in higher education in Canada. Keep reading…
Tags: Aboriginal Executive MBA, Business and Leadership, Mark Selman
The recently-launched Certificate of Business Technology Management (BTM) – a program that enhances academic and career opportunities for business undergraduates immersed in the realms of technology and innovation – continues to garner significant student body interest at SFU’s Beedie School of Business.
The Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills (CCICT) and the academic community have designed the BTM certificate to provide individuals with the opportunity to learn about innovation, leadership, and implementation of change in organizations, especially in the information and communications technology area. With completion of the certificate, SFU graduates from the program will join an elite group of business professionals supported by a national coalition of employers. Keep reading…
Tags: Blaize Reich, BTM, Business Technology Management, Dianne Cyr, International Institute of Business Analysts, Project Management Institute
They’ve saved more than 1,500 pounds of nylon from landfills and in the process, taught hundreds of teens how simple sewing could help the environment. Now a student team from Simon Fraser University is being honored with a Top 3 Green City Award from the City of Surrey for their creative environmental efforts.
Their Banner Bags project was chosen in the community group category (one of three categories) at the Surrey 2011 City Awards, held at the new City Centre Library Oct. 25.
The student project was created three years ago by a team from Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), based at SFU Surrey. Students Lauren Watkin, project manager, Sonam Swarup, director of community development, and Beedie alumnus Ashish Gurung, project advisor accepted the award from Mayor Dianne Watts.
To date more than 800 banners no longer used by cities or community organizations have been turned into colourful reusable bags, produced by students in high school sewing classes led by the SIFE students.
Watkin, a Beedie School of Business undergraduate, explains: “Our efforts have made an impact. Over the past three years we have involved more than 1,000 students, saved 1,500 pounds of nylon from entering landfills and saved companies and cities approximately $6,000 in disposal and storage fees.”
Students estimated that amount of nylon in landfills could have resulted in more than 30,000 pounds of CO2 emissions.
Swarup, a communication student, was earlier named project manager at the Association of Canadian Entrepreneurs (ACE) annual national competition.
The Banner Bags program has run in more than 30 schools in the Lower Mainland and beyond, including classes in Ottawa and Vernon. Students are continuing workshops this fall and organizing a showcase for next semester.
The Green City Awards recognize leaders in environmental stewardship and celebrates the outstanding contributions of individuals, non-profit groups or community groups and businesses who go beyond expectations to enhance Surrey’s natural environment, while also educating and engaging others and creating an awareness about issues of concern.
Tags: Ashish Gurung, Banner Bags, Dianne Watts, Lauren Watkin, SFU Surrey, SIFE, Sonam Swarup, Students in Free Enterprise
From the Richmond Review
Few candidates for city council in Richmond (and Metro Vancouver more generally) have taken to social media despite it being a great way to engage voters, according to one expert.
“What surprises me more (than candidates’ lack of use) is that they haven’t realized the power of being able to tap into communities through social media,” said Michael Parent, a business professor at Simon Fraser University.
Just seven of 19 candidates for city council have accounts on Twitter—an online social networking service allowing users to send and read short posts. Five have tweeted less than 50 times. Keep reading…
Tags: Michael Parent, politics, social media
Sam Thiara, Student Engagement Manager at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, is slated to speak at the upcoming TEDxSFU, the first event of its kind hosted at Simon Fraser University. Thiara, who is also an alumnus of the business school, will be joined by fellow BBA alumnus Shawn Smith, who is co-founder of Global Agents for Change and an instructor of social entrepreneurship at the Beedie School.
The TEDxSFU organizing committee is also pleased to announce that John Furlong, CEO, Vancouver 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and Vancouver Police Department Chief Jim Chu will be speaking at the inaugural event on Saturday November 26, 2011.
Mr. Furlong and Chief Chu will join the extraordinary collection of gifted storytellers to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less. TEDxSFU is an independently organized event licensed by TED.
Hosted at Westminster Savings Theatre at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey Campus, speakers will immerse attendees in lively conversations surrounding the main theme of the event, Community Engagement. Throughout the day attendees will have the opportunity to network, connect and collaborate with one another.
“Community engagement can be interpreted in many different ways and we are so thrilled to have two renowned leaders from our own backyard offering their unique perspectives on this theme to the world.” said Michael Cheng, TEDxSFU Founder and Licensee.
The speaker lineup will also feature other leading thinkers in the realm of community engagement, including Colleen Hardwick, Founder and CEO of Placespeak.com and 10-year old Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation.
There will be a limited number of event tickets available and applications are currently being accepted. For those unable to attend in person, TEDxSFU will also be streamed live via LiveStream.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.
At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.
About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world’s leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach, California (along with a parallel conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.
TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily; the new TED Conversations, enabling broad conversations among TED fans; and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide.
TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, helping world- changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.
Tags: Jim Chu, John Furlong, Sam Thiara, Shawn Smith, Ta’Kaiya Blaney, TEDx, TEDxSFU, Vancouver Police Department
The Executive MBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership cohort at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business is responding to a growing need by Aboriginal managers and entrepreneurs, as well as individuals and organizations collaborating with Aboriginal communities, for senior-level management education. With classes commencing in 2012, the EMBA cohort is the first of its kind in the country, and will provide executive-level education that reflects the growing role of business development for First Nations.
Students in the cohort will study core management concepts and principles already included in the Executive Master of Business Administration program, but will also examine business and economic issues from the perspective of First Nations.
“The Executive MBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership is a reflection of SFU’s commitment to using its education and research resources to support Aboriginal peoples and communities,” said Andrew Petter, President of Simon Fraser University. “This program is particularly needed at a time when Aboriginal peoples are striving to overcome longstanding challenges and seeking to take advantage of new challenges.”
“The new Aboriginal Executive MBA Program is an idea whose time has come,” said William G. Lindsay (Cree-Stoney), Director of SFU’s Office for Aboriginal Peoples. “We’ve reached the stage where Aboriginal people are in senior executive positions and could use some extra training to hone their skills. Such will benefit program participants, their communities, and the business world in general.”
SFU’s Beedie School is home to Canada’s first Executive MBA program, established in 1968. The school has a longstanding history of creating customized programs such as the EMBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership to the meet the needs of individual students.
“The Beedie School of Business believes that our biggest opportunity to create change for Aboriginal people and communities in BC and Canada is by building capacity of groups of students with common interests and concerns,” said Daniel Shapiro, Dean of SFU’s Beedie School of Business.
Classes, which begin next September, will take place in Vancouver – with the intention of holding some classes in one or more First Nations communities. Mark Selman, Beedie School of Business Special Adviser to the Dean, will serve as Program Director. Selman has an extensive business education background building customized degree programs with business, especially in the natural resource sector, as well as working in First Nations communities on social and economic development.
For more information, visit beedie.sfu.ca/aboriginalemba or email aboriginal-emba@sfu.ca.
by Ed Bukszar, Ph.D., Simon Fraser University – for the Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies, Beedie School of Business
On October 11, the United States Senate passed a bill, by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, calling for the imposition of tariffs on Chinese imports. Tariffs are necessary, according to the Senate, because China is manipulating its currency, keeping it artificially undervalued. Senators claim that undervalued currency siphons jobs from America by keeping Chinese labour costs artificially low. With unemployment hovering near 9% in the US, and a presidential election due in about a year, we should expect this issue to be front and center for the foreseeable future.
The Senate bill strikes a populist chord in America, but is unlikely to be implemented. House Speaker Boehner has indicated that he may not allow a House vote on the tariff bill; he sees it as overstepping the role of congress. The Senate bill pressures China, but perhaps equally important, forces the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to take a politically unpopular position as an election approaches.
The Chinese do not vote in American elections, making them easy targets. The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs from the US to lower-skilled and lower-cost regions of the world has been ongoing for decades, and is supported by strong strategic rationale at the corporate level, and free-market policy at the national level. Yet the sheer volume of Chinese imports is hard to ignore, especially in a weak economy. Chinese GDP growth rates are still robust at approximately 9%, and the Chinese economy is largely fueled by exports to the developed economies in North America, Europe and Japan. China has grown by virtue of its low-cost advantage, and an undervalued currency contributes to lower costs in China.
Responding to worldwide pressures to float the Yuan, the Chinese government has allowed some movement in their currency; the Yuan has appreciated against the US dollar by 25% over the past six years. But China tightly controls its currency, and it sets the value of the Yuan to match its own economic priorities – key amongst those – to maintain high employment rates by promoting exports. The Chinese government sees its survival tied closely to the economic improvement of its citizens, relieving internal pressure to increase personal liberties.
Complicating matters, trade imbalances between the United States and China, partially the result of currency inequities, have created vast US dollar holdings in China. US budget deficits, enormous since the recent recession, pull these US dollar holdings back into the US in the form of investments in Treasury Bills. The Chinese government is the single largest investor in US Treasuries. A common perception in China is that their hard work and savings are supporting American excesses and America’s failure to live within its means. And Americans feel increasingly dependent on the continued investments that China makes.
Few things rankle Americans more than the sense of dependence on other nations. Dependence creates power in inverse measures. The Chinese government exacerbates this unease by voicing its unhappiness with the central role of the US dollar in the world’s economy. Its vast US dollar holdings – approximately $1.5 trillion – are affected by US monetary policy. As the world’s reserve currency, the US can fund deficits by easing its monetary policies, as the Federal Reserve did in its QEI and QEII efforts to refloat the American economy. A cheaper US dollar means Chinese dollar holdings become less valuable.
The Chinese government has indicated that it expects the Yuan to become a reserve currency in the not-too-distant future, and that such a move would be beneficial in that it would reduce the vulnerability of the global economy to the US. China is the second largest economy in the world and there is a sense of inevitability to its increasing economic power. China would like to expand its role in financial markets, building off its economic strengths.
However, while China is undoubtedly a major economic force, it is not positioned to take on a major role in the financial markets in the foreseeable future. To be a reserve currency, China would need to open its economy to world markets. China is anything but open, lacking transparency in its financial dealings. It lacks vibrant domestic markets; stable, predictable and transparent legal institutions; and the free-flow of information necessary to support either. It is a far more closed than open economy and it is hard to imagine the Chinese government easing controls to empower such institutions. Openness directly threatens the government, and runs counter to its long-held instincts. And while the leadership in China is about to change, and change is undoubtedly expected to occur over time in China, it would be a stretch to imagine this change as anything more than modestly incremental.
And so we can expect that the role of the US dollar as reserve currency will continue. Recently, in spite of a weak economy, the US dollar has actually appreciated against most major currencies around the world. With the financial crisis in the European Union and increasing concerns regarding a double-dip recession, the dollar has even appreciated by 7% against the Singapore dollar and 10% against the Korean Won in just the past month. Both are major trading nations, and as such are likely to quickly feel the effects of another global slowdown.
With indications of another global economic slowdown on the horizon, the Chinese government is unlikely to allow any significant appreciation of the Yuan at this time. Which leads us back to the status quo and the current impasse: continued trade imbalances between the US and China, with dollar holdings accumulating in China and continued Chinese funding of American debt. And Americans bristling at an undervalued Yuan.
It is, however, useful at this point to view these issues in the broader strategic relationship between the US and China. It is a complicated relationship with a tit-for-tat overtone. Cooperation between the two nations can be seen on numerous fronts while at the same time each presses for advantages in areas of interest. And those areas of interest are numerous. To name a few, the US would like China’s cooperation on fighting terrorism, constraining nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, continuously presses China on human rights issues and worries about Chinese military expansion; while the Chinese bristle at US interference in what it sees as its domestic issues, US military support for Taiwan, and the expansion of free-market economies on its borders – including the possibility of Korean unification.
At times, there is great subtlety in the cooperation between these two nations on these issues. For example, last month the Obama Administration announced that it would upgrade the capabilities of existing Taiwanese F-16 fighters. Many saw this as a move likely to provoke a strong Chinese response. However, when viewed in context to the alternatives – selling newer and more advanced F-16s and F-22 Stealth Fighters to Taiwan – the upgrade can be viewed as a “standing down” of sorts. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Obama Administration has stood by while the Senate passed the bill related to China’s currency. The hoped-for tit-for-tat response from China may be continued appreciation of the Yuan, albeit with a face-saving delay. While this example may oversimplify, the key point is that the US / China relationship is complicated, and that analyzing the currency situation in isolation from other strategic concerns oversimplifies as well.
With respect to the value of the Yuan over the longer term, China’s dependence on export growth will eventually give way to a more robust consumer economy, enabling a more domestic focus for China’s economic expansion. But this is expected to be a gradual development, hindered by the lack of a social safety net in a culture with an aging population; savings rates must continue to be high. Yet even without further appreciation of the Yuan, labour costs in China are rising, undermining the country’s low-cost advantage. This is partially the result of inflation in China, but more so the result of greater demand for higher-skilled workers as the Chinese economy evolves from one based strictly on low factor costs, to one that produces value-added products.
In the long term, this evolution is far more threatening to US firms. Overwhelmingly, US firms compete internationally by producing value-added products and services, not by being low-cost producers. China’s low-cost advantages have served as a complement to US firms, enabling them to reduce production costs on the labour-intensive elements in their value chains. Presently, China has relatively few domestic companies, other than state-owned enterprises that compete with foreign multinationals.
The lack of a robust sector of private firms in China will slow the movement into value added production. However, the Chinese government has restricted access to its markets to multinational firms unless they have been willing to share technological knowhow with domestic firms. They do this by requiring multinational firms to enter the Chinese markets with domestic, joint-venture partners. An appreciating Yuan would put pressure on China to move to more value-added production sooner rather than later and would lead to more direct competition between US and Chinese firms – a capability made possible by the knowledge that Chinese firms have gleaned from joint ventures with multinational partners. The US should be careful what it wishes for.
The Impact on Canada: The Canadian Loonie is likely to maintain its high value against both the US dollar and Chinese Yuan into the foreseeable future. Continued weakness is expected in the US economy, and easy monetary policy promoting growth is also likely to continue, weakening the dollar. And with China reluctant to allow any change other than gradual appreciation of the Yuan’s peg to the US dollar, the Loonie will show continued strength against it as well.
For Canadians, this is a double-edged sword. A strong Loonie means a higher standard of living for Canadian consumers but for Canadian businesses it means tougher competition in world markets. To thrive in this environment, Canadian firms will need to rely on greater product and service differentiation to command price premiums or greater efficiency to compete on costs; both approaches would benefit from an increased focus on innovation.
The Canadian government could support innovation by advancing public policies that keep interest rates low to facilitate the long-term payback from R&D, and that encourage domestic firms to enhance their long-term viability through investments in value-added activities, enabling Canadian innovators to thrive in spite of their strong currency.
Tags: China, Dollar, Ed Bukszar, financial markets, Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies, monetary policy, trade, United States, Yuan
Fashion is born from a region’s distinctive character. That’s the take-away message from a group of Italian students who came to Vancouver for a lesson in fashion management.
Last July, 31 undergraduate business students from Milan’s Bocconi University travelled here for the Management of Fashion Companies course offered jointly by Bocconi and SFU’s Beedie School of Business. Six SFU students also took part in the one-month class. Keep reading…
Tags: Bocconi, fashion management
Ideas and entrepreneurship are at the heart of the student experience at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. In recent years, a number of successful new ventures have been launched by students and alumni – startups that have gone on to local acclaim or global acquisition. Keep reading…
Tags: entrepreneurship, Layerboom, MetroLyrics, Venture Connection
Since its launch in 2010, the Apple iPad has garnered a global reputation for being among the most innovative consumer technology products. According to a new study from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, however, that reputation is equally deserved in business – especially as firms leverage the popular tablet and others like it to improve operations and boost sales or customer service.
The recent study, entitled “Deciding When to Use Tablets for Business Applications”, published in the most recent issue of MIS Quarterly Executive, is authored by professors Leyland Pitt from SFU and Pierre Berthon of Bentley University, with Beedie School of Business graduate student Karen Robson.
Their research argues that like many disruptive technologies, tablet computers such as the iPad are already changing the face of corporate computing, and will likely have an even greater impact in the future. Pitt and colleagues provide a set of frameworks that can be used to identify when and where a tablet computer device and its applications within can add value to an organization – whether it be in areas as disparate as health care delivery, hospitality, or automobile marketing.
“Computer tablets like the iPad are probably the world’s first truly ‘personal’ computers and are already changing the face of corporate computing,” write the researchers. “By being on a constant lookout for good examples of applications in a wide variety of settings, and asking questions such as “How would that work in our business?” and “Could we do something similar in our organization?”, organizations can identify how applications on table devices can shorten, short-circuit and shape business processes, and thus create business value.”
The researchers maintain that in identifying possible tablet applications, organizations would be wise to learn from the successes of like-minded firms.
“Decision makers seeking to introduce tablets into their own organizations could therefore benefit by identifying successful tablet applications in other organizations, and adapting them for their own use.”
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Recommendations for Using Tablets in Business
The researchers provide five actions that Information Systems organizations can take to ensure that the deployment of tablets provides business benefits:
1. Regularly scan relevant media for effecitve, creative use of tablets in a range of business settings, including some websites they have found particularly useful: Engadget, CultofMac, Mashable, Wired, AppleInsider, TechCruch, and MacWorld.
2. Consider the Inscriptive (input) Informative (output) functions of information systems, and the interaction between them, to envision how tablets might enable these activities to be performed more effectively.
3. Explore opportunities of moving applications that are purely Isolative into the Contextive and Contextual space to provide customers with superior service and improve the productivity of employees.
4. Compare the 3 C-Abilities (Configure-ability, Consume-ability and Context-ability) of tablets versus other mobile devices, recognizing that even small changes in the technological capabilities of these devices may require changes in how organizations think about using these devices.
5. Envision the needs of customers and employees using relevant strategic or business process models. For example, the application that permits boarding passes sent to smartphones for air travelers was developed by understanding that travelers might not have access to a printer to print a boarding pass prior check in.
6. Envision employees accessing the organization’s information systems via mobile devices.
Tags: apps, Blackberry, computers, iPad, iPhone, Karen Robson, Leyland Pitt, Marketing, mobile devices, Pierre Berthon, tablets, technology