EDITORIAL

Volume 16, Issue 3, 2021

1. Developing Future Managers' Understanding of Complex Business Issues by Making Knowledge Visible: Tasking Business Students to Draw Pictures.

- Kay Emblem Perry

Traditionally, teaching has taken the form of teachers telling students, and asking questions, spoken or written, to check understanding. This can be inhibiting if, as is often the case, students feel timid about getting the answer wrong. Another approach is through vision - by getting students to draw, rather than write, what they have understood. Diagrams have long been used to clarify complex concepts, but it is less common to ask students to create their own ways to represent information in a visual way. This makes intuitive sense, as the dominant human sense is vision and visual information is absorbed quicker than verbal information. For example, if there are three important factors as causes of an event, three arrows pointing to the central event presents all three at once. Creating the drawing can show where there are gaps and encourages students to think rather than memorise words. In addition, students are more likely to remember material they have created themselves. A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

2. Post-Covid

- Fernando Kevin Vince

It would not have been a good experiment to lock people in their homes for months on end, but since this had to happen, there are lessons to be learned. For example, travel is not always necessary. People can work from home and hold meetings online. In some ways this is better, in others not so good. We now have vast experience of the good and bad effects, can rethink how we do things, and not slip back into maxi-polluting ways. Questions have arisen where before there were assumptions. From “Of course everyone’ has to be at the office every day� to “Can we reduce pressure of restricted office space and long commutes?� Where there are questions, there is discussion, and discussion leads to trials of new ways to do things. Covid has taught us that things can be done differently. When the danger is past, we will have experience of the old ways and the new ways, and can assess the pros and cons of each. Post-covid knowledge should bring about careful thought about the best way to get business done in the future.

 

3. What Managers Should Know about Implementing a New Service Development Process

- Dr Vessela Warren

Growth and development is the goal of most organisations, but branching out into the unknown means risk, but maybe a lower risk than staying the same. Change inevitably leads to unfamiliar territory, but doesn’t have to mean groping in the dark. There needs to be a systematic framework that can be applied to varied products and services. This paper is about steps taken by inexperienced company developing new services for new customers, helped by local business school. The framework devised covers necessary changes. The first vital step, often omitted, is to recognise that change is necessary. This encourages commitment, which makes it possible to work out how to proceed. This is another difficult phase, but with a team who recognise the need and are committed to making it happen, it leads on to the next stage, incorporating the changes into business strategy. Then change is complete, until the next change becomes necessary, and needs to be recognised. And so on.

 

4. Paradigm Shift: Changing the way We Think, Work, Behave & Perform in the New Normal

- KC Chan & Julia WP Lim

This paper brings together several management essentials at different levels, from the perspective of the individual, the team, and the whole organisation. There are the six A's - Awareness, Alignment, Action, Adoption, Assurance and Anticipation, and the five Whys to ask to get a clear idea of how management works at all levels of the organisation as well as the importance of all stakeholders. There are also five phases of development - ad hoc, (low level of awareness) planned (recognising how much is unknown), managed (learning, with effort), integrated (knowledge is internalised and seems natural) and finally the ideal of the optimised phase (knowledge is used for steady innovation). This is brought together in design-thinking and strategic management.

 

5. A Study of Potential Causal Relationship between Safety, Leadership and Performance of Manufacturing Projects in H&M, Dubai

- Fatemeh Abdullah Biniyaz

The meaning of 'accident' implies that nobody expects it to happen. They know there will be accidents, but nobody know when or where or what it will entail. This sometimes leads to a lax attitude, thinking it isn't necessary to take note of what probably won't happen. Yet it's important to take precautions against a wide range of possibles, which are also 'probably nots'. However, we all know that accidents range from minor nuisance to major devastation, and preventive steps should be taken in advance. In cultures where this doesn't happen can make people feel unsafe, and maybe distracted by anxiety. This affects productivity, so, even without actual accidents, lack of preventive measures may knock down profit.