Forthcoming Scottish alumni events

Coming up in April and May are two events organised by the Scottish Alumni Association of USGSB. On April 26, Professor Brian Ashcroft, director of the Fraser of Allander Institute for Economic Research, will be speaking on entrepreneurship and innovation. The talk will take place in lecture theatre two in USGSBs Cathedral Street building. Registration will be from 6.30pm for a 7pm start.

MBA alumnus Jamie Smith, now managing director of The Ice Factor, will be giving a talk on May 11 entitled, "MBA project into award-winning visitor attraction." This talk will also take place in USGSBs Cathedral Street building, with registration from 6.30pm for a 7pm start.

Find out more about these events and reserve a place by emailing alumniscotland@gsb.strath.ac.uk. Both events will be followed by networking opportunitites.

The Jamie Smith event is being run with the support of the Strathclyde Enterpreneurial Network, Essential, www.essential.strath.ac.uk

Meet the counsellors

Dr Constantine Kiritsis is one of our counsellors in the Greek centre. Dr Kiritsis is a Greek-American who began lecturing in the early 1990s after completing his PhD at the University of Surrey. He first worked as a freelance business consultant in Athens and a few years later became a general manager of a large Greek clothing firm.

During that time, he began lecturing for the University of Surreys MBA programme in Athens as well as for various other organisations in Greece. In 1999 he jointly set up Globaltraining (www.globaltraining.gr), a company specialising in training professionals on an in-house basis as well as preparing executives for professional exams. He has been tutoring on the Strathclyde MBA for seven years, namely the managing people module. 

He has recently published the second edition of an education guide for British and American universities in the Greek language and plans on writing two new books, one on research methods and another on strategy. He is now planning to launch a website on educational guidance in the Greek language.

AIM briefing document

A briefing document on collaboration has been brought out via the Advanced Institute of Management research (AIM) on behalf of AIM Senior Fellow and USGSB professor Chris Huxham and AIM/USGSB research fellow Dr Paul Hibbert. It is entitled, "Give and Take: Understanding Attitudes to Learning in the Collaborative Process."

Collalboration beween different organisational partners is often a complex process but one that is critical to the success of many organisations. In the report Chris and Paul have constructed a framework around the attitudes that partners have towards exchanges of knowledge and learning. Understanding the attitudes and approaches adopted towards learning in collaborative relationships is an essential tool to help manage the collaborative process towards a beneficial outcome for all partners.

Read the report here: http://www.aimresearch.org/publications/ebs_giveandtake.pdf or contact Val Turner (Valerie@gsb.strath.ac.uk) for a copy.

In the news

The Herald carried a profile on MBA alumnus Jim Lindsay on February 25. In the interview he detailed how, six years ago, he swapped the thrill of the corporate chase at Royal Bank of Scotland for the general managers office in the great survivor of the Scottish thrift movement, the 171-year-old Airdrie Savings Bank.

The Evening Times carried an article on MBAs on February 27. Climbing the corporate ladder is not achieved without a great deal of hard work regardless of your industry. Something that makes it easier and swifter to make the transition from middle to senior management is obtaining a Masters in Business Administration. Professor Robert MacIntosh of USGSB said, "Our business school is one of just 22 out of a pool of about 5000 that is triple accredited for its MBA programme...Doing an MBA introduces you to a whole range of management functions."

Newsweek on March 20 featured an article on MBAs. "Must Be A Success" explored how to make the most of yoru MBA and quoted Professor Robert MacIntosh who said, "Undertaking an MBA as a purely acdemic exercise is missing the point somewhat. It should be about more than passing some exams and assignments. These are important, but the real contribution comes from applying material from the course to a range of real world situations."

Mention of USGSBs presence at the Gulf Education and Training Exhibition (GETEX) was mentioned in Al-Bawaba News on March 19, and in tradearabia.com and ameinfo.com on March 18 and 19 respectively.