ESTIEM Magazine | Spring 2005 | Intercultural Decision Making

1 Issue 28 2005/I | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org

MAGAZINE Intercultural Decision

Making

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SKOPJE

INFO 3

EDITORIAL CONTENTS 4 5 7 8 10 12 14 18 20 22 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Dear readers, After a long struggle and hard work, I would like to present to you the new edition of the ESTIEM Magazine, the official publication of the ESTIEM, European STudents of Industrial Engineering and Management. The 28th issue. I would like to thank Slobo, Anna, Rene, Yulia, Zoya Andy, and all the proofreaders who helped me produce the best magazine ever made. This issue is full of helpful articles written by professionals, interviews with them, project introductions, and reports from the ESTIEM events that happened in the last six months.

Enjoy reading this issue!

Bojan Jovanoski Project Leader Magazine LG Skopje In memory of my dear friend Dimo.

IMPRINT ESTIEM Magazine 2005/I Issue Number 28 ISSN 0874-5242 Property: Local Group Skopje, Faculty for Mechanical Engineering - Skopje, Macedonia Project Leader: Bojan Jovanoski, bojan.jovanoski@estiem.org Design, Frontpage and Layout: Bojan Jovanoski [Skopje], David Berg [Clausthal], Slobodan Radicev [Novi Sad] Editing and Magazine team: Bojan Jovanoski, Slobodan Radicev, Anna Marszalkiewicz, Rene Heunen, Yulia Vorojbyanova, Zoya Ivanova, Aykut Polat.

NOTES The ESTIEM Magazine is the official publication of ESTIEM, the only students association for IEM students that operates European-wide. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year.

The contents are submitted by the members of ESTIEM, sponsors and professionals. The contents may not always reflect the attitude of the publisher. Any reproduction or copy is permitted only with the permission of the editors.

Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it

Bojan Jovanoski, PL bojan.jovanoski@estiem.org

President’s Speech We introduce to you the NEW 2005 ESTIEM Board A Brief Introduction to ESTIEM Getting Your Hands on ESTIEM PreCM Antalya Council Meeting Istanbul Strategic Decision Making Decisions: managing by objectives or by priority function?

Interview with Alf Rehn Participative Decision Making: A Cross-Cultural Perspective Bosch Workshop 2004: Global Sourcing – A new challenge for Purchasing ALUMNIs Wine Harvest Event Vision of Cycles TIMES Career: “Career days” NMC is Taking More Responsibility KMC – Managing knowledge in ESTIEM Public Relations Committee ESTIEM Exchange Guide Summer Academy 2005 Vision of Change Berlin : “VISIONary chances in the new EU“ Vision K2K : Cold weather - Warm people Vision of Change, Cambridge: “Threats and Opportunities of an expanded EU” ReCom Novi Sad: “S is for Serbia” Activity Week Famagusta New ESTIEM observer : Local Group Bitola FUN Page Upcoming Activities

A WORD FROM THE E DITOR

TRONDHEIM

4 INFO

PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

Naomi Tolhuizen, President

naomi.tolhuizen@estiem.org

I

n the year of 1900, the two brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright decided to try their hands on building an airplane. After a time of extensive literature study, learning the necessary flying skills, and practicing hours and hours on different models, they finally managed to design the first engine-powered airplane to fly. On the 17th of December 1903, the first flying aircraft had a sustained flight of 12 seconds. This day would be remembered as the first successful powered, piloted flight in history and opened the era of aviation.

The Wright brothers introduced the aviation to the world and thus helped building the base for a still growing exchange of people and cultures. Organisations like ESTIEM would not exist without this exchange as they are based upon intercultural teams.

The importance and difficulties we face with intercultural decision making within such teams will be discussed in this new edition of the Magazine.

What is an Intercultural Team actually?

Nowadays more and more companies and organisations want to “go global”. Changes in areas like communication and transportation technology and shifts towards global interdependency have resulted in companies becoming increasingly international and therefore intercultural.

The success of an intercultural team depends therefore upon effective cooperation and communication within the team. With this, difficulties can arise from differences in languages, cultures, ways of thinking, behaviours, and motivations of the individual members.

However, experience shows us that intercultural teams can work successfully! The combination of different perspectives, views and opinions of the members, can lead to a better analysis and decision making process, as well as to a wealth of creative ideas.

Dear readers, I hope you will enjoy reading this Magazine issue and taste a bit of the ESTIEM spirit!

In high ESTIEM, Naomi Tolhuizen President

When we look at the members of an intercultural team during the cooperation process, they develop new skills in global awareness and intercultural communication.

This is exactly the goal where we are facing the aim of our student organisation. ESTIEM wants to give its members the chance to go abroad, experience new cultures, work in intercultural teams and above all, to broaden their horizon.

ESTIEM offers its members several projects and committees in where they can experience working in intercultural teams. Students from more than 20 countries are working closely together to make this organisation a success and gain personal skills and development. We value our newly motivated members who want to have a professional and enjoyable addition to their student life. It will be a life-long lasting experience which you will never regret!

The skill I’d most like to have is the ability to operate in multiple time frames simultaneously

VAASA

INFO 5

WE INTRODUCE TO YOU THE ESTIEM BOARD 2005 In the CM Istanbul, a new president along with four new members of the ESTIEM board were elected. Here they are Helmuth Elsner VP of Administration and ICT

W

hen someone asks me how I spend most of the time during my studies, I am always undecided whether I should answer „for learning“ or „for ESTIEM“.

Actually, I am quite confident with my allocation of time. ESTIEM gave me the opportunity to experience many things that are not part of the normal study schedule: Getting to know the way other students work, teamwork using email or phone as main mean of communication and making friends all around Europe.

My main ESTIEM experience started at the CM in Munich where I „just“ participated. One year later, at the CM St. Petersburg, I had already spent some months working for the IT-project and so I became Project Leader of IT. In Istanbul it was time to take the next step and – as hard as it is - to hand over the responsibility for IT. After a few weeks in the board, I have already learned many new things and this will definitely not be the end. I am looking forward to working for ESTIEM for another year. Hopefully, there will be

some time left for studies…

Etienne van Gils VP of Finance

A

fter the elections at the Council Meeting in Istanbul it all happened.

I was elected as Vice President of Finance 2005. But how did this happen?

In September 2000, I began studying Industrial Engineering and Management. My intention was to pass all of my subjects and start working. As you can see the opposite happened. After two years of studying, I was looking for something that would add more value to my life.

This value was and still is ESTIEM. My ESTIEM career started in 2002. By then the board of Local Group Eindhoven was searching for new board members. I decided to take this chance and became treasurer and Local Responsible at the same time.

Then I attended my first ESTIEM event, Council Meeting Saint Petersburg. I had never seen so many European students together exchanging knowledge, culture and having fun. From this moment on I was sure that ESTIEM was my thing.

From this moment I started to visit activities (CMs,Vision, CoMs, TIMES), working in committees (FLC, PRC, NMC) and working in

projects (SAC).

After travelling and working around from different views in ESTIEM, I was looking for a bigger challenge. At the Council Meeting in Istanbul I decided to apply for one of the positions, VP of Finance, of the ESTIEM board.

That is where I am now, a happy ESTIEM Board 2005.

I am very looking forward to work together with ESTIEMers and creating the future of ESTIEM. I hope to see all of you travelling and working around, since ESTIEM means nothing without its members.

Andy March VP of Public Relations

I

am convinced: life would be rather boring if it were not for some spontaneous decisions. An exchange year in the United States, the decision to study IEM instead of politics, history, or even graphics design, the decision to join ESTIEM, the decision to study in France, and the decision to run for the Board… and I love it!

Concerning ESTIEM, I am what you may call a “late bloomer” – I discovered ESTIEM rather late in my studies (7th semester) by joining one of the infamous Hamburg newcomer weekends in 2002.

Pretty quickly I found myself visiting events all over Europe, coordinating TIMES 2004 PR, and making the TIMES

The most overrated part of the job is the status-oriented perks

OULU

6 INFO

WE INTRODUCE TO YOU ESTIEM BOARD 2005 application movie. After some more work in the PRC I became its leader in 2004 before applying for the VP of PR in Istanbul (could not pass up that opportunity…).

My Board responsibilities encompass the ESTIEM Magazine, PR Committee, and, together with Jos?, the Partner Development Committee.

Looking forward to a great and challenging year and I hope to meet as many of you as possible somewhere in Europe!

Naomi Tolhuizen President

B

eing 22 and able to travel around Europe, meeting lots of nice people and getting a lot of professional experience in the IEM life around Europe... I consider myself very lucky being able to do all these things, and that I got the chance in the first place. It is great working together with so many nice and friendly people!

In my second year of studies, they asked me to go on an ESTIEM event, what is ESTIEM I asked myself... That question was about to be answered. I had no idea what to expect and what an impact the Vision in Ilmenau would have on my further student years.

I had a great time there and got to know the real ESTIEM spirit, so some months later I attended the CM in St. Petersburg. Many other

events followed as well. With our team in Eindhoven, we had the pleasure to organize the InnoVision and with these experiences, I had the opinion that it was time to go one step further. I applied for being the Project Leader of Vision and during the next one and a half years, I enjoyed being a part of an international team. After being active on an international level for a year, I decided to apply for the board last November at the CM Istanbul.

The last months I experienced that I made the right decision to take the opportunity to work intensively with the 4 other guys. My board responsibilities encompass the Vision Project, the Council Meetings and the New Members Committee.

This organization really changed my life; it helped me to develop my personal skills, I have faced many new cultures and met a lot of nice and interesting people from all over Europe!

I am looking forward to the rest of the year which is ahead of us, and hope to meet many of you somewhere, sometime!

Jose Luis Leon Henkle VP of Activities

T

his is day 63 on the job.

Two Board Meetings have passed by, and at two Regional Coordination Meetings I’ve had the pleasure to represent ESTIEM; in fact I’m on my way to the third one right now. A lot of work but also a lot of fun is my first impression of being in the ESTIEM Form follows flow

THE

Board 2005.

But who is the new VP of Activities? I was born in Guatemala City (far away in Central America) 24 years ago and moved later on to the north of Germany where I am studying at the moment. It is my 4th year of IEM with process engineering and project management as my field of specialization. My interest for international relations has played always a major role ever since I can remember. When combining it with our field of study ESTIEM gave me the perfect opportunity to explore Europe.

It was not my election in Istanbul at the past Council Meeting where I decided to join ESTIEM. More than 3 years ago there was no ESTIEM Local Group in my city - Bremen so why not make one? Not an easy task but so it happened: after two years my Local Group became an official member.

In ESTIEM I have been a Local Responsible for two years and during that time I organized a TIMES Semi Final among other events, but the main objective was motivating people to visit an ESTIEM activity and to actively join our LG. Now as the VP of Activities I am responsible for the T.I.M.E.S. Project and the Knowledge Management Committee, and for coordinating the events taking place all over the ESTIEM map. A challenging year is still ahead and I hope to meet you somewhere in Europe.

TALLINN

INFO 7

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ESTIEM

B

ack in 1990, students from five different countries founded an organization which they named ESTIEM: European STudents of Industrial Engineering and Management. Its aim was and is to establish and foster interrelations among European students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). ESTIEM is currently represented at 64 universities in 23 European countries, and is still growing. All these universities offer courses in IEM. Through its member organizations (‘local groups’), ESTIEM reaches and represents over 50.000 students.

The students of IEM incorporate both management and engineering skills. Through involvement in ESTIEM, students get an opportunity to experience different cultures, take part in international projects and make friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe. Our belief is that the activities and projects of ESTIEM give our members knowledge and experiences that are important for their personal development and the realization of future goals. The students involved with ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an openminded approach towards other people and cultural issues.

The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its local group, sends two student representatives.

The five members of the board of ESTIEM are elected during the autumn Council Meeting. The board is responsible for the man-

agement, coordination and administration of the association. It represents the association in all legal matters.

ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great variety of events to IEM students. Based on its activities, ESTIEM has attracted many active

up more responsibility by working in one of the committees. The committees work together closely with the board, supporting it in their tasks. ESTIEM has six of them at the moment: the Information and Communication Technology Committee, the Public Relations Committee, the New Members Committee, the Knowledge Man-

students, and the organization has seen rapid growth since its founding. Major activities on a European level include the only European case competition TIMES, the seminar series Vision, ESTIEM Magazine, Summer Academy, Exchange (a database with information for students who want to study abroad), Council Meetings and ESTIEM Career; all lead by Project Leaders who are elected at the Council Meetings.

On the European level, besides taking leadership positions in the board and as project leaders, ESTIEM members can also take

agement Committee, the Financial and Legal Committee and, from the Council Meeting Lyon on, the Partner Development Committee.

For more detailed information about our organization and activities and about how to get involved, please visit our website at www.estiem.org.

Everything takes longer than you’d like it to

ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen A-22 P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031- (0)40 2473871 e-mail: info@estiem.org

SOFIA

8 INFO

Marja Emilia Ollila marja.ollila@estiem.org

GETTING YOUR HANDS ESTIEM The short of ESTIEM European STudents of Industrial Engineering and Management, ESTIEM for short, was founded in 1990 in order to bring together IEM students from all around Europe. In fifteen years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together 40.000 students from 66 universities. ESTIEM has members in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain,

Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

What ESTIEM is about Meetings, workshops, brainstorming, parties. Every ESTIEMer will find the aspect that he or she likes the best, but most prob-

ably each of them will relate to ESTIEM’s official aim: to establish and foster interrelations among

ON

Cities of ESTIEM

the students of IEM. Another guiding idea of ESTIEM is to form links between the students, the academics and the companies in order to create an European-wide, multi-level IEM network.

How it all works The executive power of ESTIEM lies with the board and its five members. The board is elected each year in a Council Meeting. This general assembly of ESTIEMers is held twice a year and is the major decision-making organ in ESTIEM. ESTIEM is a textbook example of a project-based organisation. Several projects and committees are at work all the time, organising case-solving competitions, seminars, lectures and exchanges – making ESTIEM happen. With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone.

Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student. Open-minded and keen on developing him- or herself, he or she is eager to make friends and

create contacts with different IEM representants from all over the continent.

Changing angles It is not always easy to steer a big ship. In any organisation as big and as international as ESTIEM, cultures meet, merge and sometimes collide. In the end, these small controversies are an integral part of the richness that

arises from ESTIEM’s diversity.

One should not forget where the origin of ESTIEM lies: four students in a gasthaus in Darmstadt, spending the night discussing passionately, and – to quote ESTIEM’s history – excited about the spirit that evolved when students from different parts of Europe gathered together. That is the ESTIEM spirit

Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind

KAISERSLAUTERN

INFO 9

GETTING YOUR HANDS ON ESTIEM

we want to cherish today.

How to get involved If you feel like making friends with people from around Europe, going to places you haven’t seen before or working to develop the

concept and the studies of IEM in a contintentwide context, this is for you.

Just surf to www. estiem.org or ask your Local Responsible for the next ESTIEM event.

Once you are there, just open your mouth at the right moment and you’ll find yourself immersed in ESTIEM. Trust us.

LG? PL? CM? When ESTIEM was founded, the aim was at making it an ab-

breviation-free association. However, this goal was not completely achieved… After all, „CM“ fits in your mouth much better than „a Council Meeting“. Here’s a brief

introduction to the most common ESTIEM abbreviations.

Sources: ESTIEM’s Organisation and History on ESTIEM’s web page, www.estiem.org Marja Ollila LG Helsinki

CM

Council Meeting. Arranged twice a year, this general meeting of member groups holds the ultimate decisive power in ESTIEM.

CoM ReCoM

Coordination Meeting, Regional Coordination Meeting. An event where a small group of people get together for a Project Meeting or a Regional Local Groups Meeting.

LG

Local Group. ESTIEM is basically a network of these IEM student associations located in different universities around Europe.

LR

Local Responsible. The person in charge of a LG.

PL

Project Leader. The person in charge of an ESTIEM project. Analogously, Committee Leader is designated with CL.

WG

Working Group. In Council Meetings, several Working Groups are formed to discuss different crucial ESTIEM matters.

WGL

Working Group Leader. A person who is in charge of the WG. He plans, guides the members and prepares the documentation.

TIMES

Tournament in Management and Engineering Skills.

SAC

Summer Academy. A two weeks event, held in the summer each year.

It is very professional and it is guided by a well known professor.

AC

Academic Network Committee. This group of people is in charge of fostering and strenghtening the relationship between the academics and ESTIEM.

KMC

Knowledge Management Committee. They make sure that all knowledge is kept and that experiences don’t get lost with handover or when people resign from their active ESTIEM life.

NMC

New Members Committee. This team supports the new members of ESTIEM and provides information for those who are interested in joining the ESTIEM organization.

Never hire or promote in your own image

ZĂœRICH

10 EVENT

PRECM ANTALYA

BY LG A NKARA -B ILKENT

Serdar Turkmen Serdar.Turkmen@estiem.org

S

un, sea and relaxation..... the PreCM Antalya meant more than these three words of course. After a long trip from colder countries to warmer Turkey and to the warmest place of Turkey, the PreCM Antalya promised a lot to the ESTIEMers who had already been waiting to lie in the shining sun.

From October 28th to 30th, 33 ESTIEMers joined the PreCM and enjoyed the beautiful Antalya days and crazy nights organised

by Local Group Ankara-Bilkent.

Indeed, as the Polish girls Anna and Magda came to Antalya in Wednesday 27th of October, the PreCM event had already started. After warm up drinks and some dances before the official start, we already recognised that ESTIEMers had been waiting for an event like this for a long time - a good sign.

On Thursday morning, all members of LG Ankara-Bilkent were ready to meet their guests.

When they finally arrived after the long bus trip from Istanbul, everybody was looking forward to swimming and sunbathing.

While putting the baggage into the rooms, Peter, Etienne and Elias, who could not await it any longer, already dipped into the swimming pool of the hotel. At

last, when everybody was finished with their baggage, there was just one thing missing that everybody was waiting for to meet......the famous Antalya beaches.

While swimming in the clear blue sea or lying down under the shining sun, it was easily seen that all ESTIEMers got rid of the tiredness and just enjoyed the moment.

After some usual beach jokes with towels and water we had to leave and go back to hotel, because a wonderful night was waiting for us. In the harbour of the old town of Antalya, we had a barbecue party before leaving for a disco night. While tasting some famous Turkish barbecue meat, we also found more opportunities to get to know each other or to talk to old friends and have a few beers.

Of course as on every ESTIEM event, we sang the ESTIEM song and everybody learned who we are‌ Besides, at the end of our song, some exploding fireworks made everyone think that this is

Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people

POZNAN

EVENT 11

BY also Bilkent’s activity. However, the fireworks were due to the celebration of the 81st anniversary of the Turkish Republic. We watched the fireworks outside, and afterwards the first night of the PreCM continued with disco dancing.

Getting up on the second day proved to be a bit hard after a long night, but there was enough motivation to wake up; sight-seeing, a waterfall visit and the beach club!

After breakfast our last guest Stefan arrived, and we could drive to the Duden waterfalls with the entire PreCM team, where the great natural scenery impressed us a lot.

During sight-seeing in the Duden National Park, we also went to the caves behind the waterfall, taking a lot of beautiful pictures that remind us of those lovely moments.

After the Duden trip, we went to MiniaTurk where all ESTIEMers saw small samples of Turkish tourist places like Capadocia and ancient Roman ruins. Considering the limited visit time in Turkey, it was a good opportunity to see 50 different places which are worthwhile to know. After lunch at MiniaTurk, it was again time to swim! The Beach Club with its cafes and beaches was the place where we spent our afternoon.

While some of the ESTIEMers were swimming or enjoying the hot sun with some cold beer, some of us experienced a game of Backgammon. After swimming till the party at night, we spent time in a cafe for (more) relaxation and Turkish culture, smoking a water pipe, drinking Turkish coffee and fortune telling.

Friday night, we had a party in the Beach Park, where we

PRECM ANTALYA LG ANKARA-BILKENT

danced to Turkish as well as other music. Watching beautiful latino dancers and more fireworks which took place because of the national holiday, we had a great time. All night, ESTIEMers danced till they lost their energy; however, when we came back to the hotel, everybody was looking for an after-party... When I played saz (a Turkish musical instrument), Idris taught the ESTIEMers to dance in a Turkish way.

The last day of the PreCM started with a surprise boat trip.

The tour took off from the old harbour and continued alongside the coast of Antalya. We saw beautiful rock cliffs and waterfalls while enjoying the sun. Near the big waterfall, the boat stopped and we did not miss the last chance of the PreCM for swimming. Jumping from the boat and singing the ESTIEM song in the sea were the unforgettable moments of the event. After the boat trip, our last stop was Antalya Museum where

Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture

a lot of ancient sculptures and antique objects from the Roman to the Ottoman Empire are exhibited. However, everybody got tired after two hard days in Antalya, with some of the ESTIEMers falling asleep in the museum. But our tour of Turkey was not over yet..... a great week in CM Istanbul was already waiting for us!

The PreCM Antalya truly was full of joy for Ankara-Bilkent and for all the participants. It was a great pleasure and honour to host ESTIEMers with a great event in Turkey. LG Ankara-Bilkent is looking forward to organising the next ESTIEM event!!

SEVILLA

12 EVENT

COUNCIL MEETING ISTANBUL

Oznur Afacan oznur.afacan@estiem.org

A

s the biggest event of ESTIEM is held in a European city twice a year, we were honoured to host ESTIEMers in Istanbul for the 2004 Fall Council Meeting on 31st October- 5th November. 160 students coming to Istanbul from all over

Europe was a new experience for us, but also a pleasure. Everybody met old friends and made new ones. Here is an overview of what went on before, during and after the CM. We really worked hard for months. When we started to prepare for the CM, we were short of team members, but as the date approached our team reached an ideal size. We knew that having all participants staying in one location would make our job easier; so we worked on it and luckily the hotel we arranged was just five walking minutes away from university. Also, every organization

member used a walkie-talkie, thus really easing the communication in our six-floor faculty. The main sponsors of the Council Meeting were Siemens, Microsoft, P&G, and Unilever, so during the week there were three company presentations giving us new insights in a number of business fields.

Some ESTIEMers already arrived three or four days before the CM actually started in order to enjoy the city. On 30th October, the project and committee began to come because there were to participate in a training programme on Sunday, to be followed by the first party which took place on a

roof of a bar. The view over Istanbul was simply marvellous.

The rest of the ESTIEMers arrived on 31th October. Sunday was the day of room placements, rewriting wrongly-spelled name tags and to start working (for some ESTIEMers). We prepared our faculty canteen for a welcome party, ate traditional Turkish fast food and taught applied Turkish dance. After the party in the canteen, some preferred to go to the famous Taksim bars while some went to sleep in the hotel.

On 1st November, the General Assembly began at 8.30 a.m. after a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Afterwards, lunch was served at the university canteen and the participants were separated into 12 groups for the WG sessions. In the evening, we went to WOKS by buses. The restaurant was suitable for the first official day because it allowed some people to talk while others took on dancing.

On 2nd November, after a WG session and a company presentation, we went on a boat trip.

Lunch on the boat came late but it was fine as everyone liked the food and enjoyed the tour with the generous and unique view of the Bosphorus. Because of maintenance, we were not able to enter the Topkapi Palace, so everybody went to the Grand Bazaar and learned how to bargain (some had already found out). Then we all relaxed in a nice place, enjoying waterpipe and playing ‘tavla’. Dinner became a lot more exciting as we embarked on a Turkish Night.

We ate fish and drank ‘raki’, as the belly dancers danced around the tables to live music. After a dinner full of Turkish tradition, we went upstairs to the bar, then went to another place to keep the rhythm going with the most awake ESTIEMers.

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out

ST. PETERSBURG

EVENT 13

COUNCIL MEETING ISTANBUL On 3rd November, the applicants for Board, Financial Controllers, PLs Summer Academy and Vision held their presenta-

tions. Although there was one more day left, in the end I had already lost my voice and the entire organisation team was very tired.

It was only the ESTIEM spirit that kept us going. The dinner was traditional Turkish food, ‘doner’ with ‘ayran’ in a place full of Turkish carpets. When all ESTIEMers were full, they were ready to party again.

4th November, the final day...

The organisation team was relaxed but the applicants were nervous. The voting results were

announced and the organisation budget presentation was made.

Then all ESTIEMers, dressed up like ladies and gentlemen, went to the Asian side of Istanbul by bus for the gala dinner. We enjoyed the delicious dinner and admired the great view of two continents separated by the sea - Europe and Asia.

During the week, we learned how to work as a team, how to arrive at quick solutions and to keep our calm in unexpected situations. We gained more experience than we had ever expected.

I never imagined that it would be this hard, complex and exciting. It was just great. Therefore, I would like to thank all organizers and all participants who enjoyed a great week with us.

Believe in yourself first, then you can believe in another

BREMEN

14 PROFESSIONAL

Dr. Alexander Billon,

STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING Strategic decisions determine the future direction of the firm, including what business should the company be in and how to create a competitive advantage. The strategic management process, which includes strategy formation and execution, requires analyses and decisions regarding the external and internal environments, objectives, strategy and the implementation system. Strategic decisions are characterised by their large impact they have on the entire firm, as well as great uncertainty and complexity.

T

he strategic decision making process is important for large and small companies because it determines what business the enterprise is in and what business it should be in and how it is going to succeed in a competitive environment. A highly simplified model of the strategy making process is summarised in Figure 1, below:

FIGURE 1, A SIMPLIFIED MODEL OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT DECISION PROCESS

Feedback: Improve or Revise as Needed The elements of strategic management as depicted above are as follows: (1) The external environment consisting of the general, industry, as well as competitive forces that will impact the firm. The objective is to determine opportunities and threats that the environment trends represent.

(2) Resources and capability analysis is an attempt to determine company strengths and weaknesses.

While external environment analysis identifies attractive opportunities, it is the resource analysis that tells us which opportunities the firm is able to pursue.

(3) Objectives are determined as the firm matches opportunities in the environment with the internal capabilities and core competencies. Objectives are performance goals that the company wants to achieve and in turn serve as measures of progress.

Objectives are needed by all managers and organisational units. Strategic objectives are those which move the firm to a stronger competitive position. Fi-

nancial objectives are crucial to the survival of the firm. Strategic and financial objectives should be long and short term.

(4) Strategy formulation is the allocation of the firm’s resources, capabilities, and competences to exploit the most attractive opportunities in the environment. Here the firm needs to determine: (a) What business are we in? Who are our customers? (b) What business should we be in? and (c) How do we create a competitive advantage?

(5) The implementation phase is concerned with the decisions regarding the management system which will execute the strategy. The key determinants of this system are the major functions that need to be performed to achieve strategy.

(6) The evaluation phase of Figure 1 is the measurement of performance against established objectives.

Sub – par performance in any of the numerous elements in the management system may require corrective action in the form of restructuring operations, reorganising, changing budgets, personnel, policies, work processes, procedures, reward systems, and culture. Corrective action will require changes to all of the preceding phases of the strategic management process as shown in Figure 1, above.

The Internal Resources Capabilities and Core Competencies The purpose of internal analysis is to determine

FIGURE 2, STRATEGY DECISIONS FOR A SINGLE BUSINESS

Do something! Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

HELSINKI

PROFESSIONAL 15

STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING

Objectives and Strategy As Figure 1, above indicates, the firm must match environmental opportunities with the unique combination of capabilities leading to the determination of objectives that are attractive and which the firm is able to achieve. Next, strategies are formulated to achieve the stated objectives. Business strategy, therefore, is a mechanism to integrate the interests of firms with that of society. Viewed in this manner, a firm can only be successful if it serves society. Conversely, companies that fail to do so are destined to fail. It follows that in the broadest sense, the most successful entities are those which have managed to achieve the best match between its resource capabilities and the opportunities in the form of society’s needs. The test of an effectively formulated strategy is how well it concentrates, integrates, and allocates the firms resources, capabilities, and competences to achieve the best alignment with its external environment Every company needs a business level strat-

egy which is uniquely designed to match its specific external and internal conditions.

A business level strategy is a set of commitments the firm makes to gain a competitive advantage.

More specifically this requires the determination of (1) who the customers are; (2) what are the needs Zoya Ivanova zoya.ivanova@estiem.org

strengths and weaknesses as compared to competition. Recognising core competencies is a prerequisite to a long list of strategic decisions such as entering or exiting a market, investing in innovation, building new capacity, forming strategic alliances, and acquisitions. Thus, environmental analysis provides firms with information which opportunities are available. Internal resource analysis tries to establish what a firm is capable of doing.

Resources cover a broad range of tangible and intangible organisational attributes, as shown in Figure 2, above. Financial, physical, and technological resources are tangible. Intangible resources are people, innovation, and reputation. Both kinds of resources may be combined to provide a competitive advantage. Learning how resources can be combined can create a unique, hard to imitate capability. Capabilities are the company’s capacity to use resources and achieve a competitive advantage. Many are in the various functional groups in the form of human capital, knowledge, know-how, and intellectual assets. Some firms’ management appears to be smarter than others in terms of using capabilities and information to outperform their rivals. This may explain how two otherwise comparable firms achieve totally different results.

FIGURE 3, FIVE GENERIC BUSINESS STRATEGIES

our target customers have; and (3) how are we going to satisfy those needs. There are five business level generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, focused cost leadership, focused differentiation, and integrated cost-leadership differentiation.

These strategies are often called generic because they can be used by any firm in any industry. In practice a firms may use a combination of these generic strategies to achieve a competitive advantage. Wall – Mart is a good example: the company uses cost leadership in pricing the products it sells. There is evidence that the firm in fact uses integrated cost leadership differentiation strategy which K-Mart has tried and failed to copy.

Corporate Level Strategy Corporate level strategy is concerned with what kinds of businesses the company should be in, and how to manage the group of business effectively. It is clearly impossible to develop any kind of business strategy that would be viable for perhaps dozens or hundreds of businesses owned by a diversified company. Strategic business unit organisation attempts to group businesses with a similar market and tech-

When your ship comes in, make sure you are willing to unload it

NAPOLI

16 PROFESSIONAL

STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING nology into separate entities for which strategies can be developed and portfolio analysis may be used to make decisions which business are worth developing and which should be divested.

International Strategy International strategies can be an important source of competitive advantage and higher profits, as firms benefit from increased market size, return on investment, economies of scale, and experience curve effects. There are many industries where competition is on a global scale and a domestic firm cannot maintain a leading market position. It is just a matter of time when the global firms will take over.

The appropriate international strategy will vary with product-market characteristics. Accordingly, firms may follow multi-domestic or global strategies.

Are Strategic Decisions Different?

Most experts believe strategic decisions differ from operational decisions in a number of ways: they impact the future of the entire organisation; are not routine; may have ethical implications; often require Dr. Alexander Billon, Professor of Business Strategy at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, 19716 USA. E-mail: billona@udel.edu.

He is a Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Sofia during the fall semester of 2004, teaching Strategic Management under the auspices of the Fulbright Program.

large capital expenditure; have long term impact; significantly influence a firm’s ability to complete; high level of complexity regarding the interrelated causes impacting environments, internal and external and the firms understanding of what is happening; high level of uncertainty regarding change in technology, competitors’ moves, and other forces in the environment; often accompanied by intra-organisational conflict among decision makers and those affected by the decision. Sources of conflict are often functional orientation, differences in perception or competition for resources.

Strategic Decision Makers Who are the decision makers? Given the above

characteristics of strategic decisions, it is to be expected that, typically, a great number of people from many organisational units and levels may have an input and ultimately influence the direction of the firm. Top managers responsible for results should have the ultimate go or no go decision authority. The reason for this is not only motivational; the chief executor of strategy should “own the strategy”. The manager with line responsibility should be expected to have the best overall information regarding the appropriateness of the decision. Therefore, we should expect better decision quality as a result. This does not mean that a great number of specialists do not contribute their knowledge to the proposed decision. On the contrary, most, if not all, of the homework is presented to the top management as recommendations in complete form. Indeed, in most cases, in the larger companies, top management does not have the time or the expertise to perform the necessary analysis.

On the other hand, it would be a bad mistake to let the staff, no matter how expert, make strategic decisions. Companies that have tried this alternative have found that strategies, developed in this manner, have had little, if any influence on the firm.

Strategy Implementation Decisions Once the strategy is formulated, the next steps are the decisions regarding what kind of structure i.e. management system is necessary. In this respect, structure should follow strategy. Structure in this context includes all of the elements in the management system. Organisation structure means the authority relationships of people and parts of the company and is only one of the elements in the management structure. Just as it is true that each company strategy must be unique, each management system must also be specifically designed to meet the needs of the firm. The primary purpose of the management system, (some hold the position that this is the only reason), is the effective execution of strategy. Any part of structure that is no longer required for strategy implementation should be considered a candidate for elimination.

There are a number of useful concepts available as a firm makes decisions regarding the appropriate structure. The first step in determining the appro-

You are never going to “have it all together”.That is like trying to eat once and for all

CAMBRIDGE

PROFESSIONAL 17

STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING priate management system is to ascertain the critical success factors (CSF), i.e. the most important activities which must be performed especially well if the firm is to achieve its strategy. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that D&M, a leading dishwasher company that sells all of its output to large retailers who in turn sell to their customers under their own private brand. The two obvious critical success factors, there may be more, are low cost and R&D (research and development). The decision regarding

FIGURE 4, FROM STRATEGY TO STRUCTURE

structure should be guided by the variables that are specified in Figure 4, below: As the above scheme indicates, the intervening variables between strategy and structure are the critical success factors and technology. Given that low cost is the CSF, we need to decide what technology is to be used to achieve a low cost position.

Technology here is related to the way a product or service is produced. The important characteristic is whether the technology of making, for example a dishwasher, is stable or unstable, i.e. how often does it change? The answer in this case is that the technology is reasonably stable. The other characteristic of technology is whether the decisions regarding technology are precedented or unprecedented. To get the required low cost the manufacturing technology

FIGURE 5,TECHNOLOGY TYPE AND STRUCTURE

may be classified as stable and precedented, area A in Figure 5, below Given the above, what kind of structure is most appropriate for the manufacturing function of D&M? Our choices, for the sake of simplicity, are high or low structure as shown in Figure 6, below The decision in the D&M case should be high

FIGURE 6, RELATIVE STRUCTURE

structure because it offers the best potential for low cost unit production cost, the required competitive advantage in the chosen segment of the dishwasher market. High structure should provide the needed predictability and efficiency. What about the R&D function of the other CSF? Innovation may well be located in quadrant D, because technology decisions are often unprecedented and unstable, i.e. changing relatively frequently. There are clearly no absolutes when it comes to structure decisions. In any given situation, the terms high or low structure are relative on a continuum as shown Figure 6, above. In case of a miss-match between strategy and structure, serious negative consequences should be expected.

Strategy execution is the responsibility of all managers of the firm because the process affects every part of the firm. All managers contribute to successful execution of strategy by effectively managing their area of responsibility in accord with the requirements of strategy. To a large extent, employees’ commitment to the firm’s purpose will determine if implementation achieves strategic objectives.

Top management is ultimately responsible for implementing strategy and therefore must make the major decisions regarding the design of the management structure which will favour the effective execution of strategy. To achieve this objective, the management structure should include the following elements: a company with the competencies, capabilities and required resource strengths; provide budgets and resources to support value chain critical success factors; establishing benchmarking and programmes for continuous improvement; a reward system; strategy supportive culture; an information system; policies and procedures; leadership needed to manage the strategic management process; provide functional departments capable to effectively carry out the value chain critical success factors; hire and retain high quality people to staff the management structure There are no easy success formulae to use in making decisions regarding appropriate structure to

The way to truly appreciate someone is to realize that someday you might lose them

SIEGEN

18 PROFESSIONAL

DECISIONS: MANAGING BY OBJECTIVES OR BY P RIORITY F UNCTION ?

Alexander Rozmyslov, Ph.D. alexandroz@aari.nw.ru

W

hy should we learn how to make excellent decisions?

You may often hear that making decisions is the key idea of management, and the one who does it perfectly is a perfect manager. I would not agree, because it is not enough to choose what is right and what is wrong. A perfect manager should be good at making decisions as well as at motivating. He is not just a highly productive machine for making decisions; he is an excellent motivator as well.

Nevertheless, decisions mould at least one half of a manager’s job and we should learn how to make it excellent. You may find an enormous number of issues and researches devoted to characterising and improving a decision making process. You may also find a lot of decision-making instruments, technologies and recommendations. All those issues are included in Industrial Engineering and Management educational programs all over the world, and it would not be really impressive to discuss it in the article you are reading now. That is why I would like to raise a remarkable problem of a priority function. What is

a priority function? It will be said a bit later, but now let us consider functions of a certain organisation as the key decision making factors.

time orientation. That is why the attitudes of those different people tend to be different as well. But whom should we listen to, who is really right? In fact before mak-

What game does a company play?

Alexander Rozmyslov Ph.D. (economics), senior lecturer of Saint-Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics, Business analyst of Eurosib Group managing company

Let us try to look at the company as a football team. It would rather look like fig. 1. All the functions (the players) are important for a company (a team), and all of

them influence the decisions made in a company (a team). It is quite natural for functional managers (players) to have different points of view for any decision. Those differences may be considered a result of the specific features and requirements of every job (role/ position) managers do (team members play). For instance marketing & sales people tend to be very creative, ready for ventures.

Accounting & finance people, on the contrary, prefer to calculate everything, to make any decision only after a strong analysis. The people in managing operations appreciate reliability and fit to

ing any decision, we should know which function (player) is more important, in other words: what is a priority function of a company?

We define it as a function which has a major influence on decision making.

Actually economists and managers raise that problem sometimes. However, no one has given a complex solution of the problem. For instance, Lee Iacocca in his “An Autobiography” observed a complicated interaction between finance managers (ragmen) and marketers, who had very different view points in a company’s operating activities and development strategies. Iacocca suggested several solutions, but that interaction is just a small part of the problem we face.

Some analysts who have heard of a priority function say: “May be it is not a great problem while we’ve got MBO”?

Why shouldn’t we just use MBO? There are always several alternatives in any situation, and all of them may be effective in achieving the objective. The lack of a

Life is a persistent teacher. It will keep repeating the lessons until we learn

PORTO

PROFESSIONAL 19

DECISIONS: MANAGING BY OBJECTIVES OR BY P RIORITY F UNCTION ?

- for service companies to choose “managing operations” as a priority function (it could be theoretically explained by the critical role the quality of service operations & processes plays in a service sphere).

FIG. 1 – FUNCTIONS OF A COMPANY

priority function within a company may lead to making absolutely different decisions in the same situations. It is chaos. The analysts say forming specific terms of a corporate culture usually solves the problem.

It is a nice point of view. The associates of excellent companies share a common culture. However they have got their jobs in one (or more) of those ten functions (fig. 1) and share specific functional attitudes.

That is why sometimes MBO may result in ruining a harmony in a company. So managing by objectives is a good thing but not the only thing.

Making a choice: Different industries - different priorities That way we face a problem of choosing the priority func-

tion. There are a number of factors which influence that choice.

Due to my research that was run in 2004, the industry is one of the main factors managers should

take into account when choosing the priority. The conclusions I would like to make are based on the investigation of 66 Russian companies which operate in manufacturing and service fields.

According to research it is most successful: - for manufacturing companies to choose “strategic marketing and planning” as a priority function (it could be theoretically

We should take into account that there are a number of other factors such as a number of employees, proportions of leadership and authority, cultural sources etc. That is why there were some excellent companies in the field of research whose priority functions do not suit the recommendations made. There are always unique situations and unique companies, but still a strong tendency was found, and the advises made may help in engineering and reengineering processes.

So it is not enough to understand a company’s objectives for making decisions - you need to recognize its priority function. It would help a company to keep a harmony inside and achieve excellence.

A winner says “I will” and succeeds.A loser says “ I’ll try” and fails

Yulia Vorojbyanova yulia.vorozhbyanova@estiem.org

explained by the critical role of long-term planning in manufacturing as it takes a lot of time to change a manufacturing company’s products, technologies, and equipment - those decisions are of a high risk);

KARLSRUHE

20 PROFESSIONAL

Alf Rehn alf@kth.se

INTERVIEW WITH ALF REHN A big challenge when writing an article is to find interesting people to interview. My dear friend Magnus Olsson (ESTIEM Alumni) from Stockholm helped me to find a Finnish professor, whom I classify (even if he does not seem too enthusiastic about the classification process) to be of a new generation of teachers who question the old rules we all have to learn by heart in our courses.

The idea is to generate fresh points of view on important topics and see the problems through different perspectives.This time, the focus is on “decision making”

important thing to realise is that there is no such thing as a „perfect“ decision-making process.

All decisions contain an aspect of risk. The notion of the perfectly controlled decision, the „sure thing“, is a fallacy. When we make decisions, we may have taken risk into consideration, but we also always open ourselves up to risk.

For a manager, this relation to risk is something that one has to handle on a very personal level.

When we understand our own personal relationship with risk we may love risk or fear it, find it fascinating or want to control the

1.What is the importance of the decision-making process for a corporation?

O

bviously, decisionmaking is a central aspect of any organized endeavor. The study of decisionmaking has thus been an integral part of business studies, leadership studies, organization theory and the field of strategic management. What is important to realise is that good decisions are not merely the result of a simple costbenefit analysis. Rather, decisionmaking should be understood as a complex set of processes, where aspects such as rational calculation, risk analysis, creativity, intuition and the capacity for improvisation all play a role.

2. How does risk relate to decision-making?

Only unimportant decisions are without risk. Any increase in the importance of the decision increases the risk too. The most

Alf Rehn is Chair of Management and Organization at Abo Akademi University (Finland) as well as SSES (Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship) Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). His research focuses on moralization in management studies and has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Socio-Economics, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, and Gender, Work and Organization, as well as in a number of books. He drinks far too much coffee.

ing, risk is at the very heart of the value-creating process. Businesses with a lot of risk have high margins, and in businesses without risk, there is no margin at all.

The capacity to handle risk, and to be able to make decisions in situations with a high degree of uncertainty, is thus critical in the world of business.

4. What kind of influence do psychological aspect have on decision-making?

world to as great a degree as possible - we are in fact developing as decision-makers.

3. How should we then understand risk? As a threat or as a challenge?

Risk can perhaps best be understood as the potentiality for the world to surprise us. If there is no risk, there are no surprises, and thus no potential to create something interesting. In business, risk is basically what we get paid for. In a manner of speak-

Clearly, decision-making is a very personal process, and the psychological makeup of the individual matters a lot. What is important to note, though, is that this fact of individual idiosyncrasy in decision-making is not a flaw, nor something that should be eradicated. There is often an assumption that the most rational person in a group by definition is the best decision-maker. This is just silly. A good decision-maker needs a degree of rationality, obviously, but he/she also has to be able to have the courage and

If you want to know what your true beliefs are, take a look at your actions

VALENCIA

PROFESSIONAL 21

INTERVIEW WITH ALF REHN the passion to actually decide on something, and a degree of intuitive thinking and creativity to be able to come up with surprising, innovative alternative paths of action.

I think this is a common mistake, to think that decision-making takes place through a linear process with clear segments and parts. In real life, decision-making is a very tangled, very messy process. The idealised picture of decision-making is something like: define problem - gather information - analyse problem - develop alternatives - choose implement decision. In fact, real decision-making can perhaps best be understood as an emergent phenomena, one where problem-

Clearly, different cultures reach the point of decision in different ways, to a great extent because there are social norms regarding what a „good“ decision is. In Japan, there is an emphasis on consensus, so an important aspect of Japanese decision-making is getting everyone in on it. In other cultures, for instance the US and Finland (interestingly enough), decisive individual action is valued and appreciated, so that quick and to-the-point decisions are admired even if they aren‘t well embedded in the organization.

In Sweden, it is considered good manners to continuously inform about the process, so that everyone feels that they are partaking in the decision-making. The actual decision may be the same; it is just the way in which it is reached that differs.

fact is, different contexts not only demand different processes, they force them on us. So rather than planning for a general process, and removing the barriers for this, we should reflect on how THIS specific setting creates a need for its own decision-making process. Nothing can stand in for local knowledge!

This interview was conducted

by Anna Marszalkiewicz (Local Group Poznan)

7. What kind of barriers can complicate reaching a good decision?

definition, analysis, choice and implementation coalesce in an iterative fashion. In such a view, we don‘t simple make decisions, we live through them. Decisions are not made, they emerge.

6. What are the intercultural differences of decision-making?

Obviously, there are a number of things that can hinder or impede the process. Most important of these, however, might be what I‘ve called „the utopian fallacy“, i.e. the belief that there would be one right way to make decisions, one model that would work all the time and in all contexts. The

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.Anyone who keeps learning stays young.The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Anna Marszalkiewicz Anna.Marszalkiewicz@estiem.org

5. Could you describe the phases of a decision-making process?

Could you mention any examples?

TAMPERE

22 PROFESSIONAL

PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING

René Heunen rene.heunen@estiem.org

A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE A Finnish project leader, a German board member, a Portuguese working group leader… Working in multicultural environments is yesterday’s news for ESTIEMers.We experience different ways of coming to decisions within committees, working groups or within the board, with differing extents to which individuals participate. But does culture form a significant factor when it comes to so-called ‘participative decision making’?

T

he decision making process is considered one of the most important organizational phenomena.

Most choices are based on more than one perspective; besides the end responsible entity, other individuals or groups contribute to the choice process through self-determined choices among possible actions during the decision process. This is referred to as participative decision making or PDM. It might seem very evident to ESTIEMers, but even though the importance of the cultural context in PDM is acknowledged or implied by some authors, it hasn’t been systematically studied. Hofstede (2001) criticized some researchers for avoiding the issue of culture in explaining the substantial variations in participation across countries by asserting that ‘One cannot write meaningfully about organizational participation without embedding it within a national cultural context’.

Framework Hofstede’s (1980) framework of cultural dimensions is mostly

cited and adopted by other crosscultural studies. He examines two dominant dimensions: power distance and individualism/collectivism (I/C), as their relationship with PDM is strongest compared to other cultural dimensions (Heller et al., 1998). ‘Power distance’ concerns the extent to which par ticipation is practiced, while I/C helps identifying the participant(s) in the decisionmaking process.

In high power distant cultures, responsibility for and authority in decision making is vested in the hands of a few at the top, and delegation is avoided (Sagie & Koslowsky, 2000). Decision making is a privilege of management and there can be fear of punishment when employees influence or disagree with the choices made. In low power distant cultures, everyone has equal rights and the potential to contribute to the decision making process.

In cultures that are low on individualism (or high on collectivism), the well-being of the community is considered more important than individual goals and interests. No one is allowed to make decisions without approval of the entire group. Joint effort is required to bring about change, whereas in individualistic cultures it is believed that individuals have the potential and power to change things. Here, individuals are responsible for their own choices.

Getting rid of bad habits is like peeling an onion.

It must be done one layer at a time

Quartet of approaches When these dimensions are combined, four different approaches of PDM are derived: face-to-face, collective, pseudo, and paternalistic participation.

Face-to-face PDM is a direct boss-member interaction; the employees themselves rather than their representatives (e.g. trade unions) are involved in the decision-making process. The task itself is more important than the relationship between hierarchical levels. Only rarely, participation applies to strategic decisions (e.g. whether or not to initiate the development of a new product).

Generally, it is relevant to tactical and operational issues (e.g. how to implement the product that top management already decided to initiate; Latham et al. 1994; Sagie, 1997). Participating employees are those who possess the necessary knowledge and information that a superior doesn’t have at his/her disposal. This PDM form seems to be more common in Englishspeaking countries sharing the American I/C and power distance patterns (Hofstede, 1980) than in other regions of the world.

Collective PDM (low/medium individualistic orientation, low/ medium power distance) is more widespread in several countries in Western Europe, such as Swe-

AVEIRO

PROFESSIONAL 23

PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING

A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE den, Germany and Norway. Subordinates are involved indirectly through councils, committees etc.

In that perspective, one could argue that this is the dominant approach of PDM within the organization of ESTIEM. After all, its members are free to determine their level of participation by choosing for example whether or not to get involved in committees or projects, to use their votes in the council or to apply for a position in the board.

The European Union mandates that firms with 1000 or more employees from more than a single European country must set up European works councils. The German law even requires, in some industries, an equal number of employee and stockholder representatives on the board, with a neutral selected to cast the tiebreaking votes (Heller et al., 1998).

In the UK ‘A widespread negative public reaction’ prevented legislation here (Clarke, 1987; Knudsen, 1995); apparently it shares more the American face-to-face PDM than its neighbors do.

Paternalistic PDM is frequently observed in developing countries such as India (Mendonca & Kanungo, 1994), Korea (Jang & Chung, 1997) and Turkey (Kabasakal & Bodur, 1998) that emphasize high power distance and low individualism. It resembles a parent-child relationship in which the parent is trusted to make the right decisions; the employees don’t favor having power and the responsibilities that come with it.

A paternalistic leader is required not to exploit the subordinates, but to consult them and commu-

nicate the decisions taken. Meanwhile, employees are expected to support and commit to these decisions rather than directly contribute to them.

The fourth and last approach is named pseudo-PDM and combines a high level of individualism with a high power distance.

This implies a situation in which participation of employees is preached, but their influence on the final decisions is rather small; a democratic fasade covering up the actual autocracy, of which the majority is very aware. Eastern European countries like Russia and Poland might more or less fit in this description, carrying the imprint of the communist era which partly shaped the local cultures.

Clash of cultures Assuming the relevance of this framework, the need for cooperation between people with differing cultural backgrounds might cause a collision of PDMapproaches. Especially within

multinational organizations like ESTIEM, acculturation is necessary in order to facilitate optimal work relationships. The presented framework can improve the understanding of issues such as reluctance to or fear of participation and willingness to take responsibilities (Frese, 1995).

It speaks for itself that the four approaches mentioned do not exhaust all forms of participative decision making. Also, any approach is not suggested to be limited to certain nationalities. The properties of the two dimensions examined can vary within different regions, industries, within a company, a department or…. a working group! Nevertheless, Sagie and Aycan (2003) propose that culture, among other factors, helps shaping the dominant form of PDM. So make sure to keep that in mind the next time a project leader asks you for input…

References

• Clarke, O. Industrial democracy in Great Britain. International Studies of Management and Organization, 1987, 17(2), 38–51.

• Hofstede, G. Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills CA: Sage, 1980.

• Frese, M. Entrepreneurship in East Europe: A general model and empirical findings. In C.L. Cooper & D.M. Rousseau (Eds), Trends in organizational behavior (Vol. 2). Chichester: Wiley, 1995, pp. 65–83.

• Hofstede, G. Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations, 2nd edn. London: Sage, 2001.

• Heller, F.A., Pusic, E., Strauss, G. & Wilpert, B. Organizational participation: Myth and reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

• Jang, S. & Chung, M.O. Discursive contradiction of tradition and modernity in Korean management practices: A case study of Samsung’s new management. In S.A. Sackmann (Ed.), Cultural complexity in organizations.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997, pp. 51-71.

• Kabasakal, H. & Bodur, M. Leadership, values and institutions:The case of Turkey. Paper presented at Western Academy of Management Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, June 1998.

• Knudsen, H. Employee participation in Europe. London: Sage, 1995.

• Latham, G.P.,Winters, D.C. & Locke, E.A. Cognitive and motivational effects of participation: A mediator study.

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 1994, 15, 49-64.

• Mendonca, M. & Kanungo, R.N. Motivation through participative management. In R.N. Kanungo & M. Mendonca (Eds), Work motivation: Models for developing countries.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994, pp. 184-212.

• Based on Sagie, A. & Aycan, Z. A cross-cultural analysis of participative decision-making in organizations.

London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi: Sage 2003 • Sagie, A. & Koslowsky, M. Participation and empowerment in organizations: Modeling, effectiveness, and applications. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, 2000.

• Sagie,A. Leader direction and employee participation in decision-making: Contradictory or compatible practices?

Applied Psychology: An International Review, 1997, 46, 387-416

After you make your mark in this world a lot of people will come around with erasers!

GALWAY

24 PROFESSIONAL

BOSCH WORKSHOP 2004 GLOBAL SOURCING – A

NEW

CHALLENGE

FOR

PURCHASING

Armin Buchsteiner armin.buchsteiner@estiem.org

I

t was the fourth time in a row that the very successful Bosch ESTIEM workshop has taken place. This year, the event was hosted by the Bosch plant in Reutlingen on 16th and 17th November 2004. Bosch had invited 24 Students from all over Europe to the beautiful city of Reutlingen, located close to Stuttgart. The participants came from Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, France and Hungary.

In reference to the challenge of the purchasing department to find suppliers in China, the topic of this year’s workshop was: “Global Sourcing – A new challenge for Purchasing“.

The event started on Tuesday, November 16th, with a little warmup in the AE Forum of the Reutlingen plant. Before the workshop started we had the chance to fill in cards with our expectations of the workshop, which were presented on a blackboard. The ‘get to know each other’-part was followed by

the official welcome by the workshop organisers Ms Claudia Schall and Ms Miriam Neuhaus, Personnel Department Reutlingen as well as Mr Ronald Riebe, Personnel Manager and in charge of the graduate management trainee programs, and last but not least our president Hans Ulrich Elsner.

After these first impressions of Bosch we had the opportunity to socialise and mingle a bit with the Bosch employees present while having a cup of tea and the famous German “Brezels”.

After the brake Mr Peter Mayer, Vice President Purchasing gave us a detailed Bosch company presentation where we had the chance

to learn about the Bosch Group in general, its products, divisions, the Robert Bosch Foundation and possible entry routes for students and graduates.

To get a more practical view on the products that are produced in the Automotive Technology division, we had the possibility to join a mini–product fair where engineers answered our questions about Driver Assistance Systems, Electronic Control Units, Sensors etc.

The day filled with lots of new impressions and useful informa-

tion ended with a fantastic dinner at the Hotel Fora. During the dinner even more “Boschler” were present, answering the last remaining questions about purchasing or Bosch in general. Even Mr Bottcher, Senior Vice President (Finance & Administration/ Semiconductor Devices) took the time to welcome the students at Bosch and enjoyed talking to them throughout the evening.

After the dinner most of the students and some of the “Boschler” left the restaurant to end this successful day in a bar close by…

Reutlingen Before entering the actual case study,Wednesday morning started with a short tour through the ReI am grateful to all those people who refused to help me.

Because of them, I did it myself

ILMENAU

PROFESSIONAL 25

BOSCH WORKSHOP 2004 GLOBAL SOURCING – A utlingen plant. Since the Reutlingen plant currently has approximately 6.400 employees and is the

headquarter of the Automotive Electronics Division, it was naturally impossible to present all production facilities. Therefore, the tour concentrated on ABS manufacturing section where parts of the new ABS – System are produced. Here we had the chance to gain a deep insight into the production process of the control unit for the ABS – System.

Case study Upon the return from the factory tour and after a short break, a short introduction to the case was given. In order to solve the case study we faced two main problems. The first one was that we were a purchasing manager that was given the responsibility to implement a 30% price ratio for Wheel Speed Sensors between European and Chinese suppliers. We had to find a strategy for our negotiations before, during and after the meeting by taking cultural differences into account. The second problem was a more practical one; here we had to decide if we stick with the old supplier from Europe or if we change to a Chinese one. We had to find arguments for either decision as well

NEW

CHALLENGE

as taking quality, time schedules, production volume and - our goal - the cost reduction into account.

The tasks were solved in groups of 5-6 students and presented afterwards to all students and participating Bosch employees. During the preparation of the case study, some of the participating “Boschler” took the chance to keep an eye on the progress of the different groups and helped with first hand knowledge. An interesting facet of this case study was that information was handed in during the preparation, which kept the time pressure throughout the assigned time. The case was very much liked by the students because it required technical and business knowledge so it matched exactly the studies of IEM where we bridge mainly these two fields.

It was also appreciated that we got immediate feedback by employees from Bosch that had actually participated in this “real life” case.

The workshop ended with a little reception in the AE Forum.

FOR

PURCHASING

that was not met. I can say, “I did the challenge!” and I hope you all

can say the same after next year’s workshop, too.

Armin Buchsteiner LG Kaiserslautern

From my site as a participant I can highly recommend this event to all ESTIEMers. I have to thank the organisers again for their fantastic job and if we come back to the backboard with our expectations – I think there was not even one

If you love what you do you will never work another day in your life

DRESDEN

26 EVENT

ALUMNIS

Mirko Thomforde mirko.thomforde@estiem.org

WINE HARVEST EVENT Wine Harvest Event at Lutz Heissler Winery (Bad Duerkheim / Germany, 15-17th Oct. 2004). Around 25 alumni from all „ESTIEM generations followed Lutz’ invitation to the Palatinate to experience the traditional wine harvest.

I

t was still cold and dusty when we met on Saturday morning at the winery to leave for the field. Transport was organised on a trailer towed by an ancient tractor. The Dutch fraction could already be seen with some “Schorle” glasses being passed around...

On the field we were divided into groups of six people who were responsible for cutting all the grapes in one endless row.

This can be rather exciting when you start grabbing at the same grape as the person on the other side of the plant, both approaching with their scissors! Quickly the first buckets were filled and transports being ordered by calling “Eimeeeer!!!”. So the ‘logistics team’ arrived, and cleared the buckets, collected all the sweet

fruits, and brought them to the truck.

Naturally, with the harvest proceeding further into the field, the ways became longer for the ‘transporters’, and the harvesters built up a lot of pressure on them.

The calls for “Eimeeer!!!” became louder and more frequent as learning curves of the cutters increased. However, Lutz had foreseen this situation, and managed to avoid a revolution by distributing “Schorle” and “Secco” among the field workers. When finally the sun managed to make its way through the clouds, the situation was under control again.

After three long hours of hard work, when we had finally completed our four rows, Lutz called for a traditional palatinate lunch.

With different sausages, cooked potatoes, bread, and wine the

planned for the afternoon.

Instead, we went back to the winery and followed the processing of the grapes and juice from cutting through pressing to the cellar. With the theoretical background in our minds it was the right time then to try some new wine (“Federweisser”).

A wine tasting session was scheduled for the evening. Starting with a sparkling Riesling, Lutz and Sibylle guided us through ten lovely wines during a three hour dinner (Palatinate Slaughter’s

Menu). As a result, only very few people participated in the sports programme the next morning, but a lot of wine was taken home.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Sybille and Lutz. I will certainly be back next year...

Mirko Thomforde Board of ESTIEM Alumni

hungry stomachs were more than satisfied. All of us were very relieved that no additional shift was Life begins at the end of your comfort zone

BUDAPEST

VISION

PROJECTS 27

OF

CYCLES

ESTIEM PROJECT COVERING ALL Vision of Cycles – Cycles in Business and Industry – is the topic for the next Vision project.

In the Autumn Council Meeting in Istanbul, the New Vision Working Group came up with the topic “Cycles in Business and Industry”. Vision of Cycles, for short, examines today’s business world from the perspective of changing and varying life cycles. In a rapidly developing industrial environment, the product life cycle

has a big influence on the strategy of companies. The management of projects, process development and periodical changes is essential for companies to survive and

EUROPE

discussions about the possibilities of publication, a Study Tour and a Final Conference.

You are more than welcome to take part in the Vision of Cycles Saija Ekorre, PL saija.ekorre@estiem.org

V

ision is a Europe-wide seminar series organised annually by ESTIEM. Each Vision series examines a certain topic that is important in contemporary business and industrial world. In the year 20052006, the aim is to investigate cycles that affect strategies, management and evaluation processes in often fast developing markets.

During the next academic year, over 20 local groups are ready to arrange a seminar in their university.

keep their competitive edge. Life cycle management, market life cycle analysis and life cycle assessment are key terms for companies in order to master the product life cycle from idea to retirement.

In the Vision of Cycles series, the topic can be examined from a managerial as well as an industrial point of view, to serve both engineering and economic oriented universities and students.

Since the Council Meeting in Istanbul, the project team has been working on the central poster, brochure and website for promoting the seminars to students from all around Europe. At the same time, we have been looking for a patron to support and advise us in shaping the project. In June, there will be a Coordination Meeting for the organisers and the project team, in which the aim is to share the knowledge about Vision, from organising, motivating and PR points of view. This will ensure the progress and the final success of the project. During the meeting, there will also be

OF

seminars! Where could you better experience new cultures, meet people from different nations, and at the same time strengthen your knowledge in your field of studies? The schedule for Vision and the website will be published soon, so you can start choosing the seminars you would like to visit!

Saija Ekorre Project Leader Vision of Cycles

When you are an expert on yourself, you are an expert on everyone else

ANKARA

28 PROJECTS

TIMES

Fabrice Volken, PL fabrice.volken@estiem.org

T

he TIMES project is now really running: by the time I am writing this two more weeks to go before the first Semi-Final (SF) - most Local Qualifications (LQ) will have taken place without incidents and sponsors have been found almost everywhere to support splendid SF and Final rounds! With about 55 LQs, this year’s participation rate has been increased of almost 20% up to a record breaking 85%, a good opportunity to thank all LQ organizers for their great commitment as well as the SF organizers who supported them: TIMES is more than ever ESTIEM’s most appreciated event!

2004 has been a year of change in the somehow old TIMES rules.

During the coordination meeting (CoM), which took place in Eindhoven in October, the evaluation criteria have been completed,

made clearer and more transparent in order to standardize jury judgements all along the tournament. The grading scale has been simplified and specified for the same reason. At last, the very first - SF Ankara-METU: 28th February – 2nd March - SF Eindhoven: 31st January – 3rd February - SF Grenoble: 21st -25th February - SF Ilmenau: 21st – 24th February - SF Linkoping: 9th – 12th February - SF Vienna: 9th – 12th February - Final Zurich: 3rd – 9th April

IT guidelines have been introduced; they help improving web presence with the concept of a common homepage for SFs and Final.

The TIMES crew was once again at work at the CM Istanbul, where the goals of the Working Groups

(WG) were to communicate and re-discuss the changes, inform potential next organizers, motivate the LGs, make contacts and of course, have some fun. This last point was reached particularly well during the writing of the traditional TIMES song, which closes each TIMES WG. That was for the summary of the past events, but what is coming next? First some dates to keep in mind: Due to this year’s schedule, some SFs will have already taken place by the time you are reading this article. In all of them, the participants can expect a mix of hard work, activities, and parties of course. As the result of a good repartition, each SF will welcome 8-10 teams, guaranteeing equal chances everywhere.

Furthermore, here is a taste of what is waiting for the lucky finalists who will spend an incredible week in Zurich: a cosy hotel in the heart of the city and a case study on its roof, a dinner with Swiss bankers, a panoramic excursion, wild parties, sweet surprises, and much more…

You will find all necessary information on the regularly updated homepage: www.times.estiem.org.

Of course, the SF organizers and I remain at your disposition in case of any questions!

On behalf of the whole TIMES team,

LEFT TO RIGHT:VINCENT HOFFS (EINDHOVEN),TOBIAS EULENBERGER (ILMENAU), ANTOINE PERRET (GRENOBLE), FABRICE VOLKEN (ZURICH), OZGUR ERPEK (ANKARA), GUSTAF LANDIN (LINKOPING) AND ROBERT MEINECKE (VIENNA)

Look for opportunities, not guarantees

Fabrice Volken Project Leader TIMES 2005

ISTANBUL

PROJECTS 29

CAREER “CAREER DAYS”

T

ESTIEM Career was born for the mission of guiding ESTIEMers in their career planning by giving information about CV writing, interviews, cover letters, etc. as well as also publishing career events across Europe and company related information like postings.

The evolution of the project was tough. ESTIEM Career was founded as a successor of ESTIEM EGC (European Graduate Catalogue).

The vision of the project was created to fit with the organisation and the objectives were designed as to be feasible.

As the first result, the ESTIEM Career Website was designed. The idea was to collect valuable career-related information around the Internet in a portal and put the information in an ordered, digestible form and publish them in web-quest style. Now, the Career Website is online inside the ESTIEM portal and lets ESTIEMers benefit from sorted, categorised, and country-specific career information.

Career Days The second and the most promising objective of ESTIEM Career is Career Days. The innovative idea to organise a career event was suggested in the Working Group

Career during Council Meeting Sofia in spring 2004. It was shared with the Council during the General Assembly. Considering the support of the Council, the ESTIEM Working Group Career decided to translate the idea into action. The content of the event was discussed and decided.

The Career Days are designed to provide the basic career planning information an ESTIEMer needs. The event is planned to be held annually and to last five days.

About 20 to 25 students from all over Europe are expected to participate. Four main topics will be covered.The first topic is “Interactive CV Writing Sessions” in which participants bring their own CVs, evaluate them according to what they learn during the event and change their CVs correspondent to the discussions and interactive supervision.

Second is “Interview Simulation”. This will be the most challenging part of the event and probably also the most exciting one. The idea is to improve the participants’ interview skills by taking part in an interview simulation. These interviews are held

by HR-responsibles of companies sponsoring the event and detailed feedback is given afterwards.

The third part of the event is “Leadership and self-improveIf you don’t start it is certain you won’t arrive

ment games” which are played in teams, so team members can improve their teamwork, leadership, and communication skills. On the first day of the event, participants get to know each other and team building is accomplished by these games.

The last but not the least part is “Case Studies”. On a separate day, the teams have to solve a case study provided by the sponsors.

These four titles will build the core of the event, but the whole five days are further enriched by high quality lectures about several topics like “Self improvement and knowledge”, “How to promote yourself?”, “How to behave in an interview?”, etc…

Career Days is a fresh and challenging idea for ESTIEM. The first Local Group to organise this event will be the pioneer in ESTIEM and will prove the success of our organisation in international events once more. Local Group Budapest already took this challenge and is planning to hold the first Career Days after February 2005.

Akin Akyürük PL ESTIEM Career LG Ankara-Bilkent

Akin Akyürük, PL akin.akyuruk@estiem.org

he main aim of a student organisation is “adding value” to its members as ESTIEM does. One means for that objective is guiding its members in career planning to help them in their personal development and reaching their future goals.

EINDHOVEN

30 PROJECTS

NMC IS TAKING MORE RESPONSIBILITY

Alper Gunaydin, CL alper.gunaydin@estiem.org

N

MC (New Members Committee) is the first committee ever started in ESTIEM. Until the Council Meeting in Sofia, it was mainly responsible for supporting the guest and observer groups and supplying information for them through the time of becoming a real member of ESTIEM. We provide application guidelines and samples for the observership and membership applicants. These services and some more may be obtained from our webpage (www.nmc.estiem.org).

Besides these, all the guest and observer groups have a kind of consultant appointed by NMC. So, needed help and answers are provided from a single source. Even if they do not have a student organization, we introduce the brand of ESTIEM to them and guide them in forming a local group During the CM in Sofia, another responsibility appeared: Assisting inactive Local Groups.

At first, it might seem strange to burden such a responsibility to a “New” Members Committee.

However, these inactive LG’s have really similar characteristics with the potential members. Mostly, both are aware of ESTIEM somehow, but they do not have a comprehensive knowledge of ESTIEM. They need to pass similar stages to become real and active members of our organisation, but there is a fact that makes things more complicated: Guests and observers are really enthusiastic, while inactive groups need to be encouraged!

In order to work on the issue of inactiveness, the NMC Working Group was held in CM Istanbul for

the first time. After three effective WG sessions, we came up with a standard method of re-activation.

ing activity levels. Examining the problem before it really occurs is the best way to prevent it. While

Briefly, the idea is to appoint a tutor to work with each inactive LG. Preferably, these tutors will be from the same region as the inactive LG’s. By this, establishing personal contact will be easier. So far, the Board has been assigned the task of tutoring, but now the tasks of NMC have been clarified and we are planning to relieve the Board from this work. In co-operation with KMC we will also prepare support material for getting inactive groups active again.

performing these new tasks, NMC will keep on providing help for the guests and observers as before.

If you want to be a part of the team and strengthen our network just drop a mail to nmc@estiem.org

Until CM Lyon, NMC will attentively take care of the most severe inactiveness cases. Only if NMC cannot manage to establish stable contacts, a proposal for exclusion will be a matter of consideration.

Beside these apparent inactive LG’s, we will try to diagnose the probable inactiveness by monitor-

If you have made yourself important, notice you are not important

Alper Gunaydin Committee Leader of NMC LG Ankara-METU

MÜNCHEN

PROJECTS 31

KMC – MANAGING KNOWLEDGE IN ESTIEM

T

What has been done so far?

KMC first produced the Best Practice Documents (BPDs) that are now available to every ESTIEMer in the file sharing system. They exist for all projects and different types of ESTIEM events. A Best Practice Document summarises experiences from the past and is a useful guide for any project leader or event organiser.

The Best Practice Documents are constantly updated to keep them accurate.

A help-tool was implemented (help@estiem.org) to give ESTIEMers answers to their everyday questions. If you send an email

to this address, it will automatically be forwarded to a bunch of experienced ESTIEMers who will do their best to help you. This help-tool was created to prevent the Board from getting overloaded with questions. In connection

with this help-tool, a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with corresponding answers can be found on the ESTIEM Portal.

Since Council Meeting Sofia (April 2004), KMC has been running trainings for Local Responsibles, Project Leaders and Committee Leaders at every CM. At the CM in Istanbul, a training for organisers of TIMES local qualifications was held in cooperation with the TIMES project. This training will take place again at the next autumn CM. In addition, KMC has recently carried out other activities as well.

Examples include creating guidelines for the ESTIEM Board and the introduction of a report form for projects and committees.

The angry people are those who are most afraid

What does the future hold?

There’s still a lot of work to do and the things that have been done so far have to be maintained.

The BPDs have to be constantly updated, the FAQ will be developed further and we must better advertise the available helptools to let all ESTIEMers benefit from them. KMC is also working on training material for Regional Coordination Meetings, since this is an excellent way to reach more students and get them involved in ESTIEM. Such trainings can also be used at events like LG strategy weekends and newcomer weekends.

KMC is working together with the New Members Committee to support inactive LGs. KMC will create support material for getting these groups active again. One more activity was recently started: KMC will deal with the history of ESTIEM and its projects, including projects which were shut down such as IEM-Net and EGC, to prevent making the same mistakes again.

Want to get involved?

KMC is always looking for motivated ESTIEMers (new or experienced) who would like to contribute to the success of the committee. It’s a nice way to get involved in ESTIEM and we can find a suitable task for everyone.

If you have any questions, just drop me a line!

Martin Schonbeck CL KMC LG Trondheim

Martin Schönbeck, CL martin.schonbeck@estiem.org

he Knowledge Management Committee (KMC) has existed for three years now and is the youngest and biggest committee of ESTIEM. A fancy name, so what’s all behind it? In a student organisation like ESTIEM, a c t i v e members turn over relatively quickly due to their studies. Whenever experienced members are leaving the organisation, they take most of their skills and knowledge with them. KMC was founded to prevent this from happening.

LISBOA

32 PROJECTS

PRC PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE

Ozan Efe Ertem, PRCL ozan.ertem@estiem.org

I

have always been excited about writing something that will reach others and get a message across to them. I guess that is why me and everyone else in the Public Relations Committee is a part of PRC. We all like to communicate and that is what public relations is all about: communicating to everyone what ESTIEM is about. It is the duty of PRC to promote ESTIEM’s image and its activities in any way possible, as well as helping local groups in their own public relations endeavours.

To this end, we are currently working on several projects. The first of those projects is about the image of ESTIEM. All ESTIEMers have an idea of what ESTIEM is in their heads and they associate good qualities with it. But what do others, those that are potential members or sponsors, think? It is

with this question that we started our work. Currently, a survey is being worked on to determine that answer. From the results of this survey we will start working on shaping ESTIEM’s image, de-

fining it in a way similar to how Board 2004 has done it for ESTIEM in general. This is a work that will be on the agenda constantly as a good organisation always keeps tabs on its image and takes necessary actions to keep it up as the world changes.

Another project is re-establishing our lost “press database”, which is essentially a collection of all the material published by the media about ESTIEM. When it is finished, it will feature mainly articles, their original text and hopefully translations in English with a search function to provide easy access. The idea behind the database is to have a source that we can refer to about our media coverage when we are negotiating with companies and academics.

Besides, we are also continuing the process that had been started before the preparation of guidelines for ESTIEM activities and the design of public relations material for the activities. It is also our aim to assist local groups with their own local public relations by the help of best practice documents, trainings and other materials.

formation flow. Discussions about that have already started. Stand-

ardisation of the design work in the committee is also on the agenda.

We are always looking for enthusiastic ESTIEMers to help us with all this work. As I said in the beginning - we are all here because we like to communicate.

So, if you would like to spruce up your communication skills and get to know some of the greatest people in ESTIEM, contact me.

In high ESTIEM, Ozan Efe Ertem PRC Leader LG-Ankara METU

In the future the public relations committee will be better integrated and have smoother in-

If you want something and still don’t get it, means you dont really want it

LUND

PROJECTS 33

ESTIEM EXCHANGE GUIDE

H

Europe is integrating at ever accelerating pace; therefore cultural exchange and mastering foreign languages have become valuable and wanted in today’s job market.

During university studies students are encouraged to go for an exchange to gain new experiences and skills. To help achieve this aim EU has funded several programs.

As a result for example the current amount of Socrates exchange students is about one million and increasing all the time. The opportunities offered by the integration are endless. People who are ready to take advantage of the possibilities emerged can have international careers, develop their personal networks, and experience other cultures.

ESTIEM created the Exchange project in the year 1993. Its goal was to make it easier for students to study IEM abroad. Marja Blomqvist had an ambitious dream, to make an exchange network within all ESTIEM member universities. After a lot of effort from her and her professor ESTIEM had its own Erasmus ICPnet under EU’s Erasmus program consisting of fifteen ESTIEM universities. These universities had bilateral exchange contracts with each other. Afterwards the Erasmus program took over these responsibilities and the ESTIEM

Exchange project focused on providing information and contacts in the form of the Exchange Guide. By providing essential information about ESTIEM universities the Exchange Guide helps students to plan their exchange.

The information is gathered and stored into a database, which can be easily accessed from the internet. In the database you find necessary information about how the studies are organised, living costs, housing prices, contacts to international offices, how to apply for an exchange and much more. All the information is filled in by local IEM students, so the information is from students to students.

That is what makes our database so unique. On the web pages you have the opportunity to look at travel stories written by students who have studied abroad at some IEM university and of course the pages provide links to exchange related sites. Recently Erasmus recognised ESTIEM with the help of the Exchange project and added ESTIEM to its student association pool.

In the Council Meeting Sofia in the spring 2004 the Exchange project did not have its own Working Group, instead it was incorporated with Working Group Development. This was done to solve its strategic and long term challenges. As results from these sessions the Exchange project got some new ideas and suggested that the board and the project team should figure out how to continue the hard work done for the Exchange project after the Council Meeting Istanbul. So after many years of be-

ing an on-going project Exchange is going to be known in the future as the Exchange Guide. This name was given to the project since it describes well what the ESTIEM Exchange project has been for the past years: a guide for ESTIEMers around Europe to search information and contacts when planning their exchanges. In the future the Guide will be a part of the Academic Committee (AC). Since AC is all about promoting the academic part of ESTIEM we can all be assured that the Exchange Guide will be in good hands. As the last Project Leader Exchange I would like to thank all active members of the Exchange project. Please keep up the good work and update the database regularly. This is a task for each and every Local Group.

Also inputting of travel stories is important and everyone who has gone for an exchange in another ESTIEM university should fill one out. Without up-to-date information the web pages are useless!

Europe is waiting for you. Open your Guide at http://www.exchange.estiem.org.

Thomas Mathews Project Leader Exchange LG Tampere

“I can’t” is always a lie.The truth is,“ I can, but right now I choose not to”

Thomas Mathews, PL thomas.mathews@estiem.org

ave you always wanted to do a part of your studies abroad, but have not yet found viable options where to do it? If so then the Exchange Guide is an opportunity for you.

GÖTEBORG

34 PROJECTS

SUMMER ACADEMY 2005

Steffen Franke steffen.franke@estiem.org

A

fter the great success in the last years and fully satisfied participants, there will again be two Summer Academies taking place in 2005: the first one at the beginning of August under the academic leadership of Prof Dietrich Brandt from Aachen, Germany. This event will be situated at the Balaton Lake in Hungary is being organized by the Local Group Budapest.

Because of the positive experience from last year, a cooperation is planned again with the French automotive supplier Valeo. The

Summer Academy team of 2004 in Hungary spent three days with the company and worked on a real-life case, followed by a presentation to the board of management. Both sides profit from this partnership: the SAC participants learned how to work in an organisation under time pressure, while Valeo got some new concepts and ideas.

The second Summer Academy under the academic leadership of Prof. Jim Platts from Cambridge, UK, will take place during the last two weeks of August. In the

Summer Academy Working Group at the last Council Meeting in Istanbul, a heated discussion arose

about the location. After comparing all the pros and contras and an exciting vote, the event will take place in Turkey; the reason being the decision to choose a different location compared to previous years. The ideas and motivation of the LG Ankara-Bilkent, too, convinced the members of the Working Group. It is the first time that a Summer Academy will take place in Turkey. The location will be in the mountains in the north of Turkey next to a small village, away from tourist areas.

In the spring there will be also another event. Prof. Jim Platts will hold a three-day Summer Academy workshop in Istanbul with the topic “Manufacturing Leadership”, taking place from

15th of March and ends on the 31st of May. To experience two amazing and unforgettable weeks, everybody has the opportunity to apply. There will be again around 12 places for each event.

I would like to thank very much Prof. Jim Platts and Prof. Dietrich Brandt for their effort - without it the entire event would not be realisable.

My personal advice for all ESTIEM-ers is to participate in these

great events to learn some things you will never learn anywhere else!

In high ESTIEM, Steffen Franke Project Leader SAC 2005

22-24 April. This workshop is organized by the Local Group Istanbul-Bogazici.

The application period of both Summer Academy events in Hungary and in Turkey starts on the

Until we are all that we can be, how can we be upset with someone who is not what we wish them to be?

LYON

VISION

EVENTS 35

OF

CHANGE BERLIN

„VISIONARY CHANCES

O

With sixteen events, and even more Local Groups participating, VISION is the biggest pan-European seminar series. And which Local Group would be better suited for the EU Eastern enlargement topic than the formerly divided Berlin?

From November 17th to November 22nd, ESTIEMers and local students were invited to a week of exciting activities and lectures.

We were pleased to welcome visitors from Porto in the far west to St.Petersburg in the far east, as well as members from the northern LG Lund to the southern LG of Novi Sad. For the evening of the arrival day, we had prepared a great welcome party on the rooftop of our historical university building with a wonderful view over the city of Berlin.

Starting with an introduction of the week’s programme to our guests, Sven Glomme officially opened the VISION seminar on Thursday morning. Next we heard lectures from 4Flow AG and Price-

WaterhouseCoopers. After enjoying lunch we took off to our first company visit at the recently established combined power and heat plant of the Bewag in Berlin „Mitte“. Following an introduc-

tion to Bewag, we put our helmets on and started exploring the plant. The first day ended with a reposeful Jazz evening at the “Knorre” bar so everyone would be able to attend the lectures on next day.

NEW EU“

Europe. Afterwards, our guests visited Potsdam, a city near Berlin, and its beautiful park and castle.

In the evening, our pasta farewell party took place in the eastern part of the city in a “GDR” style, reminding some of us of former times. Here we proclaimed our city rally winners who composed a new LG Berlin song for us.

Every great story has an ending, and so does this one. On Monday, most of our guests departed or had a last company visit at the

The second day’s programme started with a lecture

by A.T.Kearney, followed by the Streetvending AG and their CEOs, who also provided us with some energy drinks. The day went on with Berlin@Night sightseeing, a visit of “The Springs” in concert and dancing at the Sophienclub.

On Saturday, the participants went on the famous Berlin city rally, during which they had to explore the city on their own in different teams, answering questions and writing a song. In the evening, we organised a pub crawl ending in a club that night.

Schultheiss brewery. We want to thank all ESTIEMers and sponsors who turned this VISION into an exciting and unforgettable event.

See YOU in Berlin soon…

Matthias Muller LG Berlin

Sunday featured a visit of the famous airport Tempelhof, known for the Berlin airlift. We got an exciting insight to the whole area including the largest building in

If you don’t have what you want, you are not committed to it 100 %

Matthias Muller matthias.muller@estiem.org

ne of last year’s most important topics in Europe was the enlargement of the European Union, which officially tooking place on May 1st. Ten new members joined and enriched it with new cultural, social and scientific aspects.

A great opportunity for ESTIEM, which chose “Business strategies in a changing Europe” as the main theme for its annual seminar series VISION this year.

IN THE

HAMBURG

36 EVENTS

VISION K2K COLD

WEATHER

- WARM

Chris Flath chris.flath@estiem.org

E

verything started on the evening of Sunday, November 28th, when over 30 participants from 12 different local groups arrived in Kaiserslautern for the first half of this year’s K2K Vision seminar: „New countries, new Customers“. On Monday, the first lectures awaited the participants. After a short introduction of the Vision topic by the head of IEM studies, there was a presentation from A.T. Kearney about the chemical industry in Eastern Europe. Afterwards, sd&m gave a lecture on the concept of near shoring. Next was a Gingerbread house construction contest followed by a dinner in a haunted castle.

Tuesday morning was spent on solving a case study about licensing agreements in Eastern Europe,

while in the afternoon people had a great time at the swimming park ‘Monte mare’. This exciting day ended with a great farewell-party.

Wednesday, the transfer day, was spent at the BASF main plant

PEOPLE in Ludwigshafen where the participants could see and learn a lot about the world‘s largest chemical company during a company tour, a lecture and an impressive

It featured a sight-seeing tour through the historic city including a climb up to the old castle and a typical German dinner at the “Schnitzelhaus”.

Thanks to all participants and LG Kaiserslautern - it was a wonderful week for everybody!

Chris Flath Vision of Change Responsible LG Karlsruhe dinner. In the late evening, they finally arrived in Karlsruhe to complete the second part of this Vision, themed „Exploring New Markets“.

Here they were confronted with lectures by Lufthansa Technik and the IEM vice dean who lectured about opportunities and risks in new markets - may they be of a regional or virtual importance.

After lunch, the results of the lectures where enriched by a workshop on auction systems. Next was a sight-seeing and “Christmas-market-ing” tour through Karlsruhe followed by dinner, the usual ESTIEM songs and games, and a disco visit.

For a perfect ending of the academic part of the seminar, Arthur D. Little gave a lecture “Consultancy challenges in emerging markets”, which was followed by a nice brunch and some free time to prepare for the day’s highlight: the ESTIEM-wide legendary TramParty, which once again was able to live up to its fame.

Saturday was reserved for a trip to the famous town of Heidelberg.

Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid but act anyway

NOVI SAD

VISION

EVENTS 37

OF

CHANGE, CAMBRIDGE

“THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF AN EXPANDED EU” one of our lecturers, Dr Angelis, but fortunately we managed to replace that with a practical demonstration of RFID tags and how they can be used in a Centre of Distribution and Control, monitoring the products.

he students of ESTIEM seemed to hold this topic close to their hearts, being particularly evident when it came to participation within the lectures and workshops. There was a general consensus about the importance of the expanded EU, and a number of questions, comments, and opinions were expressed during and after lectures to the various speakers who came to the Cambridge Vision. I was approached by Mr. Quinton and Mr. Tagoe after the lectures explaining how much they had enjoyed giving the lectures as well

But enough about the hard work - let us continue with the informal activities that were organised for the ESTIEMers. Various outings took place, including a Formal Hall Dinner at Gonville and Caiuss college Cambridge, a trip to London, a dinner at a Curry house, and a final night of clubbing.

T

as conversing with the students of ESTIEM.I must thank the ESTIEMers for their excellent participation throughout the seminar.

The lectures included both theoretical and practical sessions as the ESTIEMers had the chance to perform numerous SWOT analyses and work on a case study regarding a sport clothes company.

We had an unexpected injury to

The formal hall was a success with ESTIEMers enjoying the traditional sit down dinner at Cambridge within the historically significant Caiuss hall. Of course, penny coins were all over the place, mainly in wine glasses which I’m sure added to the excellent atmosphere!!!

The trip to London was not supervised, allowing the various ESTIEMers to split of into groups depending on if they wanted to go site seeing, shopping, or do their own thing. This went down well, as it gave those who had already seen London before to do various other things.

However, this did not put us off as it was the experience of the food that we were trying to get across - I believe it was a great success.

This seminar was the first I have organised, and I have to admit that all the sleepless nights I spent putting together the seminar were well worth it. I have thoroughly

enjoyed organising this vision seminar but the most important aspect of this was the satisfaction and fulfilment from seeing ESTIEMers enjoying themselves.

I hope that there will be many more of these events to come in Cambridge.

Kenneth Ingram LG Cambridge

The trip to the Curry House, an Indian restaurant was enjoyed by most of the ESTIEMers as many had not seen such a large choice of various curries before. In fact, there was so much choice, I would guess most people were not sure what they were really eating.

Your interpretation of what you see and hear is just – your interpretation

Ken Ingram ken.ingram@estiem.org

The Vision of Cambridge took place between the 18th and 21st of January. It was attended by 21 students from six countries across Europe.

The topic of the Vision seminar was ‘Threats and Opportunities of an expanded EU.’

LINKÖPING

38 EVENTS

RECOM NOVI SAD “S

IS FOR

SERBIA”

Marko Ljubicic marko.ljubicic@estiem.org

A

las, the day has arrived for the first ReCoM in Novi Sad to finish.

Many ESTIEMers sadly woke up in the cold winter morning of February 28th, morning after a sleepless Serbian night. Among them, sheer fun-seekers counting members from LGs Skopje, Kiev, Porto, Tallinn, Eindhoven, Zurich, Vaasa, stood the organisers who once again had to get up before sunrise and wake them up, in order not to miss breakfast and any teeny-tiny moment of joy in Serbia’s second largest city.

It all had started four days earlier. Everyone arrived that or the previous day, and the night to follow, in everybody’s opinion, was not to be wasted. The warm-up in the Cafe club ‘Ritmo Latino’ that opened every ESTIEMer’s eyes for the local natural beauties was later on followed by dancing to salsa rhythms in another place.

Friday was a day of hard labour for some: I made a small presentation on our country for those who had never been there before, after which Etienne took over

with an ESTIEM presentation for new members, giving them some information on core values, structure and what it all means in the real life of our beloved organization. After lunch and a little tour around the city, it was PARTY

TIME, again. We went to a tavern called ‘Orcus’ and listened to traditional tambourine players typical for the province of Vojvodina.

Spirits had risen, songs were sung, friendships were made, before we moved to the club named ‘Pipping’ where the modern beats had us all dancing till late hours.

On Saturday we went to visit ‘MB’ brewery, one of the most modern breweries in the world, built by top German standards.

We had a taste of their finest beers right on the spot, of course, and with tremendous unwillingness went back to the restaurant to have lunch. The afternoon was planned for a stroll on the quay and the Petrovaradin fortress, as well as visits to the galleries of Matica Srpska and Pavle Beljanski’s Memorial Collection,where the visitors had the chance to see some Serbian icons and other cultural heritage.

That night was the one to remember. We went to a traditional house outside of the city where we had a dinner in an old attic. Gypsies played their guitars and sang at our ears, while we stuffed ourselves like ducks with

delicious dishes from the traditional Vojvodinian cuisine. Even Arno couldn’t resist the food despite him being widely known as a vegetarian, and neither could Etienne, Rolph and Arne. Vlada, Olga, Anna and Anastasia were in a good mood also, knowing about the place called ‘MB bus’ we were going to later. Vlatko, Ljupco, Igor, Jovan, Katarina and Ivana opened their hearts at the sounds

of the most beautiful Macedonian songs, ‘Biljana platno belese’ and ‘Makedonsko devojce’, while Ivo, Kumagai, Fonseca and Baldaque could not keep their minds off the girls they had met in all the cafes and clubs in the past few days.

Sunday was meant for a trip to Sremski Karlovci where the ESTIEMers tasted the best wines from the region, after visits to a Serbian Orthodox church and the first Serbian grammar school. The afternoon was spent in discussing some general issues in working groups. Farewell party that night was really sentimental, because everyone knew that this nice little event was nearing its end.

The next day we parted promising each other we will surely meet again some day, on some other ESTIEM event….

Marko Ljubicic LG Novi Sad

Blaming others for our troubles is as logical as saying flies cause garbage

STOCKHOLM

EVENTS 39

ACTIVITY WEEK FAMAGUSTA

T

he first day of the meetings started early. In the morning, Hans-Ulrich Elsner (President 2004) and Sandra Gommel (Vice President of Administration and IT 2004) gave presentations on ESTIEM in general and introduced the newcomers to ESTIEM. Detailed information was also given about the purpose of committees and ESTIEM’s financial status. After lunch, it was time for discussion about local issues. There were lively debates about cultural differences and ways of overcoming them. Also, plans were made regarding an event to be organized by the cooperation of all the LGs present. When the day’s discussions ended, it was time to do some sightseeing. We visited the Othello Castle where it is said that Shakespeare wrote his famous play and toured around the city. Afterwards, in keeping up with the tradition of ESTIEM, we partied at Lion’s Garden, the biggest night club in Cyprus, until late at night.

It was again an early start on the second day, with a decent amount of grumbling from the new ESTIEMers. The morning discussions were about the newly formulated ESTIEM strategy and the future of ESTIEM. There was a lot of input from everyone present. After lunch and a short presentation from a member of the faculty, it was time to go to the beaches. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the excellent beach and put our construction skills to a test on sand castles. There was also a suggestion of sending one of the pictures on the beach

to the Coordination Meeting in Oulu which was apparently taking place under some heavy rain.

In the end, the suggestion was rejected to maintain ties of friendship. The night started with a party in the “Shakespeare”, a small bar, and went on to become a true Mediterranean night. Everyone gathered around a large campfire on the beach with two guitars, and the singing didn’t stop until

sunrise. It was, by all means, an excellent end to the Coordination Meeting.

The rest of the week passed with a lot of sightseeing at historical locations including the Bellapais Monastery, St. Hilerion, Kyrenia Castle, the Salamis Ruins, and St. Barnabas Church as well as the major cities near Famagusta. The nights were full of activities as well as a roof party at the IEM department of the Eastern Mediterranean University. There, we got to listen to a great band formed by the students of the department and some quality time at the rock bar “Roadhouse”.

The Gala dinner took place at the university’s beach club (yes, some universities have beach clubs). The mood was somewhat low as half the participants would be departing that night, but the food was delicious and the atmosphere was marvellous. After the participants with night flights had left, the rest of us were invited to the house of one of the organizers where we chatted and tried to squeeze as much as we could into the last few hours of our stay.

In the morning, as the last teary goodbye was said, we left behind warm friendships and memories of sunny beaches.

Ozan Efe Ertem LG-Ankara METU

Whatever you assume to be true, whether it is true or not, will become real for you

Ozan Efe Ertem, PRCL ozan.ertem@estiem.org

The Regional Coordination Meeting and the following Activity Week in Famagusta started on the first of October with the participation of nearly 30 ESTIEMers. The week was full of lively discussions about ESTIEM issues, tours to the ancient settlements in Cyprus, and of course, some serious beach time.

GDANSK

40 INFO

NEW ESTIEM OBSERVER LOCAL GROUP BITOLA

Vasko Markovski vasko.markovski@estiem.org

I

n Bitola, the second largest city in Macedonia, which is famous for its most representative monument, the “Wide Street”, exists the Association for Industrial Engineering and Management – Bitola. Local Group Bitola was established on 31 May 2004, and is located at the Faculty of Technical Sciences – Bitola.

with domestic and international firms and corporations, research projects etc.

In April 2004, LG Bitola took part in the Council Meeting in Sofia with the status of guests, where we had the opportunity to get to know the whole ESTIEM organisation. Then, our Local Responsible actively took part in the ESTIEM

events.

Many professors, certain firms, ESTIEM students, other non-government organisations from our country and abroad, common citizens and many other associates with whom we co-operated with great pleasure to accomplish our planned activities, have all helped with the normal functioning of our LG up to this point. On behalf of the Local Group Bitola, I would like to use this opportunity to send special thanks to all of them.

Vasko Markovski Local Group Bitola

It all began in the autumn of 2003 when one of our professors told us that “some” Vision seminar will be held in Skopje and asked who would like to go and visit. In December, we went to Skopje where the fantastic organisation ESTIEM was introduced to us. Those days with all ESTIEMers were wonderful and were the inspiration for us to reach our main goal, becoming a member in the ESTIEM organisation.

The goals and tasks of LG Bitola are all kinds of activities connected with IEM students, such as: organising seminars, workgroups, membership in national organisations, co-operation with other faculties from our country and abroad, co-operation

Magazine Coordination Meeting in Novi Sad. The next event in which we participated was the CM in Istanbul (November 2004), where we successfully submitted our application for the status of an observer. It included a presentation of the Faculty of Technical Sciences – Bitola, the University St. Kliment Ohridski - Bitola, the town of Bitola and the Republic of Macedonia as a country.

Our LG continued its work after the CM Istanbul; we organised a TIMES Local Qualification and we have been planning to organise visits to local companies. We are also preparing to organise a Regional Co-ordination Meeting and a Vision seminar in Bitola! It’s a nice way to get involved in the

People concern themselves with being normal, rather than being natural

WIEN

INFO 41

FUN PA5GE

M

could do a proposal and so on until they’d reached an agreement.

If you were the oldest boardie, what would you propose? Assume that all boardies are smart IEM pirates, want to stay alive and take as much gold home as possible.

Baloney Bingo Do you also have trouble staying awake during seminars and conferences?

Or having to pay attention to those long, boooooring company presentations….? There is a way to change all that!

Cross out the words you hear during a meeting, seminar or telephone call. When you’ve crossed out five words horizontally, vertically or diagonally, get up and shout: „BALONEY!“

or not LG Monaco should be excluded and examining the plans to attack a fleet of AEGEE-ships, the five-person board decided to take a break and walk around in the deserted caves near Valetta.

After just five minutes, the board discovered a huge treasure consisting of 100 golden coins! Immediately they started to quarrel about how to share their newfound fortune. After some bloody noses and black eyes, they agreed that the oldest board member was to do a proposal about the division of the gold. If at least half of the boardies would be in favor, the proposal would be accepted. If at least half would be against, the oldest boardie would be killed; then the second oldest boardie

Don’t you ever wonder… ...why ‘abbreviated’ is such a long word?

...why doctors call what they do ‘practice’? ...why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor, while dish washing liquid is made with real lemons? ...why the man who invests all your money is called a broker? ...who tastes dog food when it has a ‘new & improved’ flavor? ...why they call the airport ‘the terminal’ if flying is so safe?

BEST PRACTICE (DOCUMENT)

PRO-ACTIVE

SYNERGY

STRATEGY

DETERMINE POSITION

FOCUS

BANDWIDTH

STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES

UNORTHODOX

BENCHMARKING

WIN-WIN

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING DOWNSIZING

OUTSOURCING

ADDED VALUE

BOTTOM LINE

RESULT-ORIENTED

COPY-PASTE

QUICK-WIN

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

WAY OF THINKING

CUSTOMERORIENTED

MARGINS

LEAN MANUFACTURING

Fear prevents us from hearing our intuition

René Heunen rene.heunen@estiem.org

utiny within the board!

In the early days, when ESTIEM consisted of nothing but a group of traveling pirates (and was therefore still known as EPIEM), a board meeting took place on the isle of Malta.

After a day of discussing whether

CALABRIA

42 INFO

UPCOMING ACTIVITIES The summer is approaching Europe and it is full of ESTIEM events waiting for you! Finish the Vision of Change series, get into sports in Eastern Europe or broaden your leadership skills at one of the Summer Academies.

The autumn kicks off a new seminar series and the celebration of ESTIEM’s 15th Anniversary!

Which ones will you participate in?

Check out the latest updated information at www.estiem.org and register yourself for your favorite events through the ESTIEM Portal.

27th – 29th Newcomer Weekend Hamburg

30th – Nov. 6th XXXI Council Meeting K2K Kaiserslautern – Karlsruhe “ESTIEM’s 15th Anni-

July

versary”

18th - 22nd ESTIEM Sports Meeting ESPOM – Tallinn

November 15th – 20th Vision of Cycles Seminar, Berlin – “Cycles in Technology” 23rd – 27th Vision of Cycles Seminar, Darmstadt – “Impact of trade cycles on finance” 30th – Dec. 4th Vision of Cycles

April 22nd - 24th SAC Workshop, Istanbul-Bogazici - “Manufacturing Leadership Workshop” 24th - 28th Vision of Change Seminar, Lund - “Eastern Europe - the Hub of Change

Seminar, Bremen – “Sustainability 31st – Aug. 14th Summer Academy

Management”

2005 Budapest “Human-Centred System Design – People, Organization and Technology” August 14th – 28th Summer Academy 2005 Ankara “Deep entrepreneurship – manufacturing Europe’s future”

December 6th – 10th Vision of Cycles Semi-

May 11th -13th Vision of Change Porto - “Environmental policies - a challenge for the future” 13th -16th Alumni Meeting, Sofia 17th -21st Vision of Change Seminar, Warsaw “Change your ways in the EU”

September

nar, Vienna – “Product Life Cycle

20th – 24th Vision of Cycles Semi-

Management: Building and Test-

nar, Kiev-” Service Life Cycles” October 6th – 9th Regional Coordination Meeting Lappeeranta 17th – 23rd Vision of Cycles Seminar, Zurich 27th – 30th Pre-Council Meeting Dresden Even the mice makes three holes

ing Phase”

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She's

getting

a

head start in her summer vacation, putting an Asian chip manufacturer

on track for Europe. At each stage

she analyzes and interprets key data so her team can reach its goal.

internship opportunities

A world of

at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Interested?

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