POSTGRADUATE NewsOctober 2010

Student newsHow to rescue a trapped fire fighter, build an oil rig and find your way home when vol-canic ash grounds flights….

All ‘problems’ grappled with by students on our recent international study trips…

At Keele Management School (KMS) we appreciate that getting your first job after graduating is hard, and in the current cli-mate, getting harder. As part of our com-mitment to your employability, students on the MAs in Management and International Business are helped to bolster their CV by going on an international study trip as part of their programme.

In this globalised world, it is essential to be able to demonstrate some experience of working across cultures, in different lan-guages and essentially to be creative - sys-tematically being able to come up with in-novative and useful solutions. So, what bet-ter way than to place yourself in a different culture with a company looking for a solu-tion to a real business problem?

This year KMS ran two study trips to Bel-gium, one to the Aschouffe brewery (voted recently as the best brewery in the world) to look at market entry into Asia and an-other to Mise En Place to explore the world of high level corporate entertaining. Both commercial businesses gave up their time and resources to host our students but, in return, wanted workable, interesting and innovative solutions to their ‘real’ business problems. As preparation for this work, the trip also included practicing problem solv-ing in situations such as: how to rescue a trapped fire fighter; how to build a floating

oilrig and also personal development exer-cises such as the Walk of the Ardennes He-roes (you are just going to have to come on the course to find out what that is!)

But, it’s not just about the solutions the students come up with, they then need to present these in interesting ways and also devise and prepare a menu to feed the cli-ents when they came to visit. This year stu-dents did a great job of both!

Learning to be creative is not just some-thing you will find useful in the business world, what about coming up with solu-tions to all the problems of getting stuck under a volcanic ash cloud? Well, that was the extra challenge that faced our second

cohort this year. On their CV will be their success in dealing with not only solving ‘real’ commercial issues but also dealing with the unexpected volcanic eruption and arriving home five days later than planned!

From the student perspective, Zheng Ming Gao (pictured left) says, ‘I fully enjoyed the study trip….. We learnt how to cooperate with each other and that teamwork is re-ally important….The study trip changed my mind about choosing an internship or a full 15,000 word dissertation. I thought language was the biggest barrier to doing an internship but the Belgium trip gave me the confidence to try.’

‘Finding a route to market for Aschouffe Beer

Welcome to the latest issue of our undergraduate newsletter. If you have any articles you would like to see included in our next issue please contact Pat Leadbeater on p.a.leadbeater@keele.ac.uk

Students on our innovative PG Certificate in Leadership and Man-agement have just completed their studies and are looking for-ward to graduation this coming November.

Taught entirely on Saturdays, to minimise the impact on the work-ing week, the course provides the perfect development oppor-tunity for those looking to move into management or for expe-rienced managers looking to bolster their CV’s and better under-stand the people aspects of the workplace. As one of our former students put it, “I always knew what was going on, I just never un-derstood why.’The course offers a flexible approach to learning, in which students choose three from four elective modules. All students taking the full programme undertake the final Certificate Project, although a modular approach is also available.Whilst firmly set at Postgraduate level, an undergraduate degree is not necessarily a prerequisite, we are much more interested in candidates’ desire to learn and grow, and evidence of experience in the workplace.The programme has proven popular with candidates from busi-ness and the public sector, including health, education and local government, many of whom see it as a stepping stone to the Keele MBA.Student feedback on the programme continues to be excellent, summed up by one candidate as ‘relevant, useful, positive and in-teresting’. To which another added ‘worthwhile and enjoyable.’ We could go on but modesty forbids….If you are interested in the Certificate, details can be found on our website at www.keele.ac.uk/kms/pgcertleadershipmanagementpt/ or you can email Phil Johnson, the Programme Director at p.a.johnson@mngt.keele.ac.uk.

Another successful year for the Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and Management

A Virtual visit to KMS Last year’s Postgraduate Certificate Students, Graduation Day November 2009

Throughout the year the University hosts a number of Visit and Open days for prospec-

tive students to take a look around the campus and find out more about the courses we offer. For our overseas students, and for UK students who are not able to visit us in person, KMS has put to-gether a ‘virtual visit day’ with all the course infor-mation and general information about the School together on one ‘mini’ website. The virtual visit day is now accessible from the school web pages www.keele.ac.uk/kms so please take a ‘virtual’ look around the School. We’d be happy to receive feed-back about your virtual visit, so please email Pat at p.a.leadbeater@keele.ac.uk with any ideas or sug-gestions you may have.

All of the photographs used on the site and the student quotes are from our current, and recent, students so you may see somebody you know?

You can also visit us on YouTube www.youtube.com/keelemngtschool to see a selection of our in-troductory lectures and you can also tweet us with any comments.

Our Online Visit Day

Professor Costas Milas, Professor of Financial Economics

From time to time the expertise of our aca-demics is called upon by the national and local media to provide expert commentary on world and local events. In a series of live BBC Radio Stoke interviews (in late 2009 and in early 2010), Professor Costas Milas commented on the prospects of the UK economy. He pointed out that although a double dip recession did not look to be the most likely outcome for 2010, UK growth relied heavily on (i) UK interest rates stay-ing close to their current low levels, (ii) growth in the Eurozone area (our main trading partner) picking up substantially and (iii) UK consumption expenditure (the main driver of domestic growth) remaining robust despite the increase in the VAT rate.

Since 2009, Costas has been a regular con-tributor at the Monetary Roundtable or-ganised by the Bank of England. Costas explains: “This is a prestigious event which attracts, by special invitation only, a limited number of academics and City economists. It takes place twice a year. The aim of the meeting is to bridge the gap between Bank of England policy-makers, academics and practitioners. During the meeting, current economic policy issues and the way for-ward are discussed in a very informal way.”

Since the beginning of 2010, Costas has also contributed, as a Business commen-tator, to Kathimerini and To Vima, Greece’s two largest and most prestigious national newspapers.

Carmen’s PhD wins prize from Spanish Foundation

Dr Maria del Carmen Boado-Penas, lec-turer in Economics at Keele Management School, was awarded a prize for her PhD “Instruments for improving the equity, transparency and sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems” by the Founda-tion of Spanish Savings Banks (FUNCAS). Her prize consisted of the publication of her PhD, plus 3000 euros. Carmen joined Keele Management School in September 2009 to help launch the School’s new Sin-gle Honours Actuarial Science degree pro-gramme.

Since joining Keele, Carmen has presented a paper ‘Non-Financial Defined Contribu-tion (NDC) Systems: Progress and New Frontiers in a Changing Pension World’ at the World Bank Conference which took place at the Hilton Hotel, Stockholm, De-cember 2 - 4 2009, and also presented a pa-per at the “International Congress of Actu-aries”, held in Cape Town, 7-12 March 2010 entitled ‘Notes on Considering the Hidden Asset or Contribution Asset When Compil-ing the Actuarial Balance for the Pay-As-You-Go Pension Systems’

Dr Josie Yeboah

Some of you may have come across Josie Yeboah during your time at Keele? We are happy to say that Josie received her PhD at this summer’s award ceremony – congratu-lations Josie!

Dr Lindsay Hamilton, Lecturer in Economics

Lindsay recently completed her PhD based on a three year ethnographic investiga-tion into the organisational culture of farm animal veterinary surgeons. It dealt spe-cifically with the idea that, in this context, even something as visceral and apparently distasteful as cow dung could bestow an almost sacred power of belonging and prestige upon this ‘brotherhood’ of profes-sionals. Hence, the title of her thesis was ‘Muck and Magic: cultural transformations in the world of farm animal veterinary sur-geons.’ Congratulations Lindsay!

Staff NewsKMS Academics and the Media

In the last issue of our newsletter we re-ported on the start of a new internship pro-gramme for students on the School’s MA Management, MA International Business and MSc Project Management degrees. The first year was a great success and resulted in one of our students being offered, and accepting, a permanent job with the host company, KMF Ltd. Building on this suc-cess, we are pleased to report there were many more internships available for sum-mer 2010.

The importance of the internship pro-gramme is explained by Professor Mihaela Kelemen, Course Director for the MA pro-grammes: ‘The internship programme is seen by many of our students as the high-light of the Masters courses offered by KMS. For many, it is the opportunity to put in practice some of the challenging theories and models of management presented dur-ing the year and assess their usefulness in a real life situation. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate some of the teamwork and leadership skills acquired during the year.’

Projects on offer came from a variety of lo-cal organisations and companies including Global Crossing, who were one of the first companies to work with us last year, and who are happy to offer another project this summer. This year’s project involves three of our students helping to implement a team of ‘problem’ managers to further en-hance the company’s customer experience. Organisations working with us for the first time this year include Winston Joinery, with a project to produce a sales and marketing

plan; Environmental Essentials to work on staff motivation and working relationships and Stoke City Council to design and carry out market research for the Sport and Lei-sure Services market place, reviewing their activity programmes and making recom-mendations to the Senior Management team.

All the students who applied for an intern-ship were required to go through a formal interview procedure with representatives from the host companies and Professor Mihaela Kelemen and Dr Colin Rigby from Keele Management School. The successful candidates are working on their projects during the summer and we’ll report back in the next issue of the newsletter on how they found the experience.

If you have any articles you would like to include in our next edition of this newsletter please send details to Pat Leadbeater at p.a.leadbeater@keele.ac.uk

School EventsKMS was delighted to host the ‘Annual Dis-tinguished Lecture in Economics’ in Feb-ruary this year. The lecture was given by Sir John Gieve, Chairman of VocaLink, the main provider of payment systems in the UK. Sir John was previously Deputy Gov-ernor of the Bank of England and during his career has been a member of the Board of the Financial Services Authority, the UK regulator of financial services, and of the Financial Stability Forum. From 2001 to the end of 2005, he was the Permanent Sec-retary of the Home Office prior to which he spent twenty years at the UK Treasury as private secretary to three Chancellors – Lawson, Major and Lamont, and rose to be head of the Budget and Public Services Directorates.

The lecture attracted a large audience of over 200 people, comprising members of staff, students and the public and was re-ported by Bloomberg news. Sir John dis-cussed the causes and consequences of the recent financial crisis and emphasised the importance of rescuing Northern Rock. He concluded by saying that careful co-ordination of fiscal, regulatory and mon-etary instruments is necessary to avoid, or at least limit, the damage which can be caused by future financial crises.

Sir John’s lecture can be viewed on YouTube and through our online visit day, accessed from www.keele.ac.uk/kms.

‘Soft Skills’ Seminars in collaboration with the Chartered Management InstituteIn February, March and April this year, KMS was pleased to hold a series of ‘Soft Skills’ events, organised in collaboration with the Staffordshire Branch of the Chartered Man-agement Institute (CMI). The interactive workshops were designed to complement and enhance academic study and focussed on ‘Communication Skills’, ‘Coping with Stress’ and how to ‘Promote Yourself’.

All the sessions were attended by a mix of both management professionals and KMS students.

The CMI and KMS plan to hold further ses-sions later this year so please keep an eye on our website for details.

Testing your knowledge in the workplace…

Emma Morgan and Emma Dobson pictured with Andy Wagg, MD of Winston Joinery

James Hardwick, Sport and Leisure Services, Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Adam Lawton with Dr Colin Rigby at Environmental Essentials