Moving Beyond Human and Organizational Incongruence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is offer an understanding on how value creation, on both a human and organizational level can be found and constructed through a shift away from Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes theoretical foundations on the concept of congruence and it purports to demonstrate the co-relation between incongruence and dysfunction in both organizations than individuals. Findings – The congruence theory, originally developed by Williams, co-author of this paper, refers to the capacity of individuals to align the individual stances to the organizational ones, thus leading to a system based on a system of balance among elements, conceptually paradoxical among themselves. The paper manages to demonstrate that performance needs to be found in system of reference other than the fiscal or financial diligence and more within the human dimensionality. Originality value – This paper explores the factors that block the creation of congruence in people and organizations and explores strategies that can simultaneous and congruently move people and organizations to a path of sustainabilityhuman sustainability; congruence and system thinking and theory

Business education can revive itself by building links with the public sector and embracing policy relevance.

Business schools have operated under the same pedagogical model for the past 30 years, making them a prime target for innovation. Mark Esposito pinpoints the emergence of a possible nexus between business schools and policy makers – a connection yet to be fully explored but with massive potential to help address complex problems of the future. While private and public sector cooperation is clearly necessary, more understanding is needed for how they can work best together

Do we want to solve the Eurocrisis? Let’s look south!

If there is a country, which should receive our apologies, that is Greece. We need to apologize for having demonized a small and modest economy (less than 2% of the EU GDP) as the black sheep of the European Union and the challenger to the abstemious efforts that the northern economies have parsimoniously done, over years of sacrifices. Right before the financial crisis of 2008, Greece and a number of smaller EU member states were completely ignored by the larger audience, as the study conducted by MediaTenor indicates. Greece was featured as a great place for vacation, a quite inexplicable winner of the European soccer games of 2004 and a layback country, which was enjoying more than others the newly gained prospects of a novel integrated European market. In the same way, we did not know that Greece was the country with the highest GDP growth in the period 2001-2007 compared to other advanced economies, with peaks of Real GDP growth of 5.9% (2003), and averages around 4.5% in all of those years, well above the countries in western Europe and in par with what we would define today, “syndrome” of an emerging economy. Like this was not enough, the Greeks had systematically been the most hard-working people of the European Union, with over 2000 working hours per person, inferior only to Chile and Korea, when we look at data from the OECD (2012)

Europe’s innovations, China’s Capital

At a recent event held in London, ten start-ups were pitching their ideas for seed funding. This in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, as innumerable pitches by entrepreneurs are made every day across the world, especially these days, when start-ups are the new norm. But what makes this story more special is that these ten companies were showcasing their innovations to a group of Chinese investors. In his opening speech, Sun Wangsong, Deputy Director of China’s Investment Promotion Agency of Ministry of Commerce, mentioned that China is proactively turning itself from the “world’s factory” to a the creator of innovations-driven ideas. While we acknowledge the fact that investment has become a new credo, we find that despite a tremendous amount of capital being poured into R&D, the country has not been getting the results at the pace that it longed for. So, to accelerate this process, China has started to shop for new innovations abroad

Germany, the giant with the feet of clay

On the surface, it stands to reason to think that, as Europe’s largest economy, Germany’s position in Europe can act as the saviour to pull the Eurozone out of its current plight. By many counts, the country’s economy is doing very well. Many people argue that Germany’s model could be the key to strengthening other economies in the EU: Just think the need for Greece to go through the austerity measures demanded by Germany. However, a deeper look into the German economy reveals that it is far more vulnerable than appears on first look

Investing in ‘pockets of excellence’ in periphery countries would help the EU address its lack of competitiveness

The outlook for several European economies has improved over the last year, following the deep recessions experienced across Europe during the financial crisis. Terence Tse and Mark Esposito write that while there has been some progress, the key problem in EU states is still a lack of competitiveness. They argue that promoting investment should be a key priority and that targeting productive areas of EU economies, including those in the periphery, would go some way toward solving the problem

Business schools have lost a staggering amount of credibility in the business community.

Business schools strive to connect academic research to real-world practice. But Terence Tse and Mark Esposito find many institutions are failing to overcome academic silos in order to prepare students for the changing demands of the business world. Standardisation of curricula for accreditation limits the adaptability needed to teach the skillsets employers need and in many cases ivory tower expertise is not sufficient and carries minimal practical applications

Understanding how finance has moved from “Hubris to Disgrace”

The after-effects of the 2008 financial crisis are still being felt throughout the global economy. In order to help prevent a similar crisis from reoccurring, policymakers need to better understand finance’s continuing problems. Ahead of the publication of their new book, ‘From Hubris to Disgrace’, Mark Esposito and Terence Tse outline a framework to better understand the rise of finance through its mechanics, power relationships, economic rationale, politics, and philosophy

The lost generation: what is true about the myth…

If we were to believe the forecasts from the European Commission, unemployment in the Eurozone appears to have started – at long last – showing signs of small but fragile recovery. However, that does not mean we can rest on our laurels as the economic outlook in the near term remains rather bleak. We can still expect a bumpy ride lying ahead through peaks and troughs, crashes and reboots. This ride is likely to be especially harsh for the growing army of jobless youths