How China can attract foreigners and innovation – Annette Nijs

Xi Jinping and Annette Nijs

Annette Nijs, CEIBS Executive Director Global Initiative, was among the five presenters, was among five experts explaining president Xi Jinping at his visit at CEIBS how China can attract foreigners and innovation to the country.

From the China Daily:

When 53-year-old former Dutch Cabinet minister Annette Nijs presented her well-prepared talent-hunting strategy on Thursday, she had a special listener in Shanghai. Nijs, the ex-minister for education, science and culture who is pursuing a new career in China, delivered the advice to President Xi Jinping. Now the executive director of the China Europe International Business School, Nijs was one of 50 foreign experts from 22 countries invited by Xi to a meeting on China's development and talent policy. The meeting was high on Xi's agenda after a busy five-day schedule for a regional security summit and a series of bilateral meetings. Officials in charge of foreign talent issues said all 50 foreign experts work at Shanghai educational institutions and enterprises, and play a significant role in promoting development and breakthroughs in key projects and scientific research.

From the CEIBS press release:

Nijs spoke about different ways in which China can attract foreigners who can contribute to the country’s innovation. CEIBS, she said, is committed to playing a role in China’s innovation efforts, both here and abroad. In a presentation on “Bringing in overseas talents for building an innovation-oriented state”, she drew on her experience as a former Cabinet Minister for Education, Science and Culture in the Netherlands to offer suggestions on the way forward. Pointing out that top scientists and academics may not necessarily be the best innovators, she recommended targeting skilled and experienced innovators who can also be found among engineers, business leaders, serial entrepreneurs, etc. She also suggested soliciting solutions for innovation projects via the internet.

Annette Nijs is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

 Are you a media representative and do you want to talk to one of our speakers? Do drop us a line.

Related articles

• Should Europe follow China? - Annette Nijs
• Consolidating cooperation CEIBS and Philips - Annette Nijs
• LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffman Outlines China Strategy
• NIJ Investment opens

How is China securing its energy supply? - China Weekly Hangout

Jin Hua Gong Mine, Datong, Shanxi, China (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Economic growth might be slowing down in China, securing enough energy for the future is still one of its major headaches. In the next China Weekly Hangout we will focus on energy security, the first of a range of hangouts on sustainability.

How successful is China is securing its energy supply, and what are the consequences for the environment, international relations? How is the country promoting green energy, does it work, and how does it deal with international complaints it is subsidizing its energy industry. And is that bad? 

The pros and cons of coal, nuclear power, wind energy, solar power, building dams in rivers and the efforts to save energy: enough subjects to cover with our panel, which will include (but it not limited to):

Terry Cooke

Terry Cooke is the founder of the China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia, a non-profit platform to accelerate public-private collaboration between Greater Philadelphia and China in clean energy and energy-efficient buildings. He is also a Senior Fellow at the T.C. Chan Center for Building Simulation and Energy Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (and Tsinghua University, Beijing). He most recently was elected to the Global Oversight Committee of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Terry Cooke was a 2010 Public Policy Scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C., researching the U.S.-China clean energy relationship, particularly the interface of technology, policy and investment. His book Sustaining U.S.-China Cooperation in Clean Energy has been published earlier this week.

Terry has been a frequent speaker at corporate and investor events such as The BusinessWeek Global Green Business Summit China and the New York Cleantech Investors Forum 2010. He authored the Introduction to the 2009 Private Equity in China (“Tianjin Report”) and publishes frequently for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Brookings Institution, China Brief and other publications.

Terry is the founding and managing partner of GC3 Strategy Inc, a specialty firm providing advisory& training services for U.S.-based tech firms looking to build cross-border energy and environmental partnerships in Asia. An on-line portal -- www.terrycooke.com – is dedicated to the U.S.-China cleantech opportunity.

Richard Brubaker is adjunct Professor of Management, Sustainability and Responsible Leadership at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and author of the website AllRoadsLeadToChina. With almost 20 years of Asia experience (the last 10 based in mainland China), Rich assists his clients (both Fortune 500 companies and SMEs) in understanding the China market, determining their own China platform and implementing effective strategies.

Rich has a Masters in International Management from Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, majoring in Finance and Economics, from the University of Missouri.

Rich is the Vice Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, sits on the Asia Pacific Council of the Thunderbird Alumni Association, and is an active member of RotaryAct.

The China Weekly Hangout will be broadcast on YouTube on 10pm Beijing time, 4pm CEST and 10am EST, in this space and a link will be available on our Google+ events page - available here. On the event page you can register for the event and also leave comments or ask questions. (Note our slightly changed broadcasting time).

If you want to attend, please register at our event page. If you want to participate, do leave us a comment here or drop us a line. Please note that the number of seats in the official hangout is very limited.

A recorded edition of our hangout will be available shortly after the event. Moderation by Fons Tuinstra of the China Speakers Bureau.

For next week we plan a debate between Heleen Mees and Maria Korolov on Heleen's PhD putting the blame for the financial crisis on China, rather than on banking products developed in the US. Timing, subject and participants are still under discussion.

Do sign up for our China Weekly Page at Googe+ if you want to be updated about future sessions.

Update: Terry Cooke's book has been published by now. You can get it in pdf here. Below the book presentation at the Wilson Center.

Who will employ six million new graduates? - Wang Jianmao

Wang Jianmao

This month China will have six million university graduates more. The world looks at the figure in awe, but the graduates themselves have problem: will they find a job? Professor Wang Jianmao of CEIBS thinks they might, if economic restructuring works out, he tells in The National. 

The National:

But under a "soft landing", will China still be the job-generating machine it has been in the past for new graduates? 

"If the 7 or 8 per cent growth is mainly driven by investment, the answer is no. If the 7 or 8 per cent growth is driven by consumption, the answer is yes, it's enough to generate the jobs," said Wang Jianmao, a professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. 

The "real change" to a consumption-driven economy, as opposed to one that relies on exports, will take place "in a few years", he adds. 

In the current economic climate, many graduates will probably have to settle for jobs that would not traditionally be considered as suitable for those with a university degree.

More in The National.

Wang Jianmao is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

How to become successful in executive education - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer

IMD-professor (and formet CEIBS dean) Bill Fischer wrote up on his weblogwhat makes him successful in executive education, answers on questions from CEIBS professor Ellie Weldon. "One of the few advantages that I have found to be associated with aging,  however,  is that sometimes people ask for your opinions, and then actually listen."

Bill Fischer, on one of the key factors that made him succeed:

A belief that my role is no longer to be the “purveyor of truth” but rather, instead, to serve as a “smart person facilitating smarter people.” This is not easy. It defies decades of professorial prerogatives and requires a willingness to cede control over the classroom experience to the participants, but it is a sober and realistic admission that the people in our executive education classrooms know a lot, are smart people, and should own the experience. My role, then, is to put them into a position where it is their program and not my own.That is not to say that I abdicate my responsibilities as an "instructor" or as someone whose job it is to observe many different managers and businesses, and to draw opinions from these experiences, but the emphasis should be on applying this knowledge to move the participants' conversations forward, rather than "dazzling" them with what I think that I know.

Much more on Bill Fischer's weblog.

Bill Fischer is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch, or fill in our speakers' request form.

Related articles

• Can China become a leading global innovator? - Bill Fischer (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• Working with the digital cowboys - Bill Fischer (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• Changing China trends on innovation - Bill Fischer (chinaherald.net)
• The debate: The End of Cheap China - Shaun Rein (chinaspeakersbureau.info)

Can China become a leading global innovator? - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer

After becoming the shop floor of the world, China is now focusing on its position as global innovator. IMD-professor Bill Fischer examines in Forbes whether those ambitions can become true. Counting patents is certainly not the way.

There is a big difference between creating new ideas [creating value] and capturing the value associated with these new ideas.FT.com/alphaville reports that many of the Chinese patents counted are utility patents, and do not represent significant new contributions to knowledge [in other words, not value creation]. Furthermore, at least one observer on the scene has reported that Chinese government authorities are encouraging the disaggregation of patent applications in order to boost the numbers of patents being produced. This month, INSEAD’s Global Innovation Index for 2011 ranked China just 29th overall in innovation [Switzerland #1, U.S.A. # 7]. According to this analysis, although China’s innovation benefits from growing market and business sophistication (for a middle-income economy) and a lively financial sector, there are disadvantages associated with social infrastructure deficiencies relating to innovation-related institutions and human-capital development. It would appear that while China might be becoming more productive in generating patents, these may not necessarily translate into economic impact. On the other hand, China ranks #1 as the world’s top “importer of R&D,” which would be appropriate for innovation strategies based on value-capture...

Increasing the “rate” of inventive activity will only get you so far. In order to make it big on the global stage, a nation’s firms need to be able to capture the economic value associated with that activity. This means investment into organizational design on a global scale, establishing brand visibility, building worldwide supply chains and channels of distribution, and all of the rest of the complex set of activities that go into making a successful multinational corporation. Two years ago, Rebecca Chung and I reported that experienced Chinese managers participating in CEIBS’s [the China Europe International Business School] EMBA program appeared considerably less optimistic about China’s prospects as a global innovative leader than did a similar set of their peers in IMD’s EMBA program [66% of the 53 CEIBS' EMBAs saw China's near-term future as "staus-quo", while only 18% of their IMD peers agreed with this assessment]. Perhaps what the Chinese managers saw, that outsiders in their enthusiasm missed, was that increasing inventive activity might well be the easiest part of successful innovation, and that it is indeed a less glamorous and more managerial long march to becoming able to realize the value associated with that increased inventive activity.

More in Forbes.

Bill Fischer is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

Related articles

• China relaxes procurement rules on innovation - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)
• Chinese firms listen better than its competitors - Bill Fischer (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• The Idea Hunt - China vs Europe (fonstuinstra.net)
• No room for high-risk innovation - Arthur Kroeber (chinaherald.net)

Consolidating cooperation CEIBS and Philips - Annette Nijs

Annette Nijs

Executive Director Global Initiative of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) Annette Nijs led earlier this week a signing ceremony for a partnership between her school and the Dutch multinational Philips, a partnership focusing on health care and innovation.
From the CEIBS-website:

Annette Nijs called the event a "very special moment for us, because CEIBS and Philips have had a close cooperation since the start of CEIBS with the Philips Chair in Marketing, the Philips Chair in Human Resources, and the donation of lighting solutions for the original Shanghai campus." During the past 16 years, Philips has recruited more than 25 CEIBS graduates, and has sent dozens of its employees for training at CEIBS Executive Education programs. She added that the new partnership will develop a number of joint projects showcasing health care and innovation, including roundtable discussions, research and case studies, internships, classroom presentations, and more.

Annette Nijs is a speaker at the China Speakeers Bureau. When you need her at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

Related articles

• Economy needs a slow-down for repairs - Wang Jianmao (chinaherald.net)

Economy needs a slow-down for repairs - Wang Jianmao

CEIBS in Shanghai via Wikipedia

China's economy needs a slow-down to repair its engines, says CEIBS economist Wang Jianmao in IPSnews, to get its three engines fixed, consumption, investments and export. "The government is too much focused on speed."

Just as a ship needs to slow down in order to repair its engines, our economy needs to slow down if it wants to tackle structural problems which endanger future growth." 

There are different economic engines, like exports, investments and consumption. "The vital engine of consumption, however, is not working in China. If we delay repair the other two will stop at the same time. Not a single country can sustain growth when its economy keeps growing with double- digits."

More than 50 Chinese companies have now entered the Fortune-500 list, but that is not necessarily good news, the economist says:

"That doesn't mean they are productive", says Wang. "They have had access to unlimited amounts of cheap money. The interest rate for them has been lower than inflation. They keep on investing up to the point of serious overcapacity, which has a negative effect on both the returns and the prices. In other words, they waste people's money." 

Big profits without adding value and creating jobs is a bad strategy for a country that urgently needs more consumer spending, says Wang. "Labour income as a share of gross domestic product has been declining for years. Instead of supporting capital-intensive industries, we need small and medium enterprises, in order to create labour-intensive jobs, up the value chain. We have the world's largest market for luxury cars, but at the same time too many people earn just the minimum wage."

More at IPS News.

by Fantake via Flickr

Wang Jianmao

Commercial
Wang Jianmao is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

Related articles

• The Chinese Dream - Helen Wang (chinaherald.net)
• Most-sought speakers for November 2010 (chinaherald.net)
• How I fought the financial crisis - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)
• More education not always better - Bill Fischer (chinaherald.net)
• Economic systems in US and China out of steam - Arthur Kroeber (chinaherald.net)

More education not always better - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer by Fantake via Flickr

Getting more patents and PhD's are not the ways to improve education, writes IMD professor Bill Fischer in Business Week. Getting faculty in with business experience is more important to improve the now lagging education in China.

IMD's 2010 World Competitiveness Yearbook reports that China's education system has been in decline since 2007 in terms of how well it meets the needs of a competitive economy, presently ranking 44th out of 58 countries—below countries such as Greece (43), Kazakhstan (35), and Qatar (14). Finland, on the other hand, which ranks 1st in this category, is a notable reference point that people speak about with respect to how its educational offerings in engineering, technology, and innovation are having a direct impact on the economic vitality of the country. Do you ever hear the same about China?

If pushing out more graduates, patents and PhD's does not help, what is the problem, according to Bill Fischer?

During my sojourn in China as an academic and as president and dean of the China Europe International Business School, I was frequently struck by the thought that China's scarcest resource might just be "practically experienced" university faculty. Far too many of the Chinese professors I observed in other schools (CEIBS insisted that any faculty had the ability to interact competently with executives) had never actually worked for a living; they were lifelong academics, and everything was "theoretical" for them. This simply does not work if the goal is to transform new ideas into practical solutions. And it is particularly devastating if we are speaking about business schools and their role in preparing a "managerial class" for competing on the world stage.

More in Business Week, where Bill Fischer explains this is not only a problem in China.

Related articles

• Foreign managers increasingly hired in China - Bill Fischer (chinaherald.net)
• First Steps: On-Campus Environmentalism in China (sierraclub.typepad.com)
• Job hunting? Better learn Mandarin (cnn.com)

All is not yet well for China's economy - Wang Jianmao

Wang Jianmao Fantake via Flickr

Economic growth seems to be on track and China has passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world, still stiff measures from the government are needed to avoid a second dip, warns CEIBS economy professor Wang Jianmao in CIB-magazine.
Historical statistics on economic growth have been quietly adjusted again, suggesting  the economy was severely overheated just before the global financial crisis took off, showing a seriously overheated economy, writes Wang Jianmao.

The best scenario of proactive adjustment is a U-shaped process of maintaining a moderate growth rate of 7-8% during 2010-2012 and then returning to the potential growth rate of about 9% in 2013. The worst scenario of reactive adjustment is a W-shaped process of propping up double-digit growth until 2012 and then unavoidably diving for a second dip below 5% or even 4%. 

The decision-makers in China should remember the lessons of reactive adjustment and hard landings of the past. China's economy experienced full-blown overheating during 1984 and 1985, with actual growth rate significantly higher than the potential one. After attempts at cooling the economy, the growth rate dropped to 8.8% in 1986, down from 13.5% in 1985, which was similar to the recent shrink in the growth rate from 14.4% in 2007 to 10.2% in 2008 and to 9.1% in 2009. However, the adjustment efforts taken then were not seen through to the end, causing the growth rate to rebound to 11.6% in 1987 and 11.3% in 1988. Then, a second dip became unavoidable and China eventually plunged into a hard landing with a growth rate as low as 4.1% in 1989 and 3.8% in 1990. 

Since China plays a prominent role in the global economy, a second dip of the Chinese economy would mean a second dip for the world. Therefore, a "slow" U-shaped recovery of the Chinese economy should be interpreted as a positive sign indicating that China is moving along the right path. A quick V-shaped recovery is only possible for those countries not severely burdened by flawed development models. Unfortunately China does not belong to this group.

More in the CIB magazine

Commercial
Professor Wang Jianmao is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your conference or meeting? Do get in touch.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Should Europe follow China? - Annette Nijs (chinaherald.net)
• Saving no longer tops China's agenda - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)
• Fat China, blame on the advertisement industry - Paul French (chinaherald.net)
• China Speakers Bureau to visit Sweden, Switzerland (chinaherald.net)

2010: the year of shifting gears - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer by Fantake via Flickr

IMD-professor, and former CEIBS dean, Bill Fischer, describes on his weblog the fast changing speed in China's development. While China has made huge steps forward, at the end Fischer still sees huge barriers to real change in China:

The conundrum underlying all of this is that there is lots of creativity in China today. The art scene; fashion; sculpture; music; cinema. China is awash with creativity. But, if you look closely, what you see is that this innovation is individual innovation, not organizational innovation. What sets the eBays and Amazons and Apples apart is that they are all “organizational” innovation. The iPod experience could not have been designed by one person; it needed a team, and a diverse team at that. Same is true behind most of the big innovations of recent times. Yet, what is it about Chinese organizations that they turn out to be so much less innovative than the sum of the people who are brought together under that organizational structure? Is it that the command & control approach to management which has characterized thousands of years of Chinese history is still hard to break? Or, is it Confucian respect for hierarchy and relational prerogatives? Is it not enough trust; or too much trust? Is it not enough diversity? Or, is it something else?

More at this weblog with a too long name.

Commercial
Bill Fischer is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Expo 2010 about more than making money - Wang Jianmao (chinaherald.net)
• The Party sets the digital agenda - Paul Denlinger (chinaherald.net)
• China's consumers keep on spending - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)
• Income gap widening - Zhang Juwei (chinaherald.net)