The Directors Word

Most of you will now have been informed about the changes going on at UNSW and that there are some potentially radical changes to the organisation of both the AGSM and the Faculty of Commerce & Economics. A number of people have queried us about the impact of these changes on the Centre for Corporate Change. I can give you a long answer or a short answer and the one I am most certain about is the short answer: at this point, we have no idea. That is something of a non answer but certainly the most truthful! What this means is that for the most part we continue to operate as normal, with a reduction in some more public activities. However, I would like to let you know about some of the things that most definitely are continuing.

First, the Centre has been attempting to be more integrative with outside activities being conducted more under the general aegis of the AGSM. A number of CCC affiliated faculty have conducted learning events and other activities for the School and this will continue. Personally, I will be doing a number of these including events in Shanghai in June and London in July. Other activities are in the planning stages and these will be announced shortly.

Second, the Centre's research activities continue unaffected. Because of the volume of ongoing funded research projects we have limited new applications -- basically, we are capacity constrained in terms of scholars and PhD students just to conduct the work we have committed to for the coming year or two. Most of these projects are outlined on the CCC website and have been the subject of research briefings and other forums. Most of these projects are joint with both local schools (e.g., we have projects with faculty UTS, Melbourne Business School, Monash, RMIT, Wollongong, UWA and Queensland), overseas university (e.g., London Business School, Essec, Insead, Pittsburgh, Penn State, MIT, Humboldt, Utah, Copenhagen Business School, Illinois, etc.) and major institutions (e.g., UN, APQC, Booz Allen, AIM, etc.).

Third, the Centre, as always, is heavily involved in international conference activity. This year I am serving as the program chair for the Intenational Management Division of the Academy of Management, which has entailed organizing a large swaith of the conference along with a number of external initiatives (including a unique panel of major government security officials and corporate and NGO CEOs). At this year's Academy of International Business Conference in Beijing we are hosting two major panels -- one on sourcing activities in China and the second on expatriate experiences. Our recently produced documentary on Consumer Social Responsibility will be featured at two academic film festivals and we are co-organizing the second international CSR conference to be held in Berlin in October.

Fourth, the Centre continues to push along external commercial enterprises. The two most public of these are Brandalytics (which has just been featured in the 4 May issue of BRW) and the Future Choice Initiative, which released its report on the market for space tourism last month. The Future Choice Initiative was a recent recipient of an Honorable Mention as the Most Innovative Research in the Secrets of IT Innovation competition conducted by Austrade. As always we are interested in partners for these activities.

Fifth, the Centre continues to be a nexus for visiting scholars. At any point in time upward of 10 visiting professors and PhD students are around working at the School based on the initiatives of the Centre and our reputation. There is no indication this is trending anything but upward.

I would be remiss to indicate that everything is completely rosy. As many of you know, the Centre cannot exist on funded research projects alone. These do not fund our infrastructure nor do they allow us to take on radical experimental projects that standard funding groups would not underwrite. For every project we receive through funding agencies we must find infrastructure funds to cover expanded demands on our people, plant and equipment. As more of my time has been devoted to running ongoing projects, dealing with academic society administration, and maintaining our network of scholarship, less of it has been devoted to generating infrastructure funds. To date, we have not had the sort of infrastructure funding support that would allow us to grow or continue indefinitely.

As always, I am happy to talk with any of our moral and financial supporters. You can see some additional information on some of our newer activities by looking at the following links:

1. Our recent documentary on consumer social responsibility

2. Our recently funded project on supply chain configuration:

• One page overview
• The Supply Chain Alignment Project Website