● AGSM improves full-time MBA program ● Robert Wood on self-theories and management

The anatomy of a dot com deal[ALUMNI DEAL-MAKERS TALK STRATEGY]

AUSTRALIAN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE 2001 ★ ISSUE: 1

AGSM ranke

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No.1 in Asia

Financial T

imes (

UK)

I am very honoured to become

dean of the AGSM.As Australia’s

oldest graduate school of management, the AGSM has played an important part in the

development of management practice in Australia – and has an even more important role

to play in the future. I look forward to working with the many individuals and organisations

who have a stake in the School – students, staff, alumni, the two University shareholders,

and the business community – to shape and guide the future direction of the AGSM.

Three important themes for the School’s next decade are global, virtual and personal.We must

form alliances with like-minded management schools outside of Sydney to facilitate easy

exchange of faculty, students and – most importantly – knowledge.We must use new

technology to enhance, not replace, the face-to-face learning environment. And we must

become more flexible and responsive to the individual needs of students and firms for

education delivered across a wide range of time, space and mode. Progress in these three

areas has already begun and will continue at an accelerating pace.

The latest Financial Times (UK) listing of the world’s top 100 business schools, which is

reported in our news update, Upfront, contains very good news for the AGSM. Our ranking

rose from 65 to 42, well ahead of any other institution in our region.The strategy and

policies of the AGSM are not driven by the ratings, but we will continue our efforts to be

sure that such ratings fairly represent the quality and scope of the School.

Please accept my invitation to contact me with your comments and suggestions.

Working together, we can accomplish great things for the AGSM and for ourselves.

Professor Michael Vitale

Dean

Australian Graduate School of Management

DEAN’S MESSAGE

INCREMENTAL THEORISTS: think less about basic aptitudes as explanations forperformance and focus more on skills, effort and strategies.

— Robert E. Wood. See full story page 12.

AGSM Magazine is a publication for supporters of the AustralianGraduate School of Management, a School of both the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney.

Publisher: professor Michael Vitale,AGSM dean

Managing editor: Michael Walls

Editor: Debra Maynard

Design: Anthony Vandenberg

Copy editing: Richard Podmore

Bush telegraphcorrespondent: Don Taylor

Cover photo: Karen Mork

SEND Magazine contributions to: magazine@agsm.edu.au

Circulation enquiriesTel: (02) 9931 9240

AGSM contact points:

Media and communicationsTel: (02) 9931 9240

Alumni servicesTel: (02) 9931 9499/9284

Executive programsTel: (02) 9931 9333

MBA programsTel: (02) 9931 9412

Main switchboardTel: (02) 9931 9200

Web site: www.agsm.edu.au

Copyright © AGSM 2001. All rightsreserved. This publication may not,in whole or in part, be lent, copied,photocopied, reproduced, translatedor reduced to any electronic mediumor machine readable form withoutthe express written permission ofthe publishers. While the publishershave taken all reasonable precautions and make all reasonableefforts to ensure the accuracy of thematerial contained, articles expressthe personal opinion of the authorand not necessarily that of the publishers or the AGSM.

Published for the AGSM by Debra Maynard & Associates, 2/72 St Marks Road Randwick NSW 2031 Australia, Tel: (02) 9314 6261,Fax: (02) 9398 4991.

ISSN 1441-5437PAGE 25

NEWS3 Top ranking

The AGSM MBA program is the best in Australia and Asia,according to the Financial Times MBA 2001 survey.

FEATURES7 MBA review

8 Dot com deal-makersIt takes more than cutting-edge technology.

11 Big ideasAGSM’s Connector business planning competition is targeting$100,000 in prize money for its expanded 2001 program.

21 Corporate partnershipsIntroduction of an AGSM in-company partnership model fordelivery of customised corporate education acknowledges fundamental shifts in management education needs.

RESEARCH12 Implicit theories of managers

Do your assumptions help or hinder you?

16 Customer loyaltyGrahame Dowling asks: do customer loyalty programs really work?

18 Reference group neglectChris Manning and Dan Lovallo discuss the pitfalls of ‘inside-view’ thinking.

DEPARTMENTS2 Upfront

22 Alumni at large26 Bush telegraph30 Publications & papers32 People

PAGE 16

2001 ★ ISSUE: 1

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Contents

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NEWS UPDATE — KEEPING YOU IN TOUCH WITH WHAT’S GOING ON AT THE AGSM

upfrontAIB heads to AGSM

The Academy of InternationalBusiness (the world’s leadingglobal community of interna-

tional business scholars) will stage itsannual conference in Australia forthe first time.Its 2001 conference willbe hosted by the AGSM atSheraton On The Park inSydney from 16 to 19November.The confer-ence theme,‘Looking Towards the Future’, turns its attention to the development of theAsian and Pacific Basin economies andthe significance and direct impact ofthose developments on the world.

Negotiations to bring the AIB annual conference to Australia were led by Timothy Devinney, director of the AGSM’s Centre for CorporateChange.The conference offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity toshowcase the Australian businesscommunity and the School to a groupthat represents the intellectual elite ofinternational business thinking,research and teaching.

The conference will feature a varietyof formats including plenary sessions,competitive paper sessions, workshops,panels and poster sessions. Some 500business scholars from around the worldare expected to participate and willinclude luminaries from universities

such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge,Columbia,Yale and Stanford.Other speakers include Thomas Keneally, Malcolm Turnbull,Michael Knight and a number of leadingAboriginal speakers.The AGSM will alsohost a gala dinner at Sydney’s Town Hall

on 19 November.The conference is sponsored

by BHP,Westpac, SASInstitute, Air New Zealandand Ansett Airlines, LionNathan and Austrade.

Managing in Asia executive program

A one-day executive programentitled Managing in Asia will be

conducted by the AGSM on 16November. It will offer participants anopportunity to hear from a number ofeminent speakers on the challengesfacing managers with responsibilitiesrelated to India, China, Japan andKorea.The speakers are: George Yip,London Business School, moderator;Pradeep Khandwalla, director, IndianInstitute of Management (India);Eleanor Westney, professor, MIT(Japan); Dong Sung Cho, professor and dean, School of InternationalManagement, Seoul National University(Korea);Wilfried Vanhonacker, dean,CEIBS Shanghai (China); and TimHarcourt, chief economist, Austrade(Australian business perspective).

For more information contact Anne Fitzsimmons, business manager for the Centre for Corporate Change,on Tel:(02) 9931 9502 or e-mail:annefi@agsm.edu.au.You can also checkthe Web site at: www.aib.agsm.edu.au.

AABBOOUUTT TTHHIISS IISSSSUUEE

Welcome to the new look AGSMMagazine. This new look presents aninteresting mix of news, managementpractice issues, research news andalumni news.

Our aim is to create a publicationthat reflects the culture and corethemes of the AGSM. This design hasbeen implemented in consultationwith Debra Maynard & Associates and the School has retained Debra as editor of the AGSM Magazinewith day-to-day responsibility formanaging content, production and distribution.

It is important that the AGSMMagazine report the changing natureof business and the wider AGSMcommunity of alumni and corporaterelationships. To this end we seekyour feedback on the current designand future development of the AGSM Magazine. Please take time to read your magazine and provideus with feedback via the enclosedform, and feel free to contact Debraor myself to offer your comments or suggestions.

Michael WallsManaging editor

To submit a contribution to AGSM Magazine,contact the editor by post, phone, fax or e-mail.Address: Editor, AGSM Magazine, Australian Graduate School of ManagementUNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 AustraliaTel: (02) 9931 9328Fax: (02) 9931 9326e-mail: magazine@agsm.edu.au

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For your diary

If you fancy updating your skills in Web-based business research, checkout the AGSM business information service’s one-day seminar entitled

Doing Business Research Online (to be conducted in May).The seminarwill be hosted by experts in Web-based research and will offer tips,techniques and case studies. For more information and a confirmedseminar date, contact Pat Matthews, e-mail: patm@agsm.edu.au.

“The diversity of the AGSM’s award programs is wonderful to see as our

graduates progress through the School. Our students come from a variety of

backgrounds, and to keep our programsmeeting their expectations, the AGSM is

implementing a sequence of reviews across the AGSM’s portfolio of

programs and resources.” – professor Chris Adam, associate dean, faculty

SEE PAGE 7

M A S T E R I N G E D U C A T I O N

SCHOLARSHIP (Top): professor Chris Adam, associate dean, faculty (centre), with 2000 graduates (from left) BilalAbdulkhalek (GDBA), Nugroho Suryo (PhD), Andrew Dentskevich (MBA) and Tracey Pei-Qin Liu (MMgmt). (Above): professorGreg Whittred, former acting dean (far left) and professor Tom Smith (far right) with 2000 PhD graduates (from left) RajeevSharma, Christine Wae-Yee Soo, Kerry Pattenden and Philip Gray. (Above, left): Rajeev Sharma with his daughter.

Web wise

The AGSM is updating its Web site usinga new content management system

known as Aptrix (www.aptrix.com).Aptrix will supersede the current RapidWeb system to deliver a new generation ofmore flexible Internet-based technology.

Presence Online is building the newWeb site and supplying the Aptrixsolution. Benefits will include: simpli-fied navigation, structure and design; theability to bookmark pages within thesite; personalised log-in areas andtoolbars for alumni, students and faculty(passwords will be provided); and linksto online teaching resources.

The alumni pages will be moved upto the home page surface for moreprominence and accessibility. Moreinformation services and resources willbe added, including an FAQ database onAGSM programs and courses.

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 3

The AGSM has climbed 23 placesin a top 100 survey of the bestMBA programs worldwide.The

Financial Times (of the UK) MBA 2001ranking of business schools ranks theAGSM at 42, a big move up the tablefrom last year’s position of 65.Theonly other Australian school to makethe Financial Times’ top 100 was theMelbourne Business School, whichfell two places to 58.

With some 1500 MBA programsavailable around the world, MBA 2001selects only the cream of the world’sfull-time MBA programs.The position

of a school in the table is determinedby its performance in three mainareas: career progression accrued fromthe MBA; diversity; and research.

US business schools againdominated the rankings, with 51 inthe top 100, but it was WhartonSchool at the University ofPennsylvania that clinched the topMBA program ranking (from HarvardBusiness School).

The AGSM ranked number one in the top 100 survey in the AimsAchieved category with a score of 91.This measures the extent towhich alumni fulfilled their goals or reasons for doing an MBA.

“The fact that the AGSM significantly lifted its ranking in an exceptional pool of business schools reflects the hard work and

dedication of our faculty and staff.” — professor Michael Vitale, dean

NO. 1 IN THE REGION

More on networks

The AGSM haslaunched an

Australia-wide andinternational network ofalumni clubs to fosterstronger networking

and services within the alumnicommunity.The new alumni clubnetwork will be rolled out throughoutthe year. Clubs have been appointed insix Australian capital cities and threeoverseas cities. A president and support-ive board will be appointed for eachclub and details of these appointmentswill be posted on the AGSM’s Web siteat: www.agsm.edu.au/alumniclubs.

The new clubs will provide a focalpoint for alumni networking through-out Australia and in key internationallocations.The clubs will liaise with thealumni services office at the AGSM inSydney to develop social events andexecutive education forums.

Professor Greg Whittred,former acting dean, acceptshis farewells and a gift from the Ch’ing dynasty. The antique Chinesewedding artefact is made of solid brass and inscribed with thecharacters meaning ‘doublehappiness’. Also engravedare five bats, representinglongevity, health, wealth,virtue and the right to anatural death. The bat is a popular Chinese symbolbecause ‘fu’ (bat) soundssimilar to ‘fu’ (happiness).

Thanks from the acting dean“This has been an enormously rewardingexperience for me. It has been a privilege,and I thank each of you for your supportand encouragement.”

Smart collaboration

The AGSM is a partner in a seven-year Smart Internet Technology

research project that has received $22 million in Cooperative ResearchCentre (CRC) funding from the Federal Government. Another $100million in cash and resources isallocated to the venture from participating universities (including the AGSM) and industry partners.

The AGSM joins the University ofNew South Wales, University ofWollongong, Australian NationalUniversity, University of Sydney,University of Adelaide, GriffithUniversity, RMIT, Swinburne Universityand University of Tasmania, along with major industry partners ComputerSciences Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Adacel,Telstra andNortel Networks.

“The AGSM is proud to be part of a long-term collaborative researchproject that aims to make a profoundcontribution to the commercialisationof technology for next generationnetwork management and Internetproducts and services,” says professorMichael Vitale, dean.

H O N G K O N G C O N N E C T I O N

Administrative Development Program (ADP) graduates (above from left): Chiu FanHo, Michael Chan, Christine Tse, Patrick Leung, Robin Leung and Patience Chan.They are six of 24 graduates who spent seven weeks at the AGSM’s Kensingtoncampus participating in this highly-regarded executive training. The programcovers core management subjects; and the students also completed projects onpublic consultation in major government projects, electronic service delivery ofgovernment services, outsourcing of service delivery, and employment relations inthe context of civil service reform and transition. The ADP is conducted exclusivelyfor talented Hong Kong civil servants twice a year.

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www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 5

IN TOUCH More than 170 alumni and guests attended theAlumni Program 2000, which included a half day of sessionsdesigned to update alumni on current issues in research andmanagement, followed by an evening cocktail reception.(Clockwise from top left): Amy Tucker (MBA2) with professorMichael Vitale, dean, and instructor Keith Dawes; John Counter(EMBA ’98) and Kevin Turner (MBA ’00); Phil Lawrence (GDM’94), speaker Neil Sylvester of marchFIRST, Dominic Wong (MBA’98), Teresa de Leon (MBA ’97), Lisa Carlin (MBA ’97) and PeterStrang (MBA ’96); Mark Stepherd (MBA ’96) and Terry Dwyer(MBA ’95); and (far left) Peter Gow (SMDP ’00).

A L U M N I P R O G R A M

Life Long Learning

Are you on the lookout foraccessible information for

solving specific managementpractice problems? Do youlike the idea of a condensedupdate of major new issues inmanagement? Then stay tunedto the AGSM’s new Life LongLearning program.The 2001initiative will provide new information,research and management practiceeducation services to AGSM alumnidesigned to contribute to problemsolving and career advancement.

“The first step is a survey to find outexactly what our alumni want in theform of information services andongoing management practice education.Then we’ll introduce some informationservices as test initiatives, including adiscussion forum where people can seeksupport from other AGSM alumni on

management practice issues,”says Dr Anne Lytle, the new manager of Life Long Learning.

“In the near future we hope to introduce anAustralia-wide managementpractice forum for alumnithat will see AGSM academicstravel regularly to capital

cities to deliver short-course management practice updates.”

Other Life Long Learning initiativesunder consideration include Internet-based short courses, classes deliveredvia video conference, specialistmanagement practice mentoring, andconsulting services.

If you have suggestions for theAGSM’s Life Long Learning program,or would like further information,please contact Anne Lytle at e-mail:alytle@agsm.edu.au.

Statisticians take note

The Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation marked the beginning of

the new millennium with a year-longinitiative in 2000 to celebrate the majordevelopments in statistics in the 20thcentury. For each of its quarterlyeditions, the editors invited academicsworldwide to write a short article aboutspecific subject areas, covering theoryand methods, social sciences andbusiness, physical sciences andengineering, and life/medical sciences.

The AGSM’s professor Simon Sheatherwas invited to collaborate with long-standing research partners professorJoseph W. McKean and professor ThomasP. Hettmansperger to produce an articleentitled ‘Robust non parametricmethods’ (December 2000).

The articles are described by aneditor as “a collection [that] is nothingshort of marvellous”.

6 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

2001 scholarship winnersCorporate awards went to:

PhD: Michael Collins,Wendy Grusinand Kathy Walsh (Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund [RSYLFF]).

MBA: Karen Kwan (Maurie KoopScholarship/The Boston ConsultingGroup), Frances Yu (AT Kearney), IoleD’Angelo (Booz •Allen & Hamilton),Angela Sedran (Computer Associates),Harold Willaby (BlueFire), PeterHumphries (McKinsey & Company),Steven Steggerda (Deutsche Bank/general), Sonia Prasad (Deutsche Bank/women), Joseph Lai, Anthony Pesec andAngus Jaffray (RSYLFF).

EMBA: Philip Robinson (alumni scholarship) and Claire Filson (RSYLFF).

Another 48 students received AGSMscholarship awards for the 2001academic year. ✪

The AGSM thanked the many recruiting companies for their support and recognitionof the full-time MBA program and its graduates at the annual careers cocktailreception (in November 2000). Pictured are Sue Davidson, AGSM recruitmentadvisor (centre) with Elaine Czulkowski and George Woods of Lek Consulting. Manyrecruiters lend their services for workshops and seminars. It’s a contribution thatbrings valued marketplace insights to management practice issues and enhances theoverall student experience. The 2001 on-campus recruitment presentations run from4 to 21 June, and summer internship recruitment is conducted from 3 to 17September. If your company would like to make a recruitment presentation, or yourequire further information, contact Sue Davidson, e-mail: sued@agsm.edu.au.

Getting it said

Apenchant for argument teamed with larrikin good humourwere the main attractions at the AGSM Speakers’ Club’s last

debating competition which drew 16 players vying for prizemoney and kudos. Speakers were randomly paired, given ad-libbedtopics and allowed four minutes to win over the crowd.

A swag of topics was debated, including sex, Australianculture, consulting salaries and the Olympic Games.Votes for the Speak Off’s most persuasive went to David Mitchell,Natasha Winton, Rod Strauch and Tracey Neal.

The Speakers’ Club is now approaching the more seriousbusiness of preparing to win back the Deloitte ConsultingCup from Melbourne Business School, which will be heldat Melbourne Business School on 27 July.

Thinking for the future

AGSM adjunct researcher, professorIan Marsh, has collaborated with

the University of New South Wales andthe Asia Australia Institute to putforward a Federation Centenary confer-ence and program of cross-institutionalresearch and discussion.The agendacovers four broad policy frameworksthat underpin Australia’s governanceand economic and social development.

The conference, Australia Chooses:Towards a Competitive and IntegratedSociety, to be held from 23–24 August,will be conducted using a case studymethod managed by Australian Harvardprofessors Jonathon West (a specialistin innovation) and Chris Bartlett.

Research programs and workshopsare being conducted throughout the firsthalf of this year and a special issue of theAustralian Journal of Management will publishfindings in July.A book will be publishedby the UNSW Press in early 2002.

Principal sponsors of the initiativeare the Federation CentenaryCommittee, Commonwealth Bank,Australian Business Foundation,Macquarie Bank and AMP.

C A R E E R S C O C K TA I L

Research on the move

In 2001, the AGSM’s Centre forCorporate Change will host a series

of six evening research briefings atCustoms House, Circular Quay(beginning late March).These eveningspresent topical management practiceresearch in a discussion-friendly format that brings together bothacademics and practitioners.Theyprovide an opportunity for AGSMalumni and others in the businesscommunity to network and discusstopics of mutual interest.The briefingsare held once every six weeks, usuallymid-week, with drinks provided afterwards.They are open to AGSMalumni and their guests and are free of charge.

“The CCC began this initiative inApril last year and the interest hassurpassed our expectations,” saysTimothy Devinney, director of theCentre for Corporate Change. “We haverun evenings on e-business, corporatesocial responsibility, globalisation,knowledge and innovation, and thepsychology of strategy, for some 1000alumni and guests.”

Some of the executives involved in2000 were Phil Kiely (Oracle), SteveVamos (ninemsm), Anne Whyte(Morgan & Banks), Damien O’Brien(Egon Zehnder), Jon Nicolson (BCG)and Chris Mitchell (AT Kearney).

If you would like to be on themailing list to receive advance notice of the research briefings,please contact the Centre for Corporate Change on: (02) 9931 9500or e-mail: franp@agsm.edu.au.

Christian Sellars (MBA2)

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 7

The AGSM is undergoing a majorreview of its MBA programs inresponse to the challenge of change

in both the business environment and customer requirements for the highestquality management education productand experience.

On the basis of accumulated innova-tions in curriculum and delivery devel-opment over the past few years, theAGSM has been able to identify and makethe right choices for further improve-ments to specific areas of curriculum,program delivery and student experience.

The first program to be reviewed is thefull-time MBA program.The redesignedcurriculum, which will be taught from2002, responds to changes in the businessenvironment such as the impact of infor-mation technology, e-commerce, global-isation and workplace diversity.

The main areas of change for the full-time MBA program involve:■ Extending the contribution of infor-mation technology and electronic com-merce in core requisite courses.■ Further integration of content across allcourses and disciplines within theprogram, focusing on the introduction ofan integrated program structure run concurrently with core courses. Integratedprograms, such as ‘managing diversity’,will be topical and genuinely integrative(across disciplines) and taught by a teamof at least two people in different academicareas. One of the aims is to create more in-built flexibility and timeliness with pro-grams that are easier to change to respondto customer and marketplace needs.■ Restructuring program delivery andstudy structures to allow the MBAprogram to be completed in 15 months(if no internship is taken) or 18 months(with an internship) to reduce the overallcosts to students.■ Ensuring that the curriculum, deliveryand student experience are responsive tothe realities of globalisation and offer therequisite cross-cultural management skillsto succeed in a global marketplace.■ More emphasis on teamwork to reinforce

leadership and team skills. Each new MBAprogram intake will be split into twogroups constructed for maximum diversityand each assigned teamwork facilitators.■ Strengthening business and alumnicommunity links for adding value to theoverall student experience.Areas of focusinclude increasing outside speaker programs, greater access to companies as sites for management projects and research, and developing alumni mentoring of students.

“An important underlying outcome ofthe review was that our research re-affirmed the need for a generalist post-graduate qualification in management thatdelivers a breadth of understanding acrossall of the core disciplines of manage-ment,” says Dr Robert Westwood, reviewcommittee member.

Also highlighted by the review was theongoing need to improve continuallythe quality of the overall MBA program

experience through delivery of studyprograms such as international exchangeand management projects, and provi-sion of employment services and net-working facilities.

“Integral to the overall quality equationis what we call ‘the company you keep’. Bythat we mean the AGSM’s ability to offerexposure to a very high-calibre network offaculty, students who bring with themvaluable industry experience, an interna-tional exchange program with excellentbusiness schools such as LBS,Wharton andKellogg and, of course, a first-class alumnicommunity,” says Sue-Bennett Williams,acting director, MBA program.

“At the AGSM we have a reputation fordelivering a high quality student cohort;we will continue to do that not only byusing GMAT scores as a quality measurebut also focusing on applicants’ businessexperience and knowledge, because students’ input is important to the

overall MBA programexperience,” she says.

The full-time MBAprogram review hasspecifically sought toharness innovationsacross cur r icu la ,program delivery andstudent experience tocontinue to advancemanagement knowl-edge and practice inAustralia and the region.It is designed to ensurethat its graduates possessthe skills, knowledge,competencies and valuesto be effective businessleaders in today ’scomplex and ever-changing environment.

The Executive MBAprogram is next in linefor review and the com-mittee that has beenformed aims to makerecommendations laterin the year. ✪

Managing the chal lenge ofs tudent and business needs

“INTEGRAL TO THE OVERALL

QUALITY EQUATION IS WHAT WE

CALL ‘THE COMPANY YOU KEEP’

— A HIGH-CALIBRE NETWORK

OF FACULTY, STUDENTS AND

ALUMNI COMMUNITY.”— Sue Bennett-Williams, acting director, MBA program

UPDATE

Just another dot com they said. Prettyhot technology, world’s at their feet.But, like most Internet start-ups intoday’s volatile economic climate,i t takes more than just f lashtechnology and the interest of

venture capitalists to turn expansionistdreams into reality.

Through no fault of their own thesetechnologists lack arguably the two mostimportant ingredients needed to grow anybusiness venture: commercial expertiseand marketing muscle. Without these, nostart-up could hope to cut the mustard inthe global marketplace.

Enter Australian Internet start-up:Active Concepts.The brainchild of softwareengineer and now its CEO, Darren Williams, Active Concepts develops Website traffic analysis and competitive profilingsoftware tools. Its key product is FunnelWeb, an Internet application that providesWeb site traffic and online consumerbehaviour analysis.

Active was last year acquired by aNASDAQ-listed US software vendor with amarket capitalisation of $A10 billion.Themultimillion-dollar price that QuestSoftware paid for Active was negotiated

by two AGSM alumni who successfullybrokered the deal amid last year’s stockmarket ‘correction’.

Michael Bowles (EMBA ’98) tossed in a lucrative 10-year career as an executive at Lend Lease to accept an approach by Campbell Olsen, an investment managerat Active’s venture capital backer JafcoInvestments (formally Nomura JafcoInvestments) to join Active as its COO.Shortly after, Cameron McLean (ADP ’98)and now director of business developmentat Com Tech Central, joined as non-executive director.

What they first encountered was a start-up with great technology, but with littlemarketing or commercial acumen to takeit forward. Jafco had just given the greenlight to a multimillion-dollar investmentpacket with growth criteria strings attached.

Jafco had already identified a lack ofcommercial sales and marketing expertisetypical in start-up companies.When Bowlesarrived he found that the company wasspending hundreds of thousands of dollarson US consultants without really knowingwhat it wanted the consultants to achieve.“There was little experience in appointingor managing consultants, and Active first

AGSM alumni reveal their strategy in the saleof an Internet start-up during the peak of lastyear’s tech stock volatility. by Cameron Tomes*

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COVER STORY

The anatomy of a dot com deal

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needed to understand all the non-technology aspects of the business to usethe consultants effectively,” says Bowles.

“It was a steep learning curve for themto understand that we had to change focusfrom technology to marketing, then buildcustomer segmentation and pricingstrategies to meet the investor’s require-ments,” says Bowles. Active’s bannerproduct, Funnel Web, was initially onlysold to Webmasters. Under a strategyBowles adapted from the AGSM’s Fit modelof determining product price points andstrategic marketing plans, specialisedproducts were developed for a newly-segmented market of corporate, smallbusiness and technical customers. Pricingwas initially $US199, a figure Bowles saidcustomers equated to ‘freeware’, but waslater adjusted to $US1199 to indicateenhanced functionality.

As McLean explains: “We had to re-brand the company for global reach anddrive its value up while looking forattractive exit opportunities for theowners”. That involved coaching theActive team to take a pretty big leap inperspective, “from a small businessmentality to one of thinking and actingglobally,” says McLean.

In just six months Bowles, with theassistance of McLean and Williams, grewActive’s head count from five to 20 andopened up offices in London and SanFrancisco as part of the global expansionand revenue generation strategy.The teamalso expanded its online and retail salesdistribution channels to include OEM(original equipment manufacturer)contracts with larger vendors to increasemarket penetration.

These OEM contracts were essentiallylicensing agreements, where an originalmanufacturer sought to add value to oneof its core or new products using Active’stechnology. One such contract, forexample, involved Active licensing UduSoftware to plug in Active’s technology toits ASP model (which Udu sold to Internetservice providers).

Around March last year one such OEMpartnership offered something moretangible for Active than royalties fromincreased sales. While in the US, Bowleswas approached by Quest Software’s CEOVinnie Smith and president Dave Doyle.

What started as a simple OEM negotiationdeveloped into a full-blown acquisitionplay by Quest.

“Quest could see that Active hadleading-edge technology which it neededto build an all-encompassing Webapplication development solution,” saysBowles. “They wanted to buy Active’sintellectual capital because they didn’thave the time to build equivalenttechnology from scratch.”While flattering,Quest’s offer effectively threw a spannerin the works for Bowles, McLean andWilliams, who were focused on buildinga strong, growing business.

“The way Quest was talking meant wehad to move fast,” McLean says. “We hadto decide whether to continue with ourexisting expansion plans for Active,which were going well, or seriouslyconsider Quest’s advances.” One ofthe key questions for Active in theearly negotiation stages was whetherpotential licensing revenues would havemade them as much money as a straightacquisition by Quest.

Active Concepts decided that it wouldhave effectively cannibalised its ownrevenue aspirations and market share hadit licensed or allowed Quest to build itsown technology. Unlike other OEMcontracts, which were product-specific,Quest wanted unfettered use of intellec-tual proper ty, which would haveeffectively set up a competitor.As a result,Active agreed to pursue acquisition nego-tiations even though its European andAustralian operations were achieving solidsales volumes.

McLean and the board had to calculateal l possible outcomes of such anacquisition.What did a buyout mean forJafco? What would it mean for Active towork for Quest and what would be theadvantages given that Active was still in aperiod of high cash burn prior to secondround funding?

The ensuing due diligence stage trulytested the commercial skills of Bowlesand McLean. During their first US meetingthey played hard ball on a buyout priceknowing that Active ownedwhat Quest needed. AsBowles puts i t : “Ouropening gambit was $100million worth of cash and

DEAL-MAKERS

Negotiating a deal such as this amid macro market revaluation drove home to Cameron McLean (left) and Michael Bowles the necessity for new valuation benchmarks for the emerging technology sector.

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 9

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shares. At that time we were the pricemakers, and there was plenty of euphoriainside Active with talk of a selling price of40 times projected revenues”.

They also strategically paired Questpresident Doyle with Active’s CEO Williamsto discuss the complex technology duringnegotiations and Quest CEO Smith withActive’s Bowles and Jafco to talk business.

“One of the toughest aspects of the dealwas keeping focused on executing thebusiness plan, a difficult task in a smallcompany during an acquisition when somuch of your time and energy is taken upin the acquisition proceedings.We split upresponsibilities within the company tokeep everything on track,” says Bowles.

“Both Michael and I had to maintainan unemotional investment in the deal toensure all sides benefited,” says McLean.“We played it as a team, always coordi-nating our actions, especially towardsQuest,” adds Bowles.

Legal negotiations continued and led toQuest signing a detailed term sheet, onlyto be hit by a sledgehammer courtesy ofthe March-April stock market correction.

“All of a sudden discussions went

quiet. Our negotiating power haddisappeared and Quest started saying weneeded to revalue,” McLean says. “Marketsentiment was running all over the place,so to say all parties were unsure of whatthe market was going through and whereit would lead is an understatement.”

As COO, Bowles was nominated tofront negotiations with Quest. Whichmeant that Active’s negotiating team, in anew ‘price taking’ environment, deliber-ate ly s lowed down negot iat ions,prolonged discussions, continued toengage Quest’s CEO and president and,importantly, never made impatientultimatums that could potentially scare offQuest. Bowles knew he couldn’t forcethe issue when Quest’s share price hadbeen hit hard, making it more reluctantto enter into an acquisition of an Internetcompany that had only just started toearn its stripes.

“We were constantly asking ourselves,”Bowles recalls,“‘Are we doing an injusticeby selling out or could we hold off andbecome global in our own right?’. It wasduring this time that I relied on the boardto review my thinking; they were thatone step removed from the day-to-dayoperations and proved very useful forsounding out ideas.”

Fortunately, after several months ofuncertainty, the two parties reachedcommon agreement, just prior to theSydney Olympic Games, giving Active’sowners an acceptable new bid of 20 timesestimated revenues – a direct reflection ofthe macro market revaluation. As anunexpected sweetener, Quest opted againstthe inclusion of a share package as part ofthe overall deal given that its stock pricehad crashed from a high of $US80 to$US35.At the time of signing the seconddeal, the Australian dollar had fallen fromUS64 cents to US54 cents, which made acash deal more lucrative from a conversionperspective. It also meant that Active didn’thave to wait for escrow periods to lapse

before getting access to share packets.While the owners counted the returns

of their investment, Bowles and McLeanwere left to contemplate the magnitude oftheir achievement. “Being a COO in thisindustry is all about doing too much,with too little money, in too little time,”says Bowles. “I never thought that I would be negotiating an acquisitionthough a market crash – it’s complicatedenough without the added dimension ofa highly volatile market. For the immediatefuture, the market needs to start valuingwith some sort of predictability in orderto get VC [venture capital] liquidityflowing again.” ✪

* Cameron Tomes is a specialist freelancebusiness writer and editor of Asia PacificBanking Technology.

STRATEGY

DO■ Assemble negotiation teams

with multiple skill sets. Youneed people with technicalcompetency, commercial senseand bargaining expertise.

■ Respect the other parties’perceptions and culturaldifferences as they generallyalways reflect reality.

■ Be flexible.

DON’T■ Be aggressive in the

negotiation phase or makeunrealistic demands of other parties.

■ Try to railroad other partiesinto accepting your proposal.Always strive to achieve ashared outcome.

A C T I V E C O N C E P T S ’ B A N N E R P R O D U C T, F U N N E L W E B , I N I T I A L LY

W A S S O L D O N LY T O W E B M A S T E R S . U N D E R A N E W S T R AT E G Y

ADAPTED FROM THE AGSM’S FIT MODEL OF DETERMINING PRODUCT

P R I C E P O I N TS A N D ST RAT EG I C M A R K E T I N G P L A N S, S P EC I A L I S E D

PRODUCTS WERE DEVELOPED FOR A NEWLY-SEGMENTED MARKET.

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 11

Judged last November, this wasAustralia’s first student-run entrepre-neurship competition, and the first

prize of $20,000 was awarded to theContech Software Corporation team forits business proposal to market softwarethat promises to verify microchips fasterand facilitate the design of larger chips.

A second prize of $10,000 went to finalyear part-time MBA student Alex Berry,who has helped develop a start-up businesscalled SplitCase Logistics. It offers innov-ative small-order processing solutions forcomplete order management applicable toe-tailers and traditional retailing as well asindustrial equipment sales and distribution.

INITIATIVEThe competition is part of a new initiativeto foster entrepreneurship and new busi-ness development skills at the AGSM,known as Connector. It is run by AGSM stu-dents and IT students from the School ofComputer, Science and Engineering (CSE)at the University of New South Wales.

The Connector portfolio of activitiesand programs comprises monthly net-working forums, the annual businessplanning competition and an incubatorfor the best of the business plans.

The networking forums, which beganin May 2000, bring together students,business people and alumni. In 2001,successful entrepreneurs and innovatorswill be invited to speak each month andthe Connector team will be seeking corporate sponsorship and involvementfor each forum.The first forum is plannedfor late March.

The 2001 Connector business planningcompetition has expanded to include fourmajor sponsors with a prize-money targetof $100,000. The competition programwill start in June and run for six months,

culminating in a winners’ awards event inNovember.The key criteria for competitioneligibility are: inclusion of a student fromone of the participating AGSM or univer-sity faculties in the team; and no priorfunding of more than $100,000.

Teams that make it through to the finalsof the competition will be eligible to enterthe Connector incubator. The incubatorprovides AGSM office facilities and ser-vices, as well as faculty and alumni com-munity support and advice.The final stageof the Connector process introducesincubator teams to commercial incuba-tors for future growth.

Mark Burns, head of e-business atDeutsche Bank, says Deutsche Bank was“excited to be associated with this greatinitiative that encourages and supports the

creation and managementof new ventures, and offers students valuableexposure to the venturecapital industry”.

THE BUZZ“It is important to create abuzz and to foster net-working between talentedIT and business manage-ment students togetherwith VCs, technology companies and service

providers,” says associate professor ArunSharma, head of CSE.

“You only need to take a look at thesuccessful companies that have comeout of the MIT [Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology] competition. It is whollystudent run and is a proven incubator. Ithas produced dozens of companies thatare really good, mostly in the informationtechnology field.And don’t forget it is notonly the winners who have done wellover the years, but also the finalists.” ✪

For more information on Connector forums,business planning competition or incubator,contact AGSM Connector managers Angus Jaffray: angusj@agsm.edu.au, Peter Jochelson: peterj@agsm.edu.au orSteve Waddington: stephenw@agsm.edu.au,who also can provide details of a newConnector Web site.

FEATURE

Connecting businessand IT talent

THE WINNERS

(Top, from left): James Nosworthyand Brad Marshall of ContechSoftware Corporation accept theircheque from Connector businessplan competition judge, MarkBurns, of Deutsche Bank.

(Below): professor Michael Vitale,dean (second from left), withAGSM Connector managers (from left) Angus Jaffray, Steve Waddington and Peter Jochelson.

A start-up computer software developer, Contech Software Corporation, won the AGSM’s first student-runbusiness planning competition, backed by $30,000 in prize money from Deutsche Bank.

“A perfect example of the exciting results youcan achieve from marrying top business skillswith computer science expertise.”

— professor Michael Vitale, dean

12 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

Every managerial action is based on assumptionsabout human nature and the world in which weoperate.Assumptions shape what we see and howwe react to situations. Most of these assumptionsare implicit in the sense that managers are not

consciously aware of the impact that they have on theiractions and, in some cases, are not even aware that theyever make certain assumptions. Management researchrefers to these assumptions as theories, in the sense thatthey help managers to maintain a coherent view ofpeople and the world, and their effects are repeatedlyevident in similar types of situations.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICIT THEORIES OF MANAGERS?

Douglas McGregor from MIT provided one answer tothis question in his statement of Theory X and TheoryY.1 Readers may recall that Theory X was a set ofnegative assumptions that managers made aboutworkers, including that: “the average human being hasan inherent dislike of work, prefers to be directed, haslittle ambition, wishes to avoid responsibility andvalues security above all else”.Theory Y assumptionsincluded the beliefs: “that human beings enjoyed andactively sought work, self-direction, responsibilityand the opportunity to utilise their imagination”.

In recent years, I have been conducting work2 onthe implicit theories that managers have about them-selves and other people and how these theoriesinfluence judgments, decision-making and behaviour.This work has built on and extended the research ofCarol Dweck of Columbia University,3 who first iden-tified the same set of implicit theories in youngchildren and teenagers, and has shown how the

assumptions in each theory impact on academic per-formance and children’s success in social settings. Inmy collaborative research and Dweck’s, we have iden-tified two important implicit theories.These theoriesare simpler than those postulated by McGregor and ourstudies have shown that they exert a predictable impacton managers’ behaviour, which has never been estab-lished for Theory X and Theory Y. The first we callentity theory, which refers to when a person assumesor believes that human characteristics are fixed entitiesthat do not change much, if at all, with experience.Thesecond we call incremental theory, which refers to a view that human characteristics are malleable, thatthey change with experience and can be developed.In the sections that follow, I will outline the scope ofthese two implicit theories and describe the results ofsome research that demonstrates their implicationsfor managerial action.

First, let’s consider an example of how people viewmental ability to illustrate the differences that can arisebetween individuals who have an entity theory of mentalability and those who have an incremental theory.

People with an entity theory of mental ability takethe view that intelligence is a deeply inherent andfixed personal trait. For entity theorists, there are smartpeople and dumb people and not much movementbetween the two categories. However, if mental abilityis fixed then a person who has that basic aptitudeshould be able to demonstrate it at will, in any situation.For entity theorists, a person’s failure at a task requiringmental ability is, therefore, construed as evidence of alack of ability.Tasks that are novel, involve evaluationsby others or require experimentation, all pose a threatto the entity theorist because they carry a higher risk

Recognising your self-theories can lead to more adaptableand astute managerial decision-making. by Robert E. Wood*

Implicit theoriesof managers:

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INCREMENTAL THEORISTS: THINK LESS ABOUT BASIC APTITUDES AS EXPLANATIONS

FOR PERFORMANCE AND FOCUS MORE ON SKILLS, EFFORT AND STRATEGIES.

ENTITY THEORISTS: TAKE THE VIEW THAT INTELLIGENCE IS A DEEPLY INHERENT AND

FIXED PERSONAL TRAIT; THAT THERE ARE SMART PEOPLE AND DUMB PEOPLE AND NOT MUCH

MOVEMENT BETWEEN THE TWO CATEGORIES.

14 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

of failure or setback. Novelty, publicaccountability and experimentation are, of course, common characteristics of managerial work.

The assumptions of people with anincremental theory of mental ability differfrom those of entity theorists in manyways. Incremental theorists simply thinkless about mental ability or basic aptitudesas explanations for performance. In anysituation that requires mental ability, theytend to think of performance in terms ofskills, effort and strategies, which canvary from one situation or one problemto the next. These performance charac-teristics are also easier to change thanbasic aptitudes. For incremental theorists,experimentation, public accountabilityand novelty all pose less of a threatbecause they believe that you can alwaystry something different when youencounter setbacks or failures.

Mental ability is just one human char-acteristic that features in the implicittheories of managers. Other importantimplicit theories in management includeassumptions about the fixedness versusmalleability of human morality and socialskills. One reaction that differentiatesentity theorists from incremental theoristsin each of these domains is the degree towhich their thoughts are focused onthemselves versus the situation orproblem at hand, in the face of failure andsetbacks.When entity theorists fail to liveup to expectations, they are prone toruminate about how other people willjudge them and become preoccupiedwith self-doubts. Incremental theoristsmay suffer the same distractions initially,but manage to shift their focus back to thetask at hand more quickly and to thinkabout strategies for recovery.

Another basic distinction seems tooccur in how entity and incrementaltheorists frame challenging tasks. Entitytheorists are more likely to adopt adefensive or avoidance frame while incre-mental theorists adopt an approach frameand attack the task more directly. If wethink in terms of public speaking, anentity theorist will be thinking aboutthings like:“How do I make sure that I donot make any mistakes or avoid lookingridiculous?”. An incremental theorist willbe thinking: “What approach or strategywill give the best presentation?”.

One area where entity and incremen-tal theorists do not differ is in measures

of their basic aptitudes. In my collabora-tive research, and Dweck’s, the differ-ences observed are evident af tercontrolling for individual skills or abilitiesfor the task being studied. Even talentedpeople do not escape the threats of failure.High performing entity theorists oftenlive with the fear that they have been mis-classified and that the next test will revealto their teachers, senior management orcolleagues that they are really incompetent.

IMPLICIT THEORIES IN PRACTICE Some readers may recognise themselves,colleagues, partners or their children insome of the examples and be thinkingthat I (or Joe or Mary or whoever) am (is)an entity or incremental theorist. Becareful, such labels are only ever partiallycorrect, if at all. Implicit theories describereactions to certain types of situations,such as novelty, failure and challenges;they are not trait-based descriptions ofpersonality like the Myers Briggs andother measures that claim to describegeneral characteristics of individuals. So,while you or others you know mighthave an entity theory about mental ability(studies suggest that around 30 per centof children do) you or they could have anincremental theory about social skills likepublic speaking, languages, writing orpeople management. Research has shownthat implicit theories, like many otherbeliefs, are domain specific.

Implicit theories are learned and theycan be unlearned. How easy or difficultit is to change an implicit theory willdepend upon the process by which itwas learned and how deeply rooted arethe assumptions in the subconscious. Aperson who has been constantly exposedto the claims that people are either ‘good’or ‘bad ’ from early childhood toadulthood will probably have a deeplyrooted and difficult-to-change entitytheory of morality. However, evenassumptions formed early in life can bechanged. Many years of experience as ateacher and a parent have taught me thatacademic ability is much more malleablethan I previously believed, resulting in myshift from an entity to an incrementaltheory view. In one of our studies, wefound that Spanish university graduateswho attended a two-year trainingprogram to become senior police inspec-tors shifted their implicit theories abouthuman character toward an entity view.

My collaborative studies4 have estab-lished that you can overturn incrementaltheories by creating a situation that empha-sises a strong entity viewpoint. Changingan entity theorist into an incrementaltheorist is more difficult or takes longer,but it can be done.An example of an entityapproach is one where a supervisor orco-workers (or parents) constantly attributeachievements to fundamental capabilitiesand not to behaviour or strategies.Constantly telling a person that they areincompetent may make them feel badabout themselves, but it may also havesubtler and long-lasting effects if it shiftsthem to an entity view of ability. Praise thatstresses basic capabilities can do the samething! Telling people that they are smartwhen they perform well can be detri-mental to their long-term performance ifit also produces an entity view of ability.Conversely, an incremental approach tosuccess and failure constantly focuses onstrategies, effort and other factors thatpeople can change or maintain to influencetheir performance.

THE EFFECTS OF IMPLICITTHEORIES ON MANAGERIALACTION

A substantial body of research now showsthat entity theorists and incrementaltheorists each respond consistently, butdifferently, to situations that are novel orchallenging and to failure and setbacks.I will briefly mention three of the maindifferences and illustrate them withexamples from research that I have donewith others. Readers who wish to readfurther should consult the readings inthe footnotes.

First, when judging other people and themselves, entity theorists use

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 15

stereotypes more than incrementaltheorists do. In our studies,5 we have foundthat entity theorists are more likely tobelieve that stereotypes are accuratedescriptions of people in general and evenof specific individuals compared to incre-mental theorists. When assessing a newmember of a group whom entity theoristsknew little about, they were more likely tocharacterise the person as either verycompetent or very incompetent,depending upon whether the personagreed or disagreed with the group.Incremental theorists were more likely totake other explanations into account, suchas the new member might be nervous orhave a different understanding of the task.These considerations lead incrementaltheorists to make more middle-of-the-road, provisional judgments of the newmember’s competence. Their judgmentswere not affected by whether the newmember agreed or disagreed with thegroup. When the new member wassomeone well known to them, resulting inless novelty or challenge in the situation,both entity theorists and incrementaltheorists made less extreme judgmentsabout the person’s competence.

Entity theorists pay less attention toinformation that is inconsistent with theirjudgments.Therefore, in situations wherethere are competing points of view andinconsistent information, entity theoristsmake the quicker judgments and aremore confident in their judgments thanincremental theorists. Whether this is agood or a bad thing depends upon howcorrect they turn out to be and the costsand benefits of a quick decision.

Incremental theorists are moreexploratory and more likely to experi-ment when considering different options,compared to entity theorists.6 Becauseentity theorists view a drop in perfor-mance as indicative of a lack of ability, theytend to look for a strategy that works andstick with it rather than experiment widely.Incremental theorists are more likely toexperiment with a range of strategies,which can undermine their performancein the short term. However, we have foundit also leads to greater learning and moreeffective responses to sudden changes in

a complex task. This finding providessome support for the logic behind a sloganI saw recently on the T-shirt of a Kelloggstudent, which read:“C students make thebest CEOs”. The argument is that if youhave learnt how to cope with the ups anddowns of failure, you are better preparedfor the realities of senior management.

A third finding from our studies7 is thatimplicit theories have an impact on groupdecision-making. Again, when workingon challenging managerial problems,groups that include entity theoristsbecome more discouraged by setbacks,develop a negative tone and are lessengaged on the task. When given anoption, groups in which members sharean entity theory will get the task overwith quickly by taking the first option thatseems satisfactory. They then go on totalk about other matters, unrelated to thechallenging task, and which do notinvolve the risk of making mistakes infront of one’s peers. Groups of incre-mental theorists are more engaged in thetask, they speak more, take more turns atspeaking and engage in more open dis-agreement about the issues. In thisprocess, incremental groups evaluatemore options than entity groups.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?When McGregor outlined his arguments,he made the point that managers wouldonly shift from a Theory X to a Theory Yapproach if organisations reshaped theirmanagerial practices and policies tosupport Theory Y assumptions. That hasnot changed. There are many potentialtransmission mechanisms for implicittheories in organisations, including lead-ership, training programs, performanceappraisals, rewards, recruitment andinduction programs. However, oneproblem in building a change strategyaround such HRM systems and processesis that they are often not deeply embeddedin daily management practices. Onestrategy that colleagues and I have beentesting in Australian organisations is tointroduce more disciplined problem-solving processes by having individualsand groups using simple problem-solvingtools in their daily work practices,

particularly group work. By using thesetools we are hoping to create a strongertask focus, provide the means for exper-imenting, encourage more research andinformation analysis, and foster the testingof multiple strategies. ✪

* Robert Wood is professor of management,AGSM. Since July 1999, he has been visiting professor at the Kellogg School,Northwestern University, Illinois. He willreturn to the AGSM in July 2001.

FOOTNOTES1 McGregor D., The Human Side of the

Enterprise, McGraw Hill, NY, 1960.2 This work has been done in collaboration

with AGSM PhD students Mike Higgs andTracey Pillinger, and with colleagues at theUniversity of Salamanca (Dr CarmenTabernero) and Kellogg (Dr Kathy Phillips).

3 See Dweck C.S., Self-Theories: Their Role inMotivation, Personality and Development,Psychology Press, Philadelphia, 1999.

4 Tabernero C. and Wood R.E., ‘Implicit theoriesversus the social construal of ability in self-regulation and performance on a complextask’ in Organizational Behavior and HumanDecision Processes, 78, 104–127, 1999.

5 Wood R.E., Higgs M. and Tabernero C., ‘Theimpacts of implicit theories on stereotypeformation and endorsement’. Workingpaper, 2000.

6 Wood R.E. and Bandura A., ‘Impact of con-ceptions of ability on self-regulatory mecha-nisms and complex decision making’ inJournal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 56, 407–415, 1989. Pillinger T.,Study 1, PhD Thesis, 2000.

7 Wood R.E., Tabernero C. and Phillips K.W.,‘Personality composition, processingdynamics and performance in self-managedgroups’. Working paper, 2000.

TELLING PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE SMART WHEN THEY

PERFORM WELL CAN BE DETRIMENTAL TO THEIR LONG-

TERM PERFORMANCE IF IT PRODUCES AN ENTITY VIEW.

MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGEThe quality of knowledge that isavailable to managers is under-pinned by research conducted bymanagement academics. However,we can only conduct managementresearch if managers participate. If you would like to contribute to our studies or help us to get your colleagues to participate, pleasecontact me at the e-mail addressbelow. Most of our studies arecomputer-based and we can come to you and your colleagues with alaptop or deliver the study materialsover the Web. Being overseas orinterstate may not be an impedimentto participation. Studies typicallytake between one and two hours.Everybody who participates receivesfeedback on his or her responsesand decision strategies used.

Contact: rwood@agsm.edu.au.

16 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

Customer Relat ionshipManagement (CRM) is thecurrent marketing hot topic.It is premised on the beliefthat developing a relation-

ship with customers is the best (most cost-effective) way to get them to become loyal.And, loyal customers are supposed to be themost profitable. Support for this proposi-tion has been most eloquently advanced byFrederick Reichheld in his book The LoyaltyEffect.1This work has also been the drivingforce behind the introduction of many cus-tomer loyalty programs.

Many marketing academics,however, hold a more scepticalopinion than the consultants whodesign and implement CRM pro-grams.They are also questioning theeffects of customer loyalty programson company profitability. In thisarticle, I will explain why.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

CRM had its or igins in two unrelated places. One was driven bytechnology – most often developed inthe US.2 Here, customer databaseshave been developed and mined to provide insight into differentpurchase habits, responses to pro-motions, and the lifetime value of varioustypes of customers. Under the direction ofmarketers, information technology and statistical algorithms are used to increasethe efficiency and effectiveness of sellingwhat the company makes. CRM systemssuch as call centres, customer service andsupport teams and loyalty programsmanage the relationship with customers.

Technology-driven CRM has claimedsignificant improvements – especially bydirect marketing firms. It has also experi-enced some problems, such as the highturnover rates of staff in call centres andthe inevitable cost blowouts associated with

implementing new technology.The typeof relationship, if any, that develops fromthis style of CRM is often quite one-sided.It starts with the seller targeting the cus-tomer, gathering information about themand then attempting to seduce them.3

The second place CRM developed wasin B2B marketing in Scandinavia andNorthern Europe. The IMP (IndustrialMarketing and Purchasing) Group hasbeen instrumental in developing ourunderstanding about the nature andeffects of building long-term, trust-basedrelationships with customers. These are

typically managed by marketing andsales.They may be based as much on thestructural ties between companies as theyare on personal relationships amongmanagers. Here, the emphasis is onunderstanding customer needs and thenon solving problems or delivering benefits that create customer value.

While technology is important in this style of CRM, it is designed tosupport, rather than drive, the customerrelationship. The types of relationship that develop here are often deep and meaningful – both for the companies andthe people involved.

RELATIONSHIPSVery few practising marketers are preparedto stand up and say publicly that they don’twant a relationship with their customers.On the other hand, many customers saythat they don’t want a relationship withmost of the products and services (and thusthe companies) that they buy.Test yourself.Do you want to have a relationship with theoil company that produces your petrol? Oryour favourite television station? Or thecompany that makes your garden hose?Most people don’t have the time, interestor the emotional energy to form relation-

ships with the company that pro-vides the products and servicesthey buy.

Relationships are special.Theyinvolve two-way trust, commit-ment, the sharing of information,partnership, and so on.This is themodel of a relationship that mostpeople carry around in their headand their heart. Many peoplewould like to have a relationshipwith the organisation they workfor – but not with the low-involvement products and ser-vices that they buy.The problemwith trying to form a relationshipwith your customers is that itdoes not correspond to the com-

mercial reality of trying to make a profitby selling products and services to them.

Hence, commonsense indicates thatrelationship marketing will only be rele-vant for some companies and some typesof customers. If you are Harley-Davidsonselling big motor cruisers and the feelingof being free and somewhat rebellious,then forming a relationship with your cus-tomers makes sense. Here, much of whatis being bought is social and psycholog-ical in nature. The motorbike is really aticket to entry. Harley-Davidson createsmuch of the product with corporateimagery. They manage the customer

The paradox of customerrelat ionships : often less is moreby Grahame Dowling*

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relationship with a CRM program thatinvolves bike rallies, clothing, collectiblesand their HOG clubs.

If customers don’t want a relationshipwith your product or service, they may stillappreciate a dialogue with you. However,it has to be a dialogue, not a company-centred monologue. Many customerloyalty programs and company Web siteshave been used to create a communicationchannel between customer and company.But real dialogue is two-way communi-cation.And if you have hundreds of thou-sands of customers, it is hard to doanything other than talk at them.

The third type of relationship to havewith customers is not to have a relation-ship with them at all. Just provide goodproducts and services at competitive pricesand be easy to do business with – with nostrings attached.The company focus is toprovide the best customer value – throughits products and service. Nothing more,nothing less. Many customers will respondto this offer with the best type of loyaltyimaginable – repeat purchase and positiverecommendations to others.There is an oldsaying that “the best product in amarket sells itself”.

CRM OR CPMThe inherent problem with CRM isidentified in its name by the words‘relationship’ and ‘management’. Itwill be difficult for customers to havemuch influence in the relationship ifcompanies seek to manage it – to theirprofitable advantage.A vivid example of this‘management’ is shown in the applicationforms for the Ansett and Qantas frequent-flyer programs. Each has a section onTerms and Conditions written by theairline’s legal department. It is interestingto speculate on the type of customer rela-tionship that starts out with: “A talk fromour lawyers”.

Hence, in many consumer markets,CRM would be better described as CPM –customer profit management. Now thereis nothing wrong with CPM – it should bestandard practice for every firm. But whenCPM is renamed as CRM, it motivates somemarketing managers to try to buy ratherthan win the loyalty of their customers.Acommon tactic is to launch a customerloyalty program.

It turns out that there is a considerablebody of research that suggests that mostcustomers don’t want to give their

exclusive loyalty to any single brand inmost product or service categories. Overmultiple purchase occasions, they wantsome variety. Also, if they live with otherpeople, the demands of the group requirea portfolio of brands rather than theexclusive use of a single brand.

What we have here is what the researchreveals, namely, that most people – typi-cally 80 per cent or more – are multi-brand buyers in a wide range of differentproduct categories.4 The implications ofthis finding put severe limitations on thepotential effectiveness of most customerloyalty programs.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY PROGRAMSWhen most people exhibit multi-brandbuying or polygamous loyalty, then whatcan a customer loyalty scheme hope toachieve? If it is designed as an offensiveweapon it may secure a temporary first-mover advantage. However, if it looks asthough it will change customer purchas-ing patterns, it will soon be countered.

Once these schemes become estab-lished in a market, their patterns of use

often mirror the purchase patterns of theproducts and services they support. Forexample, the most frequent flyers inEurope are members of three to four frequent-flyer schemes – they exhibitpolygamous loyalty to the schemes as wellas the airlines. Typically, the infrequentflyers are members of only one scheme. Itseems that these golden handcuffs neitherinduce single-brand loyalty among theheavy users nor significantly more pur-chases by light users. First and foremost,customers want a product or service thatdoes the job required. If there is an add-on benefit offered by a customer loyaltyprogram, then people will join if it is ‘free’.In the case of frequent-flyer programs, theywill use convenient airline alliance partnersto get every entitlement they can.

People tend to participate in loyaltyschemes for a variety of reasons.For example,because they like to collect entitlementsand/or because they see these schemes as a form of (delayed) price discount. Few,

however, seem to participate because theywant to change their established patterns of purchase or form a deep-seated relationshipwith the company involved.

The perspective outlined so far suggeststhat only modest gains can be made fromeven a well-designed customer loyaltyprogram. Some scientific research on theAustralian FlyBuys multi-retailer schemeconfirms this view.5 So do rumours fromthe business world that suggest that airlinealliance and loyalty schemes have ‘com-pletely failed’.6 Hence, we are likely to seemore of these schemes re-evaluated in thenext few years.7

PUTTING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS IN PERSPECTIVE

For most of the products and services webuy on a regular basis, brand preferenceexists.The crucial question is whether it canbe attributed to some type of relationshipwe develop with the brand – or whether itis driven by salience (we know moreabout some brands than others), availabil-ity (it is in stock where we usually shop)and/or habit (the brand usually bought).

Extensive empirical research over thepast 30 years suggests that for mostpeople it is the last three factors.8

Hence, CRM programs designed tobuild deep-seated relationships withcustomers are more likely to be aromantic distraction than a cost-effective marketing strategy. ✪

* Professor Grahame Dowling is head of marketing at the AGSM.

FOOTNOTES1 Reichheld F., The Loyalty Effect, Boston:

Harvard Business School Press, 1996.2 Schultz D., ‘Learn to differentiate CRM’s

two faces’, Marketing News, p. 11, 20 November 2000.

3 Fournier S. et al., ‘Preventing the prematuredeath of relationship marketing’, HarvardBusiness Review, 76, 1, 42–51, 1997.

4 For an overview of this research, see DowlingG. and Uncles M., ‘Do customer loyalty pro-grams really work?’ Sloan ManagementReview, 71–82, Summer 1997.

5 Sharp B. and Sharp A., ‘Loyalty programs andtheir impact on repeat-purchase loyalty pat-terns’, International Journal of Research inMarketing, Vol. 14, No. 5, 473–486, 1997.

6 Sandilands B., ‘More leg room and a walk-upbar’, Australian Financial Review, SpecialReport, p. 3, 12 July 2000.

7 Cigliano J. et al., ‘The price of loyalty’, TheMcKinsey Quarterly, 4, 68–77, 2000.

8 Ehrenberg A. et al., ‘Brand loyalty’, in Earl P.and Kemp S. (eds), The Elgar Companion toConsumer Research and EconomicPsychology, UK: Edward Elgar, 53–63, 1999.

“IF YOU HAVE HUNDREDS OF

THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS, IT

I S H A R D T O D O A N Y T H I N G

OTHER THAN TALK AT THEM.”

18 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

COGNITIVE ANALYSIS of risk taking finds thatdecision-makers have a strong tendency to considerproblems as unique.They isolate the current choicefrom future opportunities and neglect the statisticsof the past in evaluating current plans.1 By treatingproblems as unique, people tend to be overlyoptimistic when making large infrequent decisions.They also exhibit what the AGSM’s Dan Lovallo callsReference Group Neglect (RGN) when makingdecisions in a competitive environment. He talks toconsultant Chris Manning about its impact andrelated inside- versus outside-view thinking onbusiness entry.2

DL: RGN theory is a fundamental aspect of myresearch into the psychology of competition and optimistic bias. It has been shown to be a contributorto overly optimistic entry decisions. It is also part of a broader psychological phenomenon known as ‘inside-view’ thinking. When people take the inside view in a competitive situation they tend to place too much emphasis on information relating to their own abilities, traits or plans, rather than carefullyexamining the competition.

Optimism plays a significant part in this becausestudies show that it can be quite impervious to all kindsof feedback. One of my favourite studies of this is oneon driving, where people were asked to rate theirdriving ability.There were two groups of 50 peopleand they gave largely identical ratings.The surprisingfactor was that one of the groups was comprised ofpeople who were all in the hospital because they hadbeen in traffic accidents and, incredibly, two-thirds ofthem had actually caused the accident.

CM: What’s important from a management prac-tice perspective is that your work highlights somethingthat probably happens more frequently than it shouldand, therefore, it is important to understand the driversbehind it. I do think there’s a risk that as managers

become more specialised, they’re more prone tobecoming the optimist you’re concerned about in yourwriting.You could call it a ‘king of the castle’ syndromewhere the specialist says they know all the statisticalevidence, the trends of the past and where themarket is headed.They give advice thinking that they’rethe only one who really knows, and that’s a trap.

The challenge for everyone is to continually lookaround and take a helicopter view [outside view] ofthe experiences of competitors while, internally,assessing how the organisation has learnt through past investment decisions. It’s crucial to understand and assess, statistically or through another form of evaluation, what might be the competitive responseif, for example, you enter the market.

A classic example of the importance of asking,‘What will be the impact of my decision?’ is the caseof Rupert Murdoch and the New York Post (which com-peted with the Daily News). Murdoch decided to putthe price of the paper up to make it more profitable,figuring the Daily News would follow. The Daily Newsdidn’t follow so instead Murdoch dropped the priceof the paper on Staten Island below the initial price,forcing the Daily News to focus on the issue.The DailyNews then put the price of its paper up to the level thatMurdoch had originally set.

DL: As consultants, do you often find companiesdoing a good job of taking decision audits – assessing what they have done right and wrong andasking what they can learn?

CM: In terms of most due diligence procedures andrisk management processes that leading companiesdeploy now, most will review investment decisions atkey milestones.They will ask:‘To what extent have weachieved the stated objectives ofthis project; have we met hurdlerates and if not, what has drivenvariation?’.Good learning organ-isations use that experience to

How does the pervasiveness of optimistic bias in life impacton the ability of executives, entrepreneurs and organisationsto make successful market-entry decisions?

The pitfalls of ptimism

RESEARCH

o

MARKET ENTRY PERSPECTIVES

Dr Dan Lovallo (top right) is a senior lecturer in general management at theAGSM. Chris Manning is a principal atBooz•Allen & Hamilton.

IT ’S CRUCIAL TO UNDERSTAND AND ASSESS, STATISTICALLY OR

THROUGH ANOTHER FORM OF EVALUATION, WHAT MIGHT BE THE

C O M P E T I T I V E R E S P O N S E I F Y O U E N T E R T H E M A R K E T .

PH

OT

OG

RA

PH

Y:

KA

RE

N M

OR

K

AGSM | 19

20 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

feed back into the audit and investmentdecision processes.They learn by their mis-takes.However, at the other end of the spec-trum you have organisations that don’t havea well-formulated and tested business caseprocess and, as a result, have little availableto learn from.

My view is that various optimisticbiases are something that some compa-nies fall into and others don’t.

At one end, we have sophisticated cus-tomers who routinely make big, riskydecisions, who would say they have riskmanagement procedures in place thatwon’t allow inside-view thinking to apply.Of course, not all large companies wouldhave the best processes but the marketdoesn’t let them get it wrong for long. Atthe other end, you have less sophisticatedcompanies making big bets, and I think thisis where optimism is rampant.These are thecorner stores, the restaurants that open andclose overnight, smaller companies listedon the stock market who bet the farm.

DL: It is interesting to look at inter-organisation decision-making, to figure outwhat types of problems attract biases.There is an old, but still relevant HarvardBusiness Review article3 that looks at people’srisk preferences within an organisation.Thearticle illustrated that people at the bottomof the organisation would mirror the riskpreferences of their superiors.This led togross inconsistencies in decision-makingbecause small gambles should be practicallyrisk neutral, while larger gambles – thosemade at the top of the organisation – aremore likely to be risk averse.

CM: Again, I do think the extent towhich biases play a part depends on thesophistication of the managers and theprocesses. Right now if you went to any ofthe top 100 companies in Australia, you’dprobably find most have sufficient proce-dures and experience for these biases notto apply. I would have thought that it islargely where you have infrequent deci-sions and the size of the risk is large thatyou’ll see the pitfalls of optimism.

DL: How do you square that with someof the statistics for failure rates in NorthAmerican manufacturing? There have beena number of studies showing failure ratesof up to 60 per cent after five years and asmuch as 80 per cent after eight years.

CM: Did the analysis extend to under-stand the drivers of failure?

DL: No, these are just the raw statistics.CM: My hypothesis would be that

optimism may be a contributor to failure.However, other market factors may havebeen taking place. For example, the entryof unforeseen low-cost manufacturingfrom competitors in Asia.

DL: In the cognitive psychology ofcompetition work I do,4 one of things Ilike to get across in the classroom is thatfailure in business is normal. One of theways I demonstrate this is through asimultaneous entry game.You have, say, 14people in a room and they know thecapacity in the industry is three people andif more than three people enter, onaverage, they are going to lose money. It’snot about who plays the game best or whobest answers the questions, it’s aboutaverages. So you go through sequentiallyand ask, ‘Okay, are you in or out of thismarket?’.You come to market capacity plusone and this person says, ‘I’m in’.

CM: What I’d say to a client who says:‘I’m in’ is, ‘there is excess capacity in themarket now, so how are you going to dif-ferentiate what you have?’.There are gen-erally only two ways to enter a crowdedmarket and do well. One is to have some-thing that is so differentiating to themarket’s value proposition that you are notreally competing with the rest of theplayers in that market.The other is to havesuch superior economics, for example,either through scale or some sort ofadvantageous buying power, that allowsyou to compete profitably at a lower price.If either of those things are missing,don’t go in. Just the ability to competeusing business processes and technologyequal to that of your competitors will notdifferentiate you and allow you to succeed.

DL: Yes, probably one of the easiestways to explain RGN in a few sentencesis to take the example of the restaurantbusiness. Almost everyone that opens arestaurant thinks they are in the 90th per-centile of cooks. The problem is thateveryone else who tries to enter thinksthat, and they don’t have any way of dif-ferentiating themselves.

There is evidence and data that suggeststhat even when decision-makers havereference data at hand, they don’t alwaystake it into consideration. Instead, theycontinue to focus on their own optimisticview of market entry capability.

How would you propose companies goabout achieving unbiased capability, bothin the sense of organisational politics andin generating and acting on accurate data?

CM:There has to be a robust process ofaudit, a very strong capability of sharingresponsibility, and access to learning.Organisations that have poor knowledgemanagement skills don’t really know ifthey are using the right set of data. Forexample, if you’re trying to work out howbig a market is it is very hard to build abudget if you don’t have access to gooddata. If there is no shared responsibilityabout how you are going to go after amarket and build it, and a lack of account-ability, you are going to struggle.You needall the right levels of enablers in place.Youthen have other factors: you need the rightpeople whom you need to pay and rewardproperly. If you set the wrong sort ofbehaviour, you’ll also struggle.

DL:The trade-off is intriguing betweenthe need to have objective and realistic dataand objective decisions, and yet to get any-thing done you need a good measure ofoptimism that’s inherently not realistic.

CM:Any good business needs optimisticpeople who are going to say:‘We can solvethis problem, we can find a way to dothings differently, we can put two old ideastogether and come up with a brand newidea’. At the same time, you need toharness that innovation in a culture thatmakes it clear certain hurdles must be met.If you get the creative people and thefinance people working together as ateam, you get growth. And if you look atcompanies like Apple, Cisco, Intel andMicrosoft, that is exactly what you have. ✪

FOOTNOTES1 Kahneman D. and Lovallo D., ‘Timid choices

and bold forecasts: a cognitive perspective onrisk taking’, Management Science, vol. 39,issue 1, pp. 17–31, January 1993.

2 Dr Dan Lovallo is a senior lecturer in generalmanagement at the AGSM. Chris Manning is a principal at Booz•Allen & Hamilton.

3 Swalm R.O., ‘Utility theory: insights into risk taking’, Harvard Business Review, 44, pp. 123–136, 1966.

4 Camerer C. and Lovallo D., ‘Overconfidenceand excess entry: an experimental approach’,The American Economic Review, vol. 89,issue 1, pp. 306–318, March 1999.

“WHERE YOU HAVE

INFREQUENT DECISIONS

AND THE SIZE OF

THE RISK IS LARGE ...

YOU’LL SEE THE

PITFALLS OF OPTIMISM.”

The AGSM hasincreased i t sglobal networks

capacity to deliver exec-utive education and customised corporatelearning solutions.AGSMfaculty, teamed withleading professors froma range of top interna-tional business schools,offer organisations andmanagers a global per-spective in businesspractice. Recent devel-opments include:■ A partnership between

the AGSM, Stanford Business School andMelbourne Business School to runexecutive programs in Asia;

■ The first executive program deliveredto internationally-based alumni, con-ducted in Sydney in association withthe London Business School; and

■ A corporate education program cus-tomised for a multinational transportcompany (comprising modules onnegotiation, marketing, implementingchange and strategic IT), deliveredfour or five times a year in various locations in Asia and Australia.The AGSM recently delivered an in-

company program for Pricewaterhouse-Coopers in the US, the UK and Sydney.Using its relationship with the AndersonSchool at UCLA and Templeton College,Oxford, the AGSM was part of a globalsolution for PricewaterhouseCoopers’specific executive training requirements.

The AGSM also conducts executivedevelopment for the Zurich FinancialServices Group through Zurich’s presti-gious Asia Academy, which the AGSM hascustom designed for executives workingthroughout Asia.Attending this programare high-potential middle managers from10 locations in the region. They attendmodules run in Sydney, Singapore andHong Kong.The teaching locations rotateand the program is now in its third year.

CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSThe AGSM has developed a partnershipmodel for the delivery of in-company

executive training thatenables the Schooland its clients to worktogether to determinethe content, deliverystyle, pace and placeof learning. Theshared objective is

to ensure a high level of relevance and the strongest links to workplace issues in order to promote and reinforce behavioural change.

“Clients are demanding a greateralignment of what’s in the curriculum totheir specific organisational and managers’needs, and the AGSM is in an excellentposition with the depth of knowledge and practical orientation of its faculty and adjunct professors in Australia andworldwide to customise in-companylearning,” says Sheena Frenkel, director ofcorporate education.

One such response to a specific exec-utive development need is a program onInternet protocol recently customisedfor a major telecommunications group(and taught by professor Michael Vitale, dean).

“Customised solutions are most appro-priate where our clients face larger scaleissues, such as restructuring the organi-sation, creating an entirely new skill setand awareness, building a new executiveteam, or implementing widespread cultural change,” says Frenkel. ✪

For information about in-company executivetraining, contact client services on Tel: (02) 9931 9333.

Global capabi l i ty addsvalue to par tnerships

UPDATE

GLOBALPROGRAMMING

Sheena Frenkel (far left), director of corporate education.

Pamela Murray-Jones (left),director of executive education, was appointedlast December to run theAGSM’s portfolio of openexecutive programs.

“ACCORDING TO THE

INTERNATIONAL

CONSORTIUM

OF EXECUTIVE

DEVELOPMENT

RESEARCH, THERE

IS A FUNDAMENTAL

SHIFT IN THE

GLOBAL MARKET

FOR MANAGEMENT

EDUCATION.”

— Sheena Frenkel, director of corporate education

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 21

THE AGSM ALUMNI BULLETIN BOARD

22 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

Fraser Duff(EMBA ’99)(left) is

co-founder ofPassmore Duff & Associates,winner of the

Australian Security Industry’s 2000 acco-lade for training excellence.The company’snew line of interactive CD-ROM trainingproducts has marked a new direction forthe SME, which is a corporate security riskmanagement consultancy.

“Being consultants wasn’t all we wanted to do.While we did consultingwell, what we didn’t have was a strategy orplan for how we were going to competein the marketplace as a growing businessand gain operating leverage,” says Duff.

“I used the strategic management sub-jects of my Executive MBA [EMBA] toformulate and implement a strategy tocreate the first of what will be a suite of training products with online assessment support.

“In consulting, we are a limitedresource in that there is only a certainnumber of us available – which meanswe couldn’t easily handle widely distributed clients, located either interstate or overseas. So by focusingon our training capability we decidedto develop competitive products that

could be offered to clients at a muchlower cost than existing face-to-facetraining and that were suitable foraccessing the global market.”

The answer was an interactive CD-ROM training program, Robbery SafetyTraining, which incorporates online train-ing assessment backup.The CD-ROMproduct is designed to supplement orsubstitute face-to-face training and ischeaper and more efficient. It teachespeople and staff how to safely respond torobbery in the workplace across a rangeof industries – from retail, finance andfranchise outlets, to oil companies or any-where that staff handle cash or valuables.

“I used the EMBA course work to bet-ter identify factors of market potentialand how to respond to them. In our case,we knew there was an increase in litigation and the prevalence of staffsuing employers for damages in cases ofrobbery. Our research showed thatemployers were not responding ade-quately to the risk,” says Duff.

“My strategic management paper formed the core of our new business strategy and we launched ourRobbery Safety Training CD-ROM just sixmonths later.We currently sell under corporate licence and also independentlythrough our Web site, and we are now planning to set up a global

distribution network, when we find theright partners.

“Our objectives are to reduce the riskto individuals during a robbery and atthe same time encourage employer diligence in staff safety, with the outcomeof better managing risk and protectingthe organisation, too.”

Passmore Duff’s CD-ROM trainingcosts about $28 per person (comparedwith $250 to $380 per person for face-to-face training), and it can berolled out immediately with staff competency assessment available online.

“We are going forward with a suite of products [six new products areplanned, all with global potential]; thenext product is about teaching peoplehow to deal with workplace aggressionand violence,” says Duff.

“There is no doubt that the AGSM’sstrategic management subjects helped to put us into a first mover position.We gained a better understanding of our industry and our strategicresources, capabilities, industry forcesand our competitors.

“The most important thing about theEMBA for me as a partner of an SME isthat it is an applied learning program,and the final year is where you can reallystart to leverage the learning for the benefit of your business.”

Security smart

alumniat large

FLYING HIGH David Stephens (MBA ‘88),skydives (left, foreground)with his instructor. Hemoved to Boston last yearwith his wife Sue anddaughters Ella and Clare. He is now CEO ofAECventure, a B2Bexchange for the architectural, engineeringand construction industry.For more news, seeStephens’ entry in Bush telegraph.

POPULAR VOTETechnical Audio Group co-owners Anthony Russo(MBA ’87) (bottom right)and Maxwell Twartz (MBA’90) (top left) began 2001with winners’ grins, havingwon the title of ‘Distributorof the Year’ for 2000 at anindustry awards event.Sponsored by the EntechGroup, the award was externally audited and based on a popular vote byindustry professionals.

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 23

Perfect score

On international exchange atKellogg Graduate School ofManagement in the US,

Keith Finlayson (MBA ’00) (right) madethe dean’s Honour List – a special commendation for earning a grade pointaverage (GPA) of 4.00.* It is the secondconsecutive year an AGSM exchange student at Kellogg has received this honour, which went to Darren Challis(MBA ’99) in 1999, also for obtaining aperfect score of 4.00.

“I found Kellogg quite similar to theAGSM in both the level of work requiredand also the way the two schools focuson teamwork,” says Finlayson. Onpoints of difference, he noticed a lesserdegree of cultural diversity in the student population at Kellogg, whichalso fields a far larger student body(some 1400 full-time MBAs).

“I was struck, in teamwork and inconsulting for Chicago-based firms, bythe rather conflict-averse nature of thelocals. I’m a Queenslander and tend tobe reasonably direct, which I think ledto some getting used to on both sides.”

Despite having been the 49thAustralian National Antarctic ResearchExpedition physicist in 1996, Finlaysonwas unprepared for Chicago’s climate,once the “big snowfalls and bittercold” hit.

“At first the city of Chicago, on theshores of the lake, reminded me ofSydney, but I was surprised by a winterthat seemed colder than I rememberedin Antarctica,” he says.

While currently investigating new

m-commerce business opportunitiesand pursuing strategy consulting forAustralian firms, Finlayson intends togo abroad once again. With his girl-friend studying in Oslo, he is brushingup on his Norwegian (he alreadyspeaks German) and is seeking a job inEurope. Having wintered in Chicago heis hoping to be well prepared for hisnext assignment.

* Students who receive a GPA of 3.75 or morereceive the Kellogg dean’s Honour List award.

From medicine to marketing

Soji Swaraj (MBA ’00) (left) has wonthe 2001 UNSW Alumni GraduandAward for Achievement.The award

honours exceptional contribution to theuniversity and the broader community.Swaraj will be presented with a Dr BertFlugelman sculpture at the UNSW alumni annual general meeting and president’s reception on 18 April.

A specialist physician in endocrin-ology, Swaraj made a career-transition decision to study an MBA at the AGSM.“I was curious as to whether I mighthave more strings to my bow; I wantedto know if I might be good at someother things,” he says.

In the process, Swaraj admits to discovering “a heck of a lot” about himself while studying an MBA.

“I was like a carpenter, a tradesman,coming into a commerce program thatcovered a lot of ground, from the tool kit accounting subjects through to

strategy and organisational behaviour,”says Swaraj.

“I found it fascinating and learnt a lot in a short time. I also really enjoyedbeing at a business school that is probably the most international in theworld in terms of its student mix.

“I was particularly impressed with theteaching at the AGSM, some of which Ithought was astonishing; people such as Jeremy Davis, John Roberts, UjwalKyande, Doug Foster and Tom Smith, toname a few, they’re outstanding in theway they engage and challenge you, andsucceed in changing the way you think.

“I’ve spent five years as a specialistphysician and, while I adore my profes-sion, I’m now enjoying a ‘sabbatical’ fora few years to explore the opportunitiesthe MBA has opened up for me.”

Swaraj is currently working for the Boston Consulting Group and in the future would like to make himself “useful in crisis negotiation for an organisation like the United Nations or in public policy”.

G’day from breezy London“We’ve finished the term here, and I’m pleased to

report I was part of a team that won £500 fromBDO Stoy Hayward for the best final presentation

in the subject, Managing the Growing Business.The rest ofthe team came from the London Business School’s executiveprogram, the Sloan program and University College, London.We’re off to spend the proceeds this evening. Go AGSM!Incidentally, I’ve had a great time here – fantastic facilities,great people and interesting subjects.Who could ask formore? See you in 2001.” – Elaine Potter (MBA ’00)

Elaine Potter studied at the London Business School in Term 3, 2000 through the AGSM’s international exchange of the full-time MBA program. Potter enjoyedthe benefits of the exchange after transferring to the full-time MBA program. She began her studies part-time with the GSB prior to the AGSM merger.

Change challenge

Christopher Walker (MBA ’88) is successfully adapt-ing corporate change process and strategy to effectchange in First Nation communities in Canada.

Walker’s work (through Walker International and its RealSpirit life coaching programs) has tackled tough issues suchas high suicide rates, substance abuse, domestic problemsand high unemployment in the first two years of what willbe a five-year program.Walker is pictured with Big Covenative community children in New Brunswick, Canada.

Paul Hyde (MBA ’91) has beenelected as partner of internationalmanagement consultancy

Booz•Allen & Hamilton. He was one of three Australians to be promoted to the partnership in 2000.

Since joining Booz•Allen in 1993 as an associate, Hyde has advisednumerous financial services and energyclients across Australia and Asia on awide range of issues, including strategydevelopment, operations and organisation transformation.

Hyde says consulting provides theopportunity to work with very seniormanagers on a wide variety of issuesthat are important to the success oftheir strategic agenda. He says to besuccessful in the profession, consultantsneeds to be continually developinginnovative approaches to solve theproblems that CEOs face.

“E-commerce is high on the agendasof many of our clients at the moment,”says Hyde, “with many asking how they should build their e-commercecapabilities. Do I spin it off into a separate listed company? Do we build a central capability in-house or do we let the business units pursue theirown initiatives?

“For example, we are currently estab-lishing a Web portal for a consortium of international airlines. In doing so weare addressing some very fundamentalissues around governance and equityownership that are quite groundbreak-ing in the e-commerce space. In thisenvironment we really need innovativethinking from our consultants.”

Hyde says an MBA is a good platformto launch a career in consulting andsees the AGSM as a key source ofrecruits for Booz•Allen & Hamilton. ✪

Paul Hyde, one of threeAustralians elected toBooz•Allen’s partnershipthis year. “We have a verystrong group of partnersin Australia to grow thebusiness.”

Enjoying the spoils of great work (from left): Lesley Gavin(University College, London), Elaine Potter (AGSM) and Dr Judi Sutherland (London Business School).

Partnership strategy

24 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 25

C L A S S R E U N I O N S

KEEPING IN TOUCH (Top): MBA class of ‘90 (front row, from left) Lisa Maloney,Veronik Verkest, P.J. Koe, Lynne Hanrahan and Amgad Botros; (back row, from left) Peter Wallace, Kaveh Jahromi, Theresa Collignon, James Anderson, Ian Scott and Bob Mulcahy.

(Above left): kids of the MBA class of ‘90 (from left), Lisa Lowe (daughter of Andrew Lowe and Miho Higuchi),Anneke Anderson (daughter of James Anderson andTheresa Collignon), Declan and Ainslie Scott (son anddaughter of Jo-Anne Ryan and Cameron Scott), andIsabella Anderson (sister of Anneke).

(Above right): MBA class of ‘80, Ian and Kerry Ballardwith Ian Wenham (right), who flew into Sydney from HongKong for the reunion dinner.

MBA class of ‘95 met for a barbecue and brought along a clown for the kids (above left). Pictured (left) are (fromleft): Troy Cairns, David Stokes and Teck Teo.

26 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

AGSM

EMBA

1999 John Bronger, national presidentof the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, is fresh from successfulnegotiations with the FederalGovernment leading to a new Five Year Agreement for Australianpharmacy. He also has beenappointed a member of the newBoard of Taxation.

Scott Davey and his wife Jenhave been enjoying parenthoodafter the arrival of their first babyboy, Cullen, in February 2000.Scott has also changed roles withinACNielsen Australia, from businessanalyst to operations director.

MBA

1999Tim Petterson is now the proudfather of a beautiful baby girl,Rebecca, who was born on 29December 2000.

There has been an MBA class of’99 Aussie assault on America.Chris Cheung is in North Carolina,Dan Ma is in Pennsylvania, KarenHo is in Texas, while Mark Kelly,Emily Chiu and LaurenceBlumberg have all moved to New York.

UNSW

EMBA

1993 Jon Millard is director, tourism and natural resources, environmentassessment branch in EnvironmentAustralia (CommonwealthDepartment of the Environment & Heritage). Recent projects have included the environmental assessments of the new nuclearreactor at Lucas Heights, a proposed cable-way through aWorld Heritage area in the Gold

bushtelegraphTHE AGSM ALUMNI BULLETIN BOARD

Alumni Committee President’s Report

2000was another busy year for boththe School and alumni, and the

year ahead promises to be even more so.Thealumni network is stronger than ever follow-ing the integration of the two Schools, whichhas served as a catalyst for putting more ser-vices and resources to work than ever beforefor the mutual benefit of the alumni commu-nity and the School.

At the helm this year we warmly welcomea new dean and director, professor MichaelVitale, whose track record and experiencewill undoubtedly provide the leadershiprequired to take the AGSM’s standing to newlevels. Our thanks and best wishes go to professor Greg Whittred who performed anoutstanding job as acting dean. Greg’s time,guidance and support for the alumni community and our activities were extremelyvaluable and we wish him well for the future.

The alumni committee now comprises 13elected representatives from both the AGSM andthe former GSB.This year the committee willspecifically focus on providing better systemsand access for alumni, fostering greater integra-tion and engagement between the School andalumni, and improving fundraising.

The information technology working groupwill help to introduce systems that give alumnibetter access to the valuable information

and resources available at the School. Of note,2001 will see the introduction of a newalumni Web site, including an online alumnidirectory, and the provision of new Life LongLearning information services.

The engagement working group willendeavour to enhance the ongoing value andservices alumni can expect from the School.Tasks include improving the efficiencies ofnetworking and the School’s communicationwith its influential alumni community.

Sourcing and raising funds is, perhaps, themost traditional of alumni functions amongbusiness schools.This year, our fundraisingworking group will introduce attractive newoptions in addition to the annual‘phonathon’.Your contributions will onceagain fund two alumni scholarships and theprestigious Alumni Teaching Award.

The alumni committee exists to representyou within the School.We rely on your feedback and are keen for your input thisyear on how the committee and the Schoolcan better serve you in your career andongoing development.

On behalf of the alumni committee I wishyou a successful and prosperous year ahead.

Rob Cartwright (UNSW MBA ’79),group managing director, employee relations,Telstra.

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 27

Coast hinterland and a navalmunitions wharf at Twofold Bay,NSW, and the corporatisation ofthe Snowy Scheme.

Geoff Walker is working in the pharmaceutical industry inLondon as supply chain director,Europe.The company that hewent over to the UK with, BlockDrug, has just been acquired byGlaxoSmithKline, so he reportsthat things are likely to change.Geoff finds living in London agreat adventure – plenty of travel,culture and other opportunities.

1994 Paul Gladman left NRMA inMarch 2000 to join SuncorpMetway in Brisbane as e-com-merce manager.After six monthshe was promoted to general manager, corporate strategy,retaining overall responsibility fore-business. His wife Dawn is stillin Sydney, which means they areboth contributing to the ongoingsuccess of Qantas as they take it inturns to commute every weekend.Paul acknowledges that while thisis an expensive luxury, they do getthe best of both worlds.

1995 Karen van Druten is now generalmanager, corporate solutions, forthe publicly-listed company MXLConsolidated. MXL Consolidatedprovides innovative people(human resources) solutions tocompanies.

Paul Nelson was recentlyappointed e-business director for Jones Lang LaSalle, Australasia.Paul is responsible for the strategy, communication and col-laboration for e-business acrossthe business units, and for linkingAustralasia to the wider Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world.

Cathy Costello has just addedMatthew Evan Jones, a brother forCallum, to the clan. Cathy isdoing well.

1996 Norm Jevons has left Kellogg toopen Australia’s largest indoorplay centre. Lollipop’s Playland &Café at Castle Hill opened in lateOctober 2000 at 10 HudsonAvenue. Norm writes: “Those ofyou with children aged 0–11years will enjoy the huge play

structure with a 10-metre-longslide, bouncy castle, merry-go-round, ball pool, special toddlerarea, plus lots more”. Even if youdon’t have kids, Norm says feelfree to drop in for a cappuccinoto say g’day.

Kevin Peesker has left his posi-tion as NSW state manager ofLexmark Australia to join Gatewayas sales director, business,Australia/New Zealand, based inSydney. On a personal front,Kevin has initiated a strategicpartner alliance (engagement)with Karen Boehnke, a fellowCanadian who is an MBA alum-nus of the Richard Ivey School ofBusiness, University of WesternOntario. Kevin has taken upAustralian citizenship since grad-uation and strongly argues themerits of the AGSM when itcomes to inter-relationship busi-ness school rivalries.

1997 Karl Monteiro moved late lastyear from Alcatel Australia toVodafone. Karl’s position is senioranalyst programmer. He is alsohappily married to Olga Malaya(since 19 June 1999). ContactKarl on (w) Tel: (02) 9425 9433,e-mail: karl.monteiro@vodafone.com.au.

Grahame Evans has beenappointed CEO of ProfessionalAccountants Limited, a businesswhich supports small-to-medium-size accountancy prac-tices to become fully integratedfinancial services businesses.Thebusiness provides successionplanning options, networkingand procurement services.

David Robinson has left JohnHolland Constructions afteralmost 30 years and is currently“trying to decide what to dowhen I grow up”.

David Russell left RocheProducts in mid-1998 and joinedNovogen Limited, an Australianbiopharmaceutical company, asthe Australasian marketing man-ager. In 1999 he moved to the USoffice in Stamford, Connecticut,as marketing director.The roleallows for plenty of opportunitiesto learn and travel. His wifeAmanda left her position as chiefradiographer of the NorthernSydney Area Health Service breast

screening unit to accompany himto the US.They will be returningin November 2001. Over the hol-idays, David reports they enjoyeda Connecticut white Christmas.There was “a 28-pound turkey,baked ham and loads of fun”.David looks forward to hearingmore of other classmates fromthe 1997 EMBA.

1998 Cameron White has relocated tothe UK with BP Amoco. Cameronis now working in the centralperformance and planning officeas a downstream business advisor.You can contact Cameron on (w) Tel: (+44) 20 7496 4325,e-mail: whitecb@bp.com.

Chris Tait is now with MaxxImplementation, a small (15 con-sultants) management consultinggroup.Their focus is primarilychange management in the man-ufacturing sector which hasallowed Chris to experience someinteresting sites. Chris has beenthere for more than a year nowhaving moved on from MMI. Hiswife and family (of three) arecoping (just) with the new workand travel requirements. An interesting twist is that after Chrisjoined Maxx Implementation, hefound out that Robin Bean (fromcohort C) and Jenny Lapworth(who was in Chris’ cohort B)were also with Maxx. Jennymoved there after finishing herEMBA but has moved on, andRobin has been there a while.

Helen King has joined theLearned Friends group of compa-nies as general manager.Thecompany specialises in both legaland executive PA placements on apermanent and temporary basis.Helen oversees the running ofboth the Sydney and Melbourneoffices and at times the Londonoffice. Helen’s role as generalmanager requires working closelywith staff at all levels. She is cur-rently devoting time to opening atemporary work desk in a newSydney backpacker’s hotel.

GMQ

1993 Susan Biggs has co-authored abook, Time On,Time Out:Flexible WorkSolutions to Keep Your Life in Balance

(Allen & Unwin, 1999).The bookoffers information, strategies andconfidence to negotiate a betterbalance between your work andthe rest of your life.

MBA

1979 Ingrid Jackson (Hallein) continues to provide servicesthrough her consulting firmExecutive Management Solutions.Her most recent projects includemanaging all merger communi-cations for the merger betweenthe Commonwealth Bank andColonial, a staff opinion survey at the NSW Department of Public Works and Services,and implementing the communication and trainingprogram for GST Implementationat Commonwealth Property, thebank’s property fund arm.

1980 Elizabeth Smith had a completebreak from work in the first halfof 1999, spending six monthsteaching English in Venice insteadof being a public servant.

1982 Bing Karyadi writes to say all isgoing well from Indonesia. Bingis director, PT Mensa Bina Sukses– a mega-distributor of finishedpharmaceutical products, medicalsupplies and consumer productswith diagnostics. Contact (w) Tel:(+62 21) 460 1950.

1984 Duncan Rutherford has finallyembraced fatherhood in hisdotage. Claire Bronte was born on4 August 2000.

Michael Gregg is managingdirector of a public company,HCN, which went from start-upin 1995 to ASX-listing inDecember 1999. Michael says, “Itwas quite an experience and tookmy hair colour to a whiter shadeof grey”. Michael also plays cricket for UNSW, although nowless regularly, with runningbetween wickets becoming“more like staggering than run-ning”. He will be touring the UKwith the UNSW Cricket Club inJuly 2001. Contact Michael by e-mail: mike.gregg@hcn.com.au.

28 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

1985 Hamish McCormick hasreturned to Australia from Genevaafter four years working with theAustralian Permanent Mission tothe World Trade Organisation.Now based in Canberra, Hamishis assistant secretary of the APECand regional trade policy branchin the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade.

1986 Hiromasa Yamazaki has recentlybeen promoted to president,Nomura Singapore Limited.Hiromasa was the first Nomura-sponsored student from Japan.

Brian Rumbold and wifeMargaret are running their ownmanagement consultancy,WorkWords Consulting, workingin the area of corporate commu-nications.They have just movedto new offices in North Sydney toaccommodate recent growth.Their consulting activity is sup-ported with services in informa-tion design, writing andelectronic publishing.Their twosons are now in their 20s: Danielhas graduated, is married andworking in management consult-ing; while Brendan is completinga degree in IT.

1987Andrew Pedler has moved toBrisbane with Wilson HTM as asenior research analyst. Andrewwrites that as the rest of Australiasweltered in the summer heat,they have been blessed with greatweather in Brisbane.

Paul Pinn has been promotedto vice president, Asia-Pacificconsulting operations for Oracle.

Morrison Carter is living inCleveland, Ohio. In December2000 he added a fifth and lastchild to the pack, Josiah David;the others are Darren, Ariella,Micaela and Christina. Morrison’swife, Kirsten, owns an interiordesign firm, while Morrison isbusy running (part owner) anengineering and manufacturingcompany with 250 employees,which serves the heating andcooling industries. Morrison isalso on some board positions andis soccer coach to three teams.Morrison would love to hearfrom any classmates passing

through Cleveland, e-mail:mcarter@beckettcorp.com.

1988 Stephen McPhail was appointedprincipal of Morel & Co in 2000alongside founder Jenny Morel.Morel & Co is the leading invest-ment bank specialising in thetechnology sector in NewZealand. Stephen passes on hisgreetings to classmates, e-mail:s.mcphail@morel.co.nz.

Christopher Walker is runninglife coaching programs for FirstNation communities in Canada.His work (through WalkerInternational and its Real Spirit workshops) has tackled tough social issues in the first two years of what will be a five-year program.

Peter Tan has relocated toThailand as managing director,Zurich National Life AssuranceCo, a joint venture of ZurichFinancial Services of Switzerlandand National Financial Services ofThailand. He is keen to hear fromany ex-classmates who are nowliving and working in Thailand.Contact Peter on (w) Tel:(+66 2) 661 7888, e-mail:peter.tan@zurich.com.

David Stephens moved withhis family to Boston in 2000.David is now CEO of AECventure,which is a B2B exchange for thearchitectural, engineering andconstruction industries. His wifeSue has published her secondbook – Side by Side – about rela-tionships, which followedMotherhood – Making It Work For You.Book number three will be out in2001. In Boston they all love thesnow, especially Ella (aged six)and Clare (aged four).

1989 Patrick Hanrahan is pleased toannounce the birth of his sonPatrick ‘Jack’ Lighthall Hanrahan.Jack joins sisters Siobhan Violet(aged six) and Minna Mary Ann(aged four) and mum, Daintrie.Patrick is a performance manage-ment consultant based inHouston,Texas and can bereached at: patrickh@texas.net.

George Bijak is now director ofNewport Capital Group – aSydney-based technology invest-ment bank specialising in M&A,capital raisings and venture capital

funds management. Contact at:georgeb@newportcapital.com.au.

Sonny Costin has relocated toOrlando, Florida, as senior vicepresident and general manager,CHEP International.The new roleinvolves the launch of a newproduct in the Americas andEurope. Sonny’s American wifePatricia and their two children,Harrison and Hannah, are enjoy-ing their new location.Three-year-old Hannah was especiallypleased when she learned thatshe now lives in the same city asMickey Mouse.

1990 James Anderson reports that hiswife Theresa Collignon (MBAUNSW ’90) has had a baby boy –James Johannas, who joins theirtwo girls, Anneke and Isabella.

Terry Daubney is living inNarrabri in north-west NSW withwife and daughter and workingfor Namoi Cotton Co-operative –Australia’s largest cotton proces-sor and marketer.Terry wasrecently appointed general man-ager, southern region, responsiblefor all processing and grower ser-vices activities from the NamoiValley to the Victorian border.Before joining Namoi Cotton inmid-1999, he worked in bankingand management consulting.

Ian Scott, vice president anddirector,The Boston ConsultingGroup, has taken over as manag-ing partner for BCG’s office inSingapore in addition to his roleas head of BCG’s Energy Practicein Asia-Pacific. Ian has been withBCG in Sydney, Kuala Lumpurand Singapore since joining BCGon completion of his MBA.

Maxwell Twartz, co-owner ofTechnical Audio Group (TAG)with Anthony Russo (MBA1987), was honoured with themuch-coveted Entech Distributorof the Year award for 2000 at theEntech Gala Awards evening.Theexternally-audited awards werebased on a popular vote byindustry professionals.

1991 James Hastie left AT Kearney andjoined Deutsche Bank last year,concluding an “obligatory butthoroughly enjoyable stint inmanagement consulting”. He alsocompeted in the 2000 Sydney to

Hobart race as the bowman on Ninety Seven, coming fourth on IMS handicap.

Paul Couvret and AtsumiFukui (GMQ 1998) are lookingforward to the second birthday oftheir twins, Nicolas andGenevieve. Paul’s consulting busi-ness is making steady progresswith recent work in the financeand law sectors. In his limitedspare time he’s learning to flyhelicopters. Atsumi has completed her transition fromclinical medical practice to cor-porate management with herappointment as associate medicaldirector of the Australian subsidiary of Sanofi-Synthelabo –a French pharmaceuticals firm.

Janice Chan is now generalmanager of M&C Saatchi (adver-tising agency) in Hong Kong.Janice writes that anyone in thesame class who happens to stopin Hong Kong should feel free tocontact her on Tel:(+852) 2862 1766 or e-mail:janiceychan@hotmail.com.

1992 Cindy Carpenter and husbandRob had their second child, Elliot,during the Sydney OlympicGames. Cindy has been a consul-tant with BCG for eight years.Coincidentally, an MBA ’92 col-league, George Frazis, who alsohas been with BCG for eight years,had his fourth child, Patricia (thefirst girl), with wife Amanda at theend of August 2000.

Chris Callen has moved his hos-pitality legal practice into AndersenLegal and now has the mobile ande-mail address his friends havebeen badgering him into. ContactChris at: christopher.callen@au.andersenlegal.com.

Dane Binney was working atAAPT Sat, which was recentlytaken over. He is now Internetservices business manager forNEWskies, which offers satellite/telecommunication services fromits new offices in Kent Street,Sydney. His wife Donna gavebirth to their second child inearly October 2000.

Andrew Kemp is keeping busycontinuing his consulting for thepharmaceutical industry, but inApril last year he also bought anew beauty supplies wholesalingbusiness, About Face.The

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 29

business will be launching a newpatented oil in Australia.

1993 Susan Jamieson has now beenwith the Commonwealth Bankfor over a year, after a stint withColonial heading up insuranceproducts and managing integra-tion issues arising from Colonial’spurchase of Legal & General andPrudential. On a personal front,Susan and Jon have a daughterKate who has just turned four.

Janet Mitchell is pleased toreport her marriage to RichardSmith on 4 March 2001.The service was at St Peters in NorthSydney with the reception at theCruising Yacht Club of Australia.On their honeymoon they hopeto catch up with MBA classmates– Katharine Seymour, PaulLittman and Chris Bratchfordwho will all be in London.

Brett Sargeant married BelindaWaugh in 1999.Their first child,Emma, arrived in December2000. Brett is working for TollTransport based in Brisbane.

1994 Richard Gillman has decided toleave Deloitte Corporate Financeto pursue an opportunity withthe M&A team at Morgan Stanleyin Hong Kong. He left Deloitteearly September 2000 followedby a month’s “gardening leave”,neatly timed to coincide with theOlympic Games. In other news,Richard and Irena Tai celebratedtheir marriage at a party inCentennial Park in May last year.Contact Richard at:richard.gillman@msdw.com.

Steven Crayn has moved fromGoodman Fielder to VentureCapital Partners.True to its name,VCP is a venture capital firm thatinvests across a range of industrysectors in fast-growing, export-orientated, small- and medium-sized businesses.VCP also providesa range of consulting services,including strategic consulting andpreparing R&D grant applications.On the home front, Steven andJanet now have two children,Kieran (aged three) and Talia (aged15 months) keeping them busy.

1995 John Rotenstein has joinedAriba Inc, a US-based B2B

e-commerce company, as a trainer in the Asia-Pacific region.“I’m happy being back in theInternet sphere,” says John, “andI hope to meet up with my AGSMclassmates as I travel around Asia.Who’s for dinner?”

Samiuela Taufa married Ofa F.Faka’osifolau (a native of Tonga)in December 2000. Samiuela iscurrently doing some retail/distribution ventures in Tonga.Any former classmates whowould like to check out what he’s up to can visit:www.nomoa.com.

1996 Wolfgang Muller was married on16 September 2000 inSwitzerland.

Stephen Chey is living in Taipei with his wife Naomi andlooking after regional telecomclients in East Asia for DeloitteConsulting.

1997 Derek Woodhouse has moved onfrom Ajilon to work as clientadvisor at Credit Suisse FirstBoston Equities Private. Derek’snew contact details are (w) Tel:(08) 9260 5707, e-mail:derek.woodhouse@csfb.com.

Frances Lien would like heralumni colleagues to know thatshe married Allen Guo on 3March 1999 and gave birth to abeautiful baby girl, Elizabeth, on6 July 2000.

1998 Gerard Moody has moved toPerth from Sydney and joinedMainsheet Corporate, the man-agement consulting practice ofFreehills.

PhD

1984 Danny Samson is professor ofmanagement at the University ofMelbourne and has started theFoundation for SustainableEconomic Development there.This involves a research team thatis building and disseminatingknowledge in the areas of envi-ronmental sustainability for busi-ness, human resourcesmanagement practices and themanagement of innovation,including e-business.

USYD

GDBA

1997 Ameeta Shah writes to informthat she is residing in Nakuru,Kenya, with husband Ashish.Theyare now the proud parents of ababy boy, Dil, who was born on 9 January 2001.

1998 Julian Fenwick’s career hasundergone a change after 16years in hospitality and retail.He’s been appointed nationalsales and marketing manager forthe Legal Technology Group atBlake Dawson Waldron (lawyers).Julian says he finds it a fascinatingposition, developing and market-ing a broad range of Internet-delivered products designed tostreamline legal compliance forbusiness.

1999 Pat Mackintosh is now resident inthe sunshine state and is involvedin management consulting.

MBA

1989 Bruce Everett has gone on sab-batical for a year to undertaketheology studies.

1991 Knox Cameron is working forKPMG, and is on a two-year sec-ondment to the company’s inter-national headquarters inAmsterdam. He works in theoffice of the global chief informa-tion officer undertaking technicalresearch and evaluation. His wifeand four children have joinedhim, and they are enjoying theexperience of another culture andthe opportunity to see Europe.

1992 Puay Koon (P.K.) Ho is now theERP systems administrator forLion Nathan Australia.

1994 Ben Crawford was busy last yearas executive producer ofolympics.com (among otherjobs), the official Web site of theSydney 2000 Olympic Games.The site was the most ambitious

ever produced in Australia, serv-ing over a billion page impres-sions to a global audience. Hisinput was as a contractor (pub-lisher and business developmentdirector of local firm GadflyMedia) on the IBM e-businesssite. Gadfly was awarded the content management role forolympics.com in late 1998 bywinning a worldwide tender,following partnering withMicrosoft and ninemsn to supplycontent for some of their biggestsites in Australia.

Sonny Navaratnam is nowmanager, operations/businessexpansion catalyst with theLeading Edge Group.

1997 Mark Freddie Dodson and wifeRachel Dodson (Nila) (EMBA’00) left Sydney for 12 monthson 31 January for a round-the-world honeymoon.They will bevisiting Hawaii, Canada,California, Mexico, Florida, theCaribbean, Peru, Chile, Argentina,Brazil and Europe, travellingunder the guise of Dodson andCompany.

1998 Bei Li and Yandong (Gordon)Guo (MBA ’98) are now inBeijing, China.Yandong is a man-agement consultant at DeloitteTouche Tohmatsu and Bei Li isworking at Nokia as an informa-tion specialist. Bei Li reports thatlife in Beijing is nothing out ofthe norm – they have just boughta car, apartment and mortgage.They shall be moving into theirnew place this year.

Simon Sut-Keung Wong hasset up a property consultancyfirm in Shanghai, China, calledCitybright Property Consultancy.Simon says he would like to hearfrom his AGSM colleagues andalumni on Tel:(+86 21) 6418 5116 or (+86 139) 1638 8767.

1999 Jörg Tuchen is happy toannounce the birth of his secondchild, Lucas Stefan Tuchen, bornon 4 September 2000. His keybenchmarks were 52 cm inlength and 4.45 kg in weight. ✪

30 | AGSM I S S U E 1 • 2 0 0 1

publications &papersPUBLISHED WORK AND RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS

BOOKS

Professor Grahame Dowling,Creating Powerful Corporate Reputations,Oxford University Press, 2000.

Director Timothy Devinney,Centre for Corporate Change, Joséde la Torre (UCLA) and Yves Doz(INSEAD), Managing the GlobalCorporation: Case Studies in Strategy andManagement, McGraw-Hill, NewYork, 2000.

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt, TheArt of Chinese Management:Theory, Evidenceand Applications, Oxford UniversityPress, New York, 2001.

Dr Garry Twite and M. O’Keeffe,New Directions in Corporate Strategy,Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000; andwith S. Bishop, H. Crapp and R.Faff, Corporate Finance, fourth edition,Prentice Hall, Sydney, 2000.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Professor Lex Donaldson, ‘Designstrategy to fit strategy’ in Edwin A.Locke (ed), Handbook of Principles ofOrganisational Behaviour, pp. 291–303,Oxford, Blackwell, 2000; and‘Organisational structures for com-petence-based management’ in RonSanchez and Aime Heene (eds),Theory Development for Competence-basedManagement, Advances in Applied BusinessStrategy, vol. 6A, pp. 31–56, JAIPress Inc, Stamford, Connecticut.

Dr Sharon Parker and T.D.Wall,‘Job design, psychology of’ in N.J.Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (eds),International Encyclopedia of the Social andBehavioural Sciences, Elsevier ScienceLimited, New York, 2001; and‘Designing jobs that enhanceemployee well-being and effective-ness’ in P.B.Warr (ed), Psychology atWork, fifth edition, Penguin, 2002.

Professor John Roberts and JameLattin, ‘Disaggregate level diffusionmodels’ in Vijay Mahajan, EitanMuller and Yoram Wind (eds), NewProduct Diffusion Models, pp. 207–236,Kluwer Academic Press, Boston,November 2000.

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt,‘Strategies, structures and processesfor managing uncertainty andcomplexity: worldwide learningfrom the Chinese organisationalmodel of private enterprises’ inM.A. Rahim, R.T. Golembiewskiand K.D. MacKenzie (eds), CurrentTopics in Management, vol. 5, pp.

305–328, JAI Press, Stamford,Connecticut, 2000; and ‘The build-ing of a powerful nation: ten thesesregarding China’s medium-termdevelopment’ and ‘Stakeholdervalue instead of value destruction:how to create real fortunes’ in MyView of 21st Century EconomicDevelopment in China, CentralLiterature Publisher, Beijing, 2000.

PhD candidate Catriona Wallaceand R.Waldersee, ‘The simultane-ous management of service andefficiency in call centres: the role ofrhetoric’ in Sue Fernie (ed), CallCentres, Manchester UniversityPress, England, 2000.

Dr Robert Westwood and P.S.Kirkbride, ‘International strategiesof corporate culture change: emu-lation, consumption and hybridity’and ‘Asian corporate symbols inrapidly changing times’ in U. Haley(ed), Strategic Management in the AsiaPacific: Harnessing Regional andOrganisational Change for CompetitiveAdvantage, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000; and with X.Shi,‘International business negotia-tions in the Chinese context’, in J.T.Li, A.Tsui, and E.Weldon (eds)Management and Organisations in ChineseContexts, pp.185–221, Basingstoke,Macmillan, 2000.

Research Fellow Huifu Xu, ‘Levelfunctions of some optimal valuefunctions’ and ‘Regularised gapfunctions and D-gap functions forvariational inequalities’ inOptimisation and its Related Topics,Kluwer Academic Publishers,January 2001.

GRANTS

Director Timothy Devinney,Centre for Corporate Change, withPatrice Auger, City University HongKong, and Jordan Louviere,Memetrics, ‘Measuring the utilityvalue of ethical consumerism’,Australian Research Council.

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

Director Timothy Devinney,Centre for Corporate Change,‘The globalisation of innovation:introduction’ in Journal of ProductInnovation Management, September2000; and with D. Midgley andUNSW’s S.Venaik, ‘The organisa-tional imperative and the optimalperformance of the global firm:

formalising and extending the integration-responsiveness framework’ in Organisation Science,November 2000.

Professor Lex Donaldson,‘Organisational portfolio theory:performance-driven organisationalchange’ in Contemporary EconomicPolicy, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 386–396,October 2000.

Professor Grahame Dowling, co-authored with P.L. Dawes and D.Y.Lee, ‘Informal information controlin complex technological purchasesituations’ in The Journal of HighTechnology Management Research, vol. 10,no. 2, pp. 377–402, 2000.

Professor Geoff Eagleson, R.Waldersee and R. Simmons,‘Leadership behaviour similarity asa basis of selection into a manage-ment team’ in British Journal of SocialPsychology, 39, pp. 301–308, 2000.

Professor Robert Kohn,co-authored with Michael Smith,‘Nonparametric seemingly unrelat-ed regression’ in Journal ofEconometrics, vol. 98, issue 2, pp.257–281, October 2000.

Professor John Roberts,‘Developing new rules for newmarkets’ in Journal of the Academy ofMarketing Science, Millennium Special,vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 31–44, January2000; and co-authored with P.D.Morrison and E. von Hippel,‘Determinants of user innovationand the sharing of modifications ina follower market’ in ManagementScience, December 2000.

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt,‘Doing business in the RussianFederation: time for anti-cyclicalinvestments’ in ThunderbirdInternational Business Review (formerlyThe International Executive), 42 (6),2000; ‘The nascent Chinese con-sulting market: opportunities andobstacles’ in C2M: Consulting toManagement (formerly Journal ofManagement Consulting), 11 (2), pp.28–34, 2000; ‘The nascent Chineseconsulting market: best-practiceapproaches’ in Journal of ManagementConsulting, 11 (3), 2000; ‘Today’sAsia for tomorrow’s Europe: timefor national visions in a new age of empire’ in European Business Forum,1 (3), 2000; and ‘China and theWTO’ (ed), a special issue ofThunderbird International Business Review, 2001.

Professor Simon Sheather and J.W.McKean, ‘Partial residual plotsbased on robust fits’ in Technometrics,vol. 42, pp. 249–260; and with T.P.Hettmansperger and J.W. McKean,‘Nonparametric statistics’ in Journalof the American Statistical Association, vol.95, pp. 1308–1311, 2000.

Dr Baljit Sidhu, co-authored with W. Guay, ‘The usefulness oflong-term accruals’ in Abacus, vol.37, no. 1, 2001.

PhD candidate Catriona Wallace,professor Geoff Eagleson and R.Waldersee, ‘The sacrificial HR strategy in call centres’ in theInternational Journal of Service IndustryManagement, vol. 11, no. 2, pp.174–184, 2000.

Dr Paul Walsh, ‘Targets and how toassess performance against them’ inBenchmarking: an International Journal’,vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 183–199, 2000;and ‘Counting for local experience’in Australian CPA, pp. 44–47,November 2000.

Dr Robert Westwood and S.M.Leung, ‘Acculturating to theAustralian work environment’ inInternational Employment Relations Review,6 (1), pp. 61–88, 2000.

Research fellow Huifu Xu, ‘Levelfunction method for quasiconvexprogramming’ in Journal ofOptimisation Theory and Applications, vol.108, no. 2, February 2001.

Professor Philip Yetton and AkemiTakeoka Chatfield, ‘Strategic payofffrom EDI as a function of EDIembeddedness’ in Journal ofManagement Information Systems, vol.16, no. 4, 2000.

MONOGRAPHS

Professor Steve Frenkel with S. Chiu, ‘Globalisation andemployment relations in China’,Bangkok, International LabourOrganisation, 2000.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt, ‘Thegreat leap nowhere: China’s west-ern campaign is fraught with difficulty’ in Asian Business, vol. 37,issue 1, pp. 40–42, January 2001;‘China’s western campaign’ in Far Eastern Economic Review, vol. 163,issue 33, p. 29; and ‘Executing your change agenda to achievestrong impact and continuous

www.agsm.edu.au AGSM | 31

improvements: the journey is thereward’ in China Marketing, issue 7,pp. 14–17, 2000.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

PhD candidate Julie Cogin(adjunct faculty), ‘The indirectcosts of discrimination and harass-ment to organisations’ at theDiscrimination and SexualHarassment Seminar, Sydney,February 2001.

Director Timothy Devinney,Centre for Corporate Change,‘Knowledge-creating processes andinnovation’ at the StrategicManagement Society Conference,Vancouver, Canada, October 2000;‘An empirical examination of thedimensionality of the integration-responsiveness framework’ at theAcademy of International BusinessConference, Phoenix, Arizona,November 2000, also presented at the European InternationalBusiness Association Conference,Maastricht, Netherlands,December 2000.

Faculty leader at: the doctoral student consortium of theEuropean International BusinessAssociation, Maastricht,Netherlands, and the doctoral student seminar on knowledgemanagement at the UniversitaetHamburg, Germany. Invited paperspresented at universities include:‘Transactional structures and e-business performance’ atUniversity of California – Berkeley,October 2000; ‘Global integration– local responsiveness: face validity,empirical vapidity’ at University ofIllinois, November 2000;‘Knowledge-creating processes andinnovation’ at IMD, Lausanne,Switzerland, December 2000; and‘Knowledge-creating processes andinnovation’ at INSEAD,Fontainebleau, January 2001.

Pat Matthews, manager, client services, Frank Lowy Library,‘Australian company and industryinformation online – a case study’presented at Online 2000 in San Diego, California, September2000; and ‘Extracting the max:Australian financial contentonline’, presented at InformationOnline 2001, in Sydney,January 2001.

Dr Marc Orlitzky, ‘Corporatesocial performance and generalisability theory: an outcome-based measure of stakeholder satisfaction and itsmeasurement implications’; withDiane L. Swanson, ‘The cult ofhomogeneity and assimilation: an

ethical deconstruction of the HRMfit literature’; with Diane L.Swanson, ‘How films can contribute to student learning in Business and Society courses’accepted at the annual meeting of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS) in Sedona, AZ, March 2001.

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt andprofessor Lex Donaldson, ‘Anorganisational portfolio analysis ofknowledge: are managers able tolearn?’ at the Australian and PacificResearchers in Organisation StudiesConference (APROS), Sydney,December 2000; and ‘Developinginternational management educa-tion in emerging markets for the21st century: challenges and solution blueprints for Chineseuniversities and their global educational Web partners’ at the Second Asia Academy ofManagement Conference,Singapore, December 2000.

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

PhD candidate Julie Cogin(adjunct faculty), ‘The effects ofsexual harassment on work withdrawal and job withdrawal’in Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM)Conference, December 2000.

Professor Geoff Eagleson and R.Waldersee, ‘Monitoring the strategically important: assessingand improving strategic trackingsystems’ in A. Neely (ed) PerformanceMeasurement 2000:Past, Present and Future,

Cranfield School of Management:Cranfield, pp. 137–144, 2000.

Dr Marc Orlitzky and Diane L.Swanson, ‘Constructions of theself: from object relations to stake-holder relations’ in Proceedings of theannual meeting of the InternationalAssociation for Business andSociety (IABS) in Burlington,Vermont, November 2000.

Dr Kai-Alexander Schlevogt, ‘Keysuccess factors in the “land of dragons”: the China framework for high organisational effective-ness’ in Best Paper Proceedings of the Second Asia Academy of Management Conference,Singapore, December 2000.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

The determinants of e-businesssuccess (a Centre for CorporateChange and INSEAD project) investigates the real impact of thee-business phenomenon by survey-ing more than 500 companiesacross Australia, the US and Europe.The survey looks at strategic pressures, the nature of organisa-tional change and corporate characteristics. Aggregate resultswill be published later in the year.If you would like to participate inthis study, please contact PhD can-didate Tim Coltman, e-mail:timc@agsm.edu.au orccc@agsm.edu.au.

E-intelligence and corporatestrategy is a research project led byCentre for Corporate Change director, Timothy Devinney.The research will examine theusage of Internet and legacy system

generated data, the prospects anddifficulties faced by companies inintegrating and turning this data into managerially usefulknowledge, and the beliefs thatmanagers possess about the future potential of Internet andlegacy system generated data.Results will be presented at a series of seminars in late March.For seminar details, contact Anne Fitzsimmons at e-mail:ccc@agsm.edu.au.

Consumer Assessment of SocialProduct Features (funded by ARC) will investigate the degree to which consumers understandand place a value on the socialdimensions of products.This study aims to redress the lack ofacademic research on consumervaluation of social issues.The project will commence in 2001and conclude in 2002.

Promoting perspective-taking for success investigates the drivers, and effects on performance, of employees seeing others’ viewpoints, or taking theirperspective. A Canadian studyinvestigates how, through transformational leadership,managers can promote greater perspective-taking among employees and, thereby, increasetheir ability to work in teams.Results will be published later inthe year. If you would like to participate in the study, please contact associate professor Sharon Parker at e-mail:sharonp@agsm.edu.au. ✪

Dr Ujwal Kayande, senior lecturer inmarketing, has been votedResearcher of the Year (2000) by

the Australian and New Zealand MarketingAcademy, for his paper, ‘Reliability assess-ment and optimisation of marketing mea-surement’ published in the prestigiousJournal of Marketing Research in 1997. Theaward goes to the academic in Australia orNew Zealand whose paper is judged to havemade the most impact in the past fiveyears. The paper also won the AmericanMarketing Association’s Don Lehman awardin 1998. Previous winners of the award fromthe AGSM are professors David Midgley(now at INSEAD), Grahame Dowling andJohn Roberts.

Dr Katrina Ellis, senior lecturer in account-ing and finance, has won the Smith BreedenDistinguished Paper award (worth

$US5000) for her paper (co-authored withRoni Michaely and Maureen O’Hara fromCornell University), ‘When the underwriteris the market maker: an examination oftrading in the IPO aftermarket’, published inthe Journal of Finance, June 2000. Thepaper was voted the second-best paper of60 papers the Journal published (fromDecember 1999 to September 2000) from1000 submissions. This paper previouslywon the Cornerstone Research Award for Best Paper at the 1999 Western Finance Association Meetings in Santa Monica, California.

Dr Garry Twite, senior lecturer in account-ing and finance, was awarded the SecuritiesInstitute of Australia’s 2000 JASSA MeritAward for his paper (co-authored with R.Faff), ‘To or not to — can you trust theCAPM’, JASSA, vol. 3, Spring 1999.

✪ Robust research

SENIOR MANAGEMENTCHANGES

Chris Adam accepted the roleof associate dean, faculty.

Eddie Anderson steppeddown as associate dean,faculty, after more than three years, and has taken six months’ leave (from January).

Sue Bennett-Williamsaccepted a promotion to act-ing director, MBA program(from associate director),effective 15 December 2000.

Jeff Laurie joins the AGSMas director, EMBA programfor a period of 14 monthswhile Maria Spies is on leave.He was formerly a director ofinternational business devel-opment in the business facultyat UTS; he has also worked asan Australian trade commis-sioner in the Middle East.

Pamela Murray-Jonesjoined the AGSM as director,executive education, lastDecember. Pamela joins theSchool from BIZED (an HRand management develop-ment services provider),where she was responsiblefor the Asia-Pacific region.She previously worked asgeneral manager of globalbusiness development,Western Sydney Institute.

Maria Spies, director,EMBA program, will takematernity leave from 1 Aprilfor a period of 12 months.

Greg Whittred, formerlyacting dean, will continue as associate dean, MBA pro-grams, through to 31 March.

APPOINTMENTS

Dr Chongwoo Choe has beenappointed senior lecturer ineconomics. He obtained hisPhD in economics from the

University of Minnesota. Hehas previously taught in theUS and Australia, and has con-sulted for various governmentbodies and industries.

Suzanne Fisk joined theAGSM last September as stu-dio manager, EMBA program.Suzanne was publicationsmanager for five years atCable & Wireless Optus, andhas many years’ experience as a publisher and editor.Alsonew to the studio are desktoppublishers Raelene Doble andNatasha Nixon, and studiocoordinator Nanette LaCava.

The secretarial supportteam welcomes BelindaHamilton. She joins theAGSM from the UNSW vice-chancellor’s office.

Kelley Johnson is theSchool’s new Web producer.Kelley was formerly an inter-national producer forQuicken online financialsoftware.

Natalie Kidd accepted apromotion to associate director, EMBA (from opera-tions manager), effective 1January 2001.The EMBAteam also congratulatedSandy Ryan on her

appointment as executiveservices coordinator.

Daniel Mazir has accepted an appointment as accounts clerk.

Katherine Rees, serialslibrarian, has joined theAGSM’s Frank Lowy Library.

The executive educationteam has welcomed marketing coordinator LisaParkinson, and executive services coordinator Kelly Wignall.

Elizabeth Walker joinedthe AGSM’s part-time MBAprogram team last October as program coordinator.

Welcome to new facilitiesstaff: Darren Ireland (who isstudying computer science);and Matthew Pendleton(who is studying sports education).

FAREWELLS

Ian Marsh (associate profes-sor) has taken up a reader-ship at the AustralianNational University. It is dif-ficult for many to imaginethe School without him.

John O’Brien (professor)has returned to CarnegieMellon in the US. In setting

up STARLab, John made anenormous contribution to theSchool since arriving in 1998.

Arjun Bhalla returned toIndia last December, after completing his MBA, to joinhis wife Sonal and babyAysha. He had served as residential caretaker sinceAugust 1999.

The Little Bay ConferenceCentre farewelled house manager Philip Clarke andreceptionist GloriaKoutrouzas.

Katrina Giandon has leftthe management projectsoffice to study an advanceddiploma in sports manage-ment and marketing.

Peter May (formerly direc-tor, corporate education) leftthe AGSM last October to joinDeloitte Touche Tohmatsu as its national director,human resources.

The Frank Lowy Libraryfarewelled library technician,Mary O’Brien.

After assisting two deansover the course of a year,Maureen Shaw has left theAGSM to pursue work in the CBD.

Creative pursuits: MariaPernetta’s team farewelledfour hardworking facilitiesstaff: Josh Maree (gone topursue environmental engineering fieldwork in a third world country);Tim O’Sullivan (who isillustrating children’s books);Damien Lane (who, in addition to studying creative writing, is now busywriting songs for his band,recording a second CD andperforming); and SimonMaree (who left to try hishand at sales). ✪

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peopleAGSM APPOINTMENTS AND FAREWELLS

Australian Graduate School of Management, UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia, Web site: www.agsm.edu.au