New Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UCD

Majella Murphy has taken up the Entrepreneur-in-Residence role for 2015-2016 at UCD's Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business. Her role is to support all students with an interest in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, whether considering entrepreneurship as a career path, if working on a new business idea, or to research entrepreneurship in Ireland and Dublin particularly. Drop in times (Room S209a) Monday mornings 9am-12.30pm or by appointment (majella.murphy@ucd.ie or 01-716 8819).

Majella will be organising a series of events including entrepreneurial journey talks, panel discussions on controversial topics, an entrepreneurship competition and an ecosystem open evening.

H-1b system in the U.S.A. opens a keyhole view

The H-1b system in the U.S.A. is analysed by Haeyoun Park, who highlights how dominant Indian offshore outsourcing businesses are in the competition for the limited number (85,000) of H-1b visas on offer from the government.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html
The headline angle that Park follows most strongly is the complaint that the system operates in an almost unpatriotic way. Foreign multi-nationals benefit at the expense of smaller indigenous firms;

"squeezing out many American companies, including smaller start-ups" (Park, 2015)

However we can also infer that outsourcing's inherent contradiction is also evident, that distance really matters.

Source: New York Times article (link)

Why else would multi-national outsourcing firms seek to locate so many of their employees close to their client organisations? The 16,573 visas awarded to 7 outsourcing firms based in India reflect significant organisational operations in their own right.

Research Exercise: Interview questions: Reflecting on open sourcing the thing we do/did!'

Context:

• Did you have an idea of what 'success' or 'failure' would look like?
• Why OS or community sourcing?
• Was a pre-existing OS community seen to be relevant?
• Who used the OS version of the product?
• Where was the OS product used?
• Why did they use the OS product?
• Are they still using it?

Actors/Involvement:

• How did the idea to OS the product/service come about?
• How did the idea to OS 'get off the ground'?
• How was the argument for OS positioned beside proprietary activities, products or services?
• What role did the various actors play (engineering, services, support, executives, board)?
• What did/do you have to do to get an OS product and community working?

Feeling:

• How did/do you 'feel' about being involved on the OS side?
• How did/do you 'feel' about OS and its relationship to the rest of the business?
• How would you characterise other's 'feelings' about OS?
• Who was identified with the OS side and the OS initiative?
• Why do you think they became identified with OS?

Impact:

• What kind of things were necessary for OS to operate (infrastructure, technology, social environment, market, marketing, people etc)?
• Did the OS demand a different approach to product (software) engineering or any other activities?
• What kinds of resistance were encountered?
• What enabled the OS initiative?
• Did anything arising from the OS initiative impact or drive internal or other proprietary activities (product development, support, services, marketing etc)?

Reflections:

• How have things changed as a consequence of the OS work?
• What can go wrong?
• Would you do it again?

Finalists in Deloitte Top Tech Challenge 2015

Smurfit MSc Students Finalists in Deloitte Top Tech Challenge

Pushpendra, Tanvita, and Ajay

UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Masters students Pushpendra Singh, Tanvita Srivastava, and Ajay Singh Rajput reached the final round of the Deloitte Ireland Top Tech Challenge 2015. (link)

The team at the #TopTechTalent final.

• Pushpendra Singh (MSc Strategic Management & Planning programme)
• Tanvita Srivastava (MSc iBusiness - Innovation through ICT programme)
• Ajay Singh Rajput (MSc iBusiness - Innovation through ICT programme)

Exercise: It's important to talk about Ethics because...

Ethics discussion keywords

Goal: To explore the meaning of ethics within and between organisations.
Preparatory reading (optional): 

• Carr, Albert (1968). Is business bluffing ethical? Harvard Business Review, Jan.8Feb, 143, 155. 
• Kavanagh, Donncha (2011) 'Work and play in management studies: A Kleinian analysis'. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 11 (4), 336–356

Exercise workshop/debrief

Steps:

1. Write the following keywords on the board. This can be done in advance or as an 'icebreaker' with the class. For instance, ask the class why we have included the concept of 'GAME'.
• Ethics
• Responsibility
• Moral
• Ethos
• Play
• Regulation
• Rules
• Safe
• Values
• Winners
• What matters?
• Game
• Sustainable
• Interests
• Self-interests
• Power
• Barriers
• Welfare
• "it's important to talk about ethics because..."
2. After this ask groups to discuss further and to create their own response to the opening sentence "It's important to talk about Ethics because..."
3. Visit each table to ensure the discussions commence, encourage and highlight. Allow 5' to 10' for this phase.
4. Give a 2' warning that each group must debrief to the rest of the class. Groups may present one or two different positions, possibly contrasting.
5. Groups state to the rest of the class their interpretation and reasoning. Allow wider discussion. The lecturer can interject and 'characterise'. The tone will shift between serious and playful.

Notes:
After the discussion ask groups or individuals if they are willing to be photographed for the "Let's talk about ethics" initiative. Volunteers will need to sign the 'Photography Release Form'.

Indeed some of this year's class did elect to take part in the "Let's talk about ethics" initiative at UCD launched by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins (link). Slideshow below.

But where is the innovation?

"How P&G Tripled Its Innovation Success Rate" by Bruce Brown and Scott Anthony (2011)

This article by Brown & Anthony (2011) illustrates for me one of the difficulties of seeking to identify a strong link between innovation and outsourcing. All of P&G's efforts towards innovation appear to be corporate internalisations of one kind or another and not outsourcing at all.

Likewise the TedTalk by Nirmalya Kumar titled "India's invisible innovation" drills into the common criticism that the net impact of outsourcing to India has not resulted in innovation from India.

A more pessimistic reading of the outsourcing literature might see it as rather devoid of product or service innovation at all. In fact it might appear, if innovation is occurring at all then it seems to take place at the inter-firm competitive level, the level of markets, organisational forms, and business models.

Story telling presentations

You only have 5 minutes to present.
Think like a TedTalk presenter.

Some strategies that may or may not work for you...

• Focus on story telling for the presentation.
• Perhaps focus on illustrating your key findings in some memorable and distinctive way.
• Perhaps try fewer slides
• Perhaps put some of the text into your speech rather than on the slides.
• Perhaps focus on your key findings; they may relate to the case data or they may relate to the method you employed, or you may wish to cover both.