Summary of study trip to Belgium "10 Days to Brexit"

A class study trip to Belgium, travelling to Brussels and based in the Irish College Leuven has just concluded (see photo). This optional 3-day activity covered lectures and visits to sites at the cutting edge of innovation in Europe.
We had lectures from the KU Leuven Research & Development Unit, UCD, and the European Shippers Council on supply chain digitalisation. We visited the offices of DataCamp, the Data Science learning platform headquartered in Leuven; the Microsoft Innovation Centre, Health House and Living Tomorrow demonstrator labs; and we visited the European Commission with presentations from DG Communication and DG Connect on Pan-European Digital Innovation Hubs.

Leaders of Tomorrow Workshops 2019

Great news.
A group of students from this year's UCD's MSc Digital Innovation class have been accepted for the opening rounds of Leaders of Tomorrow (2019). These intensive sessions take place over March 28th (9:30 AM – 6:00 PM) & 29th (8:00 AM – 4:30 PM) at The Dock in Dublin.

LEADERS OF TOMORROW : Early Entrepreneur Accelerator
Website: https://accenture.com/LeadersofTomorrow
News: https://www.accenture.com/ie-en/careers/leaders-of-tomorrow-award

TUPE

Transfer of Undertakings Contracts (image source: Employment Rights Ireland)

What is a TUPE contract? Transfer of Undertakings contracts (sounds like 2p) are an approach to providing continuity of employment, fair terms and conditions for employees impacted when an employer decides to outsource part of its business. Employees follow the contract instead of losing their jobs when a sourcing job is switched to another provider.
The principle is - the people follow the work - the contracting supplier hires the people currently working to deliver the services. The same people do the same work they were performing before only under a new contract with a different employer.

To learn more read through the the information on Employment Rights Ireland and other trusted sources.

Information on transfer of business regulation at Citizens Information Ireland.

Seminar: Proudly Made in Africa (PMIA)

Guest lecture by Dr David Nyaluke - Proudly Made in Africa (PMIA) Fellow in Business and Development. David's seminar covers emerging business, entrepreneurship, social enterprise and digital transformation in Africa. The "Value Chain Exercise" role-play illustrates some of the challenges and opportunities making Africa attractive for business. He touches on the potential for IT and business process outsourcing in African countries.
Lesson plan

1. Key transformations making Africa attractive for Business, including technology development, use of mobile phone, M-pesa for mobile money transfers (search term).
2. Identify and elaborate on the major challenges and opportunities for outsourcing in Africa.
3. Role play the "Value Chain Exercise". 

The classroom discussion tapped into students' personal knowledge and experiences from visiting and working in African countries. The value-chain exercise exposes assumptions about the steps in a supply chain with producers from countries in Africa asking what is the value produced at each exchange and how might we reconfigure/redesign these systems?

The seminars took place at 10am Tuesday 24th April, N203, at the UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business and also at 6pm Tuesday 24th April N303, at the UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business. Interactive sessions were videoed.

Writing prompts - exercises

A productive search query on Google Scholar is (link)
A productive search query on Scopus is (link)
A productive search query on Web of Science is (link)

There is a gap in the literature on...

This research is important because...

The audience for my paper is...

I was puzzled by...

I didn't expect to find...

A note on presentations...

You are expected to create your own original speech, text, media content. You are encouraged to use as much of your own visual/graphical material as possible. You can of course include some elements sourced elsewhere (subject to license) as background or linking pieces, e.g. diagrams, music etc. but this should only be used for illustration or if justified for artistic balance.

Session 10 activities

Kierán Cox from the NSAI (National Standards Authority Ireland) delivered a seminar on standards and their role in product design and market making. Key terms: metrology, standardization, conformity, assessment. 
Where do standards fit within the EU Single Market strategy? A standard specifies: how a product should be made (fundamental standard); what materials can be used; functionality, performance, structure; test criteria (test methods); guidance and good practice (management system standards).
While 'standards' do not necessarily mean universal the best examples of the success of standards is when they become universal. Uniformity enables best performance and makes cost savings across manufacture through to usage, expands the size and value of markets through standardised interoperability or compatibility between devices/systems/etc. There is a tension between a standard versus standardisation. Standards may become a technical barrier to trade, yet standards confer benefits to consumers.
RAPEX is the EU rapid alert system to prevent or restrict the marketing or use of products posing a serious risk to the health and saftey of consumers.
https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consumers_safety/safety_products/rapex/alerts
ISO 9001:2015 standard for quality management systems
ISO 27001:2013 information security management systems
ISO 14001:2015 standard for environmental management
ISO 2600 social responsibility guidance

Session 10 Reading for Discussion
Reading: Kelly, S. & Noonan, C. (2008) Anxiety and psychological security in offshoring relationships: the role and development of trust as emotional commitment. Journal of Information Technology, 23, 232–248.
Article analysis
Thumbnail story of the case (not the theory or discussion or literature)

The situation is... yes and...
From pp 244-245 (discussion and conclusions) Highlight the contribution of this article

From pp 237-244 (research approach) 

Highlight the key insight (quote) - and a backup key quote (or more).

Session 10 Case: Celtic Tiger, Chinese Dragon
The concepts in play - negotiated culture, professional culture, corporate culture, national culture.
Hofstedian cross-cultural comparison tool : (link and link) for comparisons of aggregate scores of national (country level) characteristics.