Press Releases Archive October-December 2011
PRESS RELEASE 15 December 2011: Hanken's international efforts rewarded - EQUIS Accreditation Renewed
Hanken School of Economics ranks among the leading business schools in the world that have been awarded the international EQUIS quality label. At the moment there are 134 EQUIS-accredited business schools spread across 38 countries. There are approximately 12,000 business schools around the world. Hanken and the Aalto University School of Economics are the only schools in Finland to have received the EQUIS label.
Hanken has been EQUIS accredited since 2000 when the School received it for the first time as a sign to the quality and high international standard of research, teaching, internationalization and corporate connections. The accreditation process is time-bound, ensuring a continuous quality improvement. The latest EQUIS evaluation was conducted in the autumn of 2011.
-Accreditations are a must for a university with international ambitions. To receive this honour, now for the fourth time, is yet a proof of our internationally competitive level of activities, says Eva Liljeblom, Rector of Hanken. These accreditations play a significant role in international cooperation also when it comes to research, student exchange and the recruitment of international researchers and students.
In addition to the EQUIS accreditation, Hanken has held the international AMBA accreditation since 2008. This accreditation is considered as the highest international accreditation for MBA programmes.
Further information:
Rector Eva Liljeblom
+358 (0)50 5643742
PRESS RELEASE 03.11.2011: Dissertation: Choosing an active board of directors matters
Carefully selecting directors for the board and actively involving them in decision-making are important challenges for any firm. The pressures created by the recent economic crises amplify the role of corporate boards in organizations. In his doctoral dissertation, Dmitri Melkumov examines the factors contributing to the level of corporate board commitment to the firm and its shareholders and stakeholders.
Melkumov discovered that the boards are very responsive to pressures and demands from the external stakeholders. Consequently, the social networks of the directors, as well as their firm- and industry-specific knowledge contributes positively to their involvement in their tasks. In short, a good board provides the firm with invaluable resources and contacts to various economic and political agents. Having well-connected directors at the apex of an organization is important as they often serve as indicators of the changes in the firm's external environment.
Furthermore decision-makers need to realize that the determination of the board members is increased by how well they identify with the firm; their sense of unity with and loyalty to the firm. This determination concludes Melkumov, in turn helps the firm survive and prosper in the long term.
Dmitri Melkumov's dissertation "Towards Explaining the tasks and roles of the Boards of Directors: the role of contextual, behavioral and social identification factors" will be publicly reviewed at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki.
Date: Friday, 4th November, 3 p.m.
Venue: Hanken School of Economics
Opponent: Professor Hans van Ees, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Custos: Professor Martin Lindell, Hanken School of Economics
Additional information:
Dmitri Melkumov
+358 (0)40 3521495
dmitri.melkumov@hanken.fi
The complete doctoral dissertation is available online at the Hanken Library database DHanken.
PRESS RELEASE 27.10.2011: Dissertation: Supply chains can give a new competitive edge
An increasingly flat world is placing a more competitive focus on the supply chains. As a result, managers should be looking into how their supply chains could become more aggressive, making each firm in their supply chain more efficient, claims new research at Hanken School of Economics.
"In the future the main place of competition for businesses will be along their supply chains, at the points where supply chains will have to share suppliers, service providers, products etc.," argues Imoh Antai who will be defending his doctoral dissertation in Supply Chain Management and Corporate Geography at Hanken on October 28. "In fact, he adds, managers must realize that this tendency is already increasing."
Antai proposes that competition between supply chains may be carried forward via the use of competition theories that emphasize interaction and dimensionality, hence encountering friction from a number of sources in their search for critical resources and services. He also demonstrates how supply chain versus supply chain competition may be carried out practically using logistic centres as an example.
"I want to draw attention to the somewhat relaxed attitude of firms and organizations to the number of suppliers they interact and do business with", says Antai,"... as the total number of suppliers a supply chain utilizes can, knowingly or unknowingly, reveal a lot about the competitive strategy such a supply chain is likely to adopt in a head- to- head competition." He concludes that this new emerging mode of competition is still novel, complex and needs multidisciplinary input into formulating the formulation of regulations to guide this evolving mode of competition.
Imoh Antai's doctoral dissertation "Operationalizing Supply Chain vs. Supply Chain Competition " will be publicly reviewed at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki.
Date: Friday, 28 October at noon
Venue: Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Professor Srinivas Talluri, Michigan State University, USA Custos: Professor Karen Spens, Hanken School of Economics
Further information:
Imoh Antai
antai@hanken.fi
+358 40 3521 283