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TODAY • MONDAY • SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
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TODAY • MONDAY • SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
the business of LEARNING
CAPITAL, SOCIETY AND BEHAVIOUR
Rules, regulations and returns
In the pursuit of profit, how do businesses behave – and how should they behave?
SUCCEED
with John Bittleston
[email protected]
I’VE heard many views about
regulations affecting business, many of which are
extremely sensible, some
just extreme. The businessman wants unfettered access
to his market. He wants to
discuss prices with his competitors and agree on
“acceptable” margins. His
aim is to maximise the
return on his investment.
The consumer wants fair
trade. She doesn’t want to be
ripped off by the greedy manufacturer. She wants value
for her money, the lowest
possible price and the highest possible quality.
The emails I get about
rules and regulations reflect
the old adversarial system:
“I want ‘A’, you want ‘D’, so
we’ll fight about it and the
stronger side will force an
agreement on ‘B’ or ‘C’.”
It’s the old system of justice and negotiation and it’s
out of date.
New, elaborate, complex
and often turgid systems of
“consultation” are an
attempt to get away from
this and establish common
aims and greater cooperation
between parties with different interests. The attempt is
often genuine; the result is
usually less than satisfactory.
The process brings with it
penalties such as compromises and sore bottoms
(from excessively long meetings).
But it is a step in the right
direction (more or less).
Only a tiny step, though.
Consultation, when genuine, is a polite version of
boxing, nothing more. We
use it, rather than adversarial relationships, because we
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are trying to make negotiation a more civilised affair.
What is a civilised substitute for commercial war?
Behaviour, within the law,
is a matter of personal
choice. A combination of several factors affects the way
people behave:
1 What seems to work
best for them
2 What they were taught
when young
3 What their religious or
humanitarian beliefs demand
of them
4 What society considers
normal
In the end, we behave in a
way that satisfies our needs
and desires within a given
time scale.
A manager may indulge in
assertive behaviour in order
to reach a target set for him
and on which his bonus
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depends. A grandfather may
put away money for his
infant granddaughter
because he wants her to
have some capital when she
turns 18. Different motives
and different time scales.
The time scales given by
shareholders and by the law
to corporate directors are
clearly, and, in my opinion,
wrongly, defined.
“Clearly” because those
who govern businesses are
rightly judged on the profitability of those businesses.
A board of directors that
announces its intention not
to make a profit will attract
few investors.
“Wrongly” because the
period over which the profits
are to be made is arbitrarily
short.
There are two reasons for
this. First, the shareholder
wants his return as soon as
possible. Life goes by and
the holiday you cannot afford
today may not be possible
tomorrow as you might not
be fit to take it. So “now” is
an good time to receive your
dividend, if what you are
interested in is your personal
and immediate gratification.
Second, a businessman’s
success depends on the profits from his business while
he is running it. He gets no
bonus for building the foundation, only for what can be
creamed off during his stewardship.
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Tiny particles, big idea
Innovator here wins MIT award for nanotechnology research
als chemistry and nanotechnology.
[email protected]
What might seem like white powder to most people — the silicaIT is not easy to be a top innovabased particles in his laboratory —
tor.
Dr Han Yu, 27, works seven days he sees as having “the beauty of
symmetry”.
a week at the Institute
Until now, no
of Bioengineering and
researcher had been
Nanotechnology, where
able to control the size
he is a post-doctoral feland structure of both
low.
the particles and the
But it is neither the
pores in these “nanotime nor the energy
porous materials”.
spent that has been the
But two months ago,
challenge for him. After
Dr Han filed a patent
all, he is “single and
claim in the United
(has) nothing to do”.
States on a method to
“The hardest part is
bring about a 100-fold
finding a good idea —
reduction in the size of
sometimes that’s more
the particles.
important than working Dr Han’s discovery
The particles can be
hard,” he said.
has applications in
Dr Han should know. the biomedical field. used in biomedical
applications, such as
Last year, he came up
the controlled delivery of drugs,
with an idea that has now made
genes and proteins.
him one of the world’s top
He said: “The drugs are injected
100 young innovators, as chosen by
the prestigious Technology Review, into the particle. If the particle size
is smaller, it is much easier to conthe Massachusetts Institute of
Technology’s innovation magazine. trol and transport.”
So, how did he manage to conDr Han’s research is in materiDerrick A Paulo
trol the size of the particles?
After poring over books and talking to other researchers, he
realised that a type of fluorocarbon
substance had “special properties”
that could limit their growth.
Thus, instead of using one
chemical substance to synthesise
the particles — the conventional
method — he used two.
The TR100 award, which he will
receive at MIT next week, is the
culmination of a satisfying first year
in Singapore for Dr Han, who
arrived here last August after completing his PhD in China.
While he hopes to take his work
to greater heights in collaboration
with other researchers here, he
has something bigger on his mind
next month: Marriage.
So will it mean five-day weeks
for him if his fiancee, a doctoral
candidate in China who helped
with his current project, comes to
Singapore?
“Maybe she will also work seven
days with me. Then, it will be
14 days combined,” he said with a
laugh.
“
Albert
Schweitzer
philosopher, physician and
Nobel Peace Prize winner
Example is not
the main thing
in influencing
others, it is the
only thing.
Rotterdam
Business School