Newsletter No. 225

CUHK Tops MBA Ranking Again T he Un i v e r s i ty has been r anked number one in East Asia again by prominent business magazine Asia Inc. in its August issue. The University has won this distinction two years in a row. The rankings in the ' As i a 's Best MBA Schools' survey are based on school and faculty quality, student quality, and peer reputation. The extensive network and links o f the Faculty o f Business Administration with local industry and the Pearl River Delta are also recognized by the magazine. The survey only covers business schools that have a f u l l - t ime M B A programme. Students, graduates, and corporate recruiters were interviewed for the ranking. Prof. Vincent Lai, associate dean of the Faculty o f Business Administration and director o f the M B A Programmes, said that teaching staff in the faculty are not only academically accomplished; they also see themselves as mentors dedicated to bringing out the best in their students, preparing them for careers best suited to their special talents and aspirations. Prof. Kenneth Young said, as acting vice-chancellor of the University, that he was ' n a t u r a l ly d e l i g h t e d' by the recognition and that the ranking not only testifies to the quality o f the teaching, learning and scholarship of the CUHK M B A P r o g r a m m e s , b u t a l s o acknowledges CUHK as a f i r s t - c l a s s un i v e r s i ty o f f e r i ng quality education that cons i s t en t ly meets s t a n d a r d s o f excellence l oca l l y, na t i ona l l y, and internationally. ' The University is very proud of the staff and students o f the Facu l ty o f Business Administration,' he remarked. Winnie Biala, class of 2002 and now marketing manager at L'Oreal said, ' I like the international profile with lots of high- profile visiting academics teaching at the faculty.' 'The beauty for me was the integrated core course which pulls together the full business cycle from beginning to end. So y ou go f r om basic economics, l aw, a c c o u n t a n c y , t o I P O , I T , a nd organizational behaviour,' commented Dennis Fung, a second-year student. J i l l D o d w e l l - G r o v e s, head o f executive development at Jardine Pacific, holds a similar view. 'The flavour of the month for a long time has been CUHK and it probably has the best MBA in town, which everybody wants to get into.' The CUHK M B A Programmes have always enjoyed an excellent reputation. They have nurtured a large pool of talent and made significant contributions to Hong Kong's economy. In 2002 the first coho rt graduated f r om the M B A i n Finance Programme offered jointly w i th Tsinghua University in Beijing. In the same year, the OneMBA Programme was launched in a worldwide partnership with distinguished institutions in Europe and the Americas. 'Our MBA Programmes are exerting global reach and influence, much in line w i th the vision articulated in the UGC Sutherland Report that "a small number of institutions (should become) capable o f compe t i ng at the highest international levels",' said Prof. Young. L i k e w i s e t h e Un i ve r s i t y 's Executive M B A Programme has received consistently top rankings. It was ranked number one in A s i a b y b o t h L o n d o n - b a s e d Financial Times and US magazine BusinessWeek in 2001, and again by Financial Times in 2002 as number one in Asia and number 20 worldwide. International Prestige and Honour for PhD Student in Management M s. Ch r i s t i ne Chan, a doc t o r al student of the Ph.D. programme in Management, has won two prestigious a w a r d s f r o m t he A c a d e m y o f Management: the Best Paper Awa rd (International Management Division) and the Barry M. Richman Best Dissertation Award. The Academy of Management is the oldest and largest scholarly association in the field of management studies in the world and has over 13,850 members from 91 nations. The awards were announced at the academy 's annual mee t i ng he ld i n Seattle this summer. The Best Paper Award is given to the most outstanding paper (out of more than 290 accepted papers this year) that makes a significant contribution to the field of international management. Christine's paper was about the institutional perspective of foreign direct investment strategy. The B a r r y M . R i c h m an Be st Dissertation Award recognizes the best dissertation in the field of international management. Christine's award-winning paper was e n t i t l ed ' I n s t i t u t i o n al Perspective of Foreign Direct Investment S t r a t e g y: The Case o f Japanese Multinational Corporations'. The other finalists came from Harvard University, New York University, and the University of Oklahoma. The criteria for selection of the best paper and best dissertation are that the paper shou ld address an i mpo r t ant i n t e r na t i onal business phenomenon, p r o v i de t heo ry that advances new understanding, and affect future research direction. Christine said she feels truly honoured and excited to receive the two awards, and very grateful to her thesis adviser, her thesis committee members, and members of the faculty for their insight and support. Prof. Shige Ma k i n o, Ch r i s t i ne 's thesis supervisor, said, ' I am very glad to hear the news. To my best knowledge she is the f i r st student f r om an A s i an institution to w i n the Best Dissertation Award. She is also the first participant to w i n both awards at the same time. The key contribution o f her wo rk is that it challenges the assumptions underlying the major economic theories in the field of foreign direct investment and develops an alternative perspective, drawing on neo- institutional theory... .' Prof. Makino further points out that Christine's most important strength, from a supervisor's perspective, is her strong spirit of independence. 'She has been working independently without detailed instructions. Besides she is very good at switching her gears "on" and " o f f" and has a very high level o f EQ and a good sense of humour,' he said. Prof. Daphne Yiu, a former M.Phil, student of Prof. Makino's a few years ago, was also a finalist for the Best Dissertation Award. She is now assistant professor in the Department of Management. 'I am very glad to see the successful achievements made by my students. I feel the honour of the students outdoing their teacher,' concluded Prof. Makino. CUHK Medical Staff Share SARS Strategies at UC Berkeley T eaching members f r om the Facu l ty o f Me d i c i ne and P r o f. Jack Cheng, p r o - v i c e- chancellor, met health professors and officials at UC Berkeley to share their frontline experiences w i t h SARS ill late July at the invitation o f Berkeley's SARS Task Force. Another aim o f the meeting is to forge a long-term, information-sharing relationship. On 21st and 22nd July, the C U H K d e l e g a t es g a ve an a c c o u nt o f t h e i r e f f o r t s at diagnosing SARS, searching for effective treatments, assessing the spread o f SARS, developing quarantine procedures, and a l l ay i ng commun i ty fears at the height o f the ep i demic in Ho ng Kong. They also described some of the precautions taken by The Chinese Un i v e r s i ty after the SARS outbreak. For their part the Berkeley officials shared their research into areas such as t u b e r c u l o s is and o t her eme r g i ng i n f ec t i ous diseases, the t r a c k i ng o f emerging infectious diseases, and disease resistance. They also gave the Hong Kong representatives a tour of the Tang Center, home o f University Health Services. Dr. Tomas Aragon, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness and a member of the UC Berkeley SARS Task Force, said it is important for UC Berkeley to interact w i t h groups and institutions d i r ec t ly f ac i ng these types o f crises, and to incorporate their findings into the public health curriculum. He called the meetings w i t h the C U HK delegates 'a good example o f collaborative learning'. CUHK and UC Berkeley learn from each other about fighting infectious diseases CUHK Licenses Novel Orange Fluorescent Protein to Stratagene U S- based c omp a ny Stratagene has obtained an exclusive license on a no v el orange f l uo r es cent p r o t e in p r oduced i n the laboratories o f The Chinese Un i v e r s i t y. Stratagene w i l l develop the licensed technology for future commercial applications. The novel orange fluorescent protein was discovered in tube anemone by Prof. D a v i d Wan o f the De p a r t me nt o f B i o c h em i s t ry and his postgraduate student Denis Ip. The first native orange fluorescent protein ever cloned, it has an emission max imum lined at the orange colour region of the visible light spectrum. The protein, which addresses the research need for a red-shifted fluorescent protein, w i l l be an extremely useful t ool f or t r ac k i ng and q u a n t i f y i ng b i o l o g i c al entities in the fields o f biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular biology, cell b i o l o g y , and m e d i c a l d i a g n o s is complementing fluorescent proteins from other sources currently being employed. Stratagene products span the fields of molecular biology, genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, and toxicology. The t e c h n o l o gy t r a n s f er was f a c i l i t a t ed by t he Re s e a r ch and Technology Administration Office. 2 No. 225 4th September 2003