74 — Ahead of the Curve
Interconnections — 75
SRIDHAR SESHADRI
INDIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Professor Sridhar Seshadri is currently the Deputy
Dean Operations and Area Leader Operations
Management and Professor at the Indian School
of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, India. Professor
Seshadri holds a PhD from the University of Cal-
ifornia, Berkeley, after graduating from the Indian
Institute of Technology, Madras, India and the
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
He was a Professor of Information, Risk and
Operations Management at the University of
Texas, Austin. He has also been a faculty member
at the Stern School of Business, New York Univer-
sity and the Administrative Staff College of India.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers, India.
During his teaching career, he was awarded
the Stern School of Business Teaching Excellence
Award (1998) and was recognised as the Stern
School of Business Undergraduate Teacher of the
Year in 1997. He was awarded the IBM Faculty
Fellowship for 2013-14. His current research
projects focus on pricing and revenue optimisa-
tion, and risk management in supply chains.
In addition to teaching, he also serves on
the board of directors for Nomi Networks and
is on the advisory board of RSG Media, USA.
His professional service includes serving as the
Associate Editor, Naval Research Logistics; Area
Editor, Operations Research Letters; and Senior
Editor (Supply Chain and Stochastics),
Produc-
tion and Operations Management Journal
. He
has co-authored the book
Toyota’s Supply Chain
Management: A Strategic Approach to Toyota’s
Renowned System
and recently co-authored the
volume
Managing Supply Chains on the Silk Road
.
ZHONGMING WANG
ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY
Zhongming Wang is a Professor of Industrial and
Organisational Psychology, Human Resource
Management and Entrepreneurship at the School
of Management, Zhejiang University, China. He
received his Master of Art and Doctor of Philos-
ophy (PhD) degrees from Gothenburg University,
Sweden (1985) and Hangzhou University (1987)
in a joint programme with Gothenburg University.
He currently holds the position of Senior Profes-
sorship of Social Science at Zhejiang University
and the Ho Bee Professorship at Singapore Man-
agement University (2015-2016).
Professor Wang is the former Dean of the
business school at Zhejiang University. Since
2006, he has been Director of Doctor of Philosophy
/ Master of Science programmes in entrepreneur-
ship at Zhejiang University. He is the Director of
the Global Entrepreneurship Research Centre (a
joint initiative with Stanford University) and the
Director of the Centre for Human Resources and
Strategic Development at Zhejiang University. In
2015, he was appointed the Co-Director of the
Miller Institute of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
(associated with Stanford) and was made Dean of
International Institution of Entrepreneurship (IIE).
Professor Wang is an executive member of
board of the International Association of Applied
Psychology (IAAP), an executive committee
member of the Chinese Psychological Society
and the executive president of its Industry Psy-
chology Division. In 2010, he was elected as the
Fellow of IAAP. He is president of the Zhejiang
Association of Behavioural Sciences and of the
Hangzhou Professional Managers’ Development
Association, and associate editor of the
Journal of
Applied Psychology
(Chinese). He is also a senior
member of Management Science Expert Board of
the National Science Foundation of China.
Professor Wang has published many articles
and books in human resources, leadership,
organisational change, entrepreneurship com-
petence and entrepreneurship strategy, both at
home and abroad. He won the 2007 First Award
of the Fudan Outstanding Academic Contribu-
tions for Business and Administration in China,
and the 2012 and 2013 Award of Top 10 Most
Respected Professors of Business Schools in
China. In 2015, his new book on Entrepreneur-
ship Competence Development was designated
by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social
Security of China as a textbook for the National
Professionals Knowledge Renewal Initiative in
China. His recent research interests are related
to strategic human resource management,
organisational change, professional compe-
tency standards, entrepreneurial competence
development, women entrepreneurship, digital
entrepreneurship and small business growth.
ACADEMIC
STRATEGY AND
MANAGEMENT
EDUCATION UNIT
In Singapore, newspapers regularly talk about
the importance of fintech, and discuss terms
like Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Ordinary
people pay bills and check their bank balances
using a smartphone application. They can
transfer money to someone else just by knowing
that person’s mobile phone number.
Singapore, however, is an exception. In
parts of Asia, there are people who don’t even
have bank accounts. In other places, people are
afraid to take loans from banks.
To reach out to marginalised groups that
have not been able to enjoy the benefits of using
financial services, Mastercard and the Lee Kong
Chian School of Business (LKCSB) have set up
a multi-faceted, two-year Social and Financial
Inclusion Programme to do important research
on social entrepreneurship, innovation and
financial inclusion in the region.
The programme is led by Professor Howard
Thomas, the LKCSB Distinguished Term
Professor of Strategic Management, who is also
the Director of LKCSB’s Academic Strategy and
Management Education Unit (ASMEU).
Last November, the ASMEU held a two-day
symposium on social and financial inclusion in
collaboration with Mastercard that was attended
by about 100 industry professionals and faculty
from universities around the region.
The symposium brought researchers as well
as practitioners together so that both could
learn from each other and thus, build a network,
says Professor Thomas.
For example, before a fisherman in the
Philippines can whip out his mobile phone to
check his bank balances, there are a host of
issues to solve like an unreliable (or non-exis-
tent) electricity grid, slow and spotty Internet
access, a lack of financial literacy and a distrust
of financial institutions.
There are also cultural issues that prevent
a system for mobile payments from taking hold
in South Africa, even if it worked well in Kenya.
“Getting something to work is not simply a
function of having the technology. It’s the social
structure and context, and how people are going
to set up the systems so that they trust this
payment system,” he says.
Then there is the question of how do you get
people to be willing to bank in the first place. “It
is quite straightforward in Singapore. You know
what a bank account is, everyone knows what a
credit card is, everybody knows what Apple Pay
is and so on.”
However, in rural parts of Asia, or even some
developed parts of Asia, there are different
levels of understanding and of financial literacy.
Apart from the annual conference, the Mas-
tercard programme is also funding research.
There are currently around 10 people working
on various projects that look at social and
financial inclusion.
In addition to studying financial inclusion in
Asia, the ASMEU is also examining issues in the
evolution of global management education.
Management education is changing, notes
Professor Thomas. The dominant model in the
last 100 years has had its origins mainly in
the United States and latterly in Europe. More
recently, an Asian model has started making
inroads, he says. The Financial Times global
rankings now has Asian business schools on
its list whereas almost none of these schools
were in the rankings in 2005, notes Professor
Thomas, who is also a well-known scholar on
management education.
The reason management education has
evolved gradually in alternative global envi-
ronments is that it is not possible to simply
duplicate the richly-endowed US model. “Taking
the Harvard model and simply copying it in
another country is not going to happen,” he says.
In addition, countries have different ways
of doing business. How you do business in
Vietnam is not the same as how you do business
in Singapore, he notes. “Vietnam is a highly
entrepreneurial culture, but they don’t have the
established processes or the rules of law as you
do here in Singapore, not to the same extent.”
“What you learn from different cultures and
contexts is that there is adaption; necessary
adaption of the set of management principles
to the culture, context and environment of the
individual country.”
Professor Thomas arrived at this conclusion,
not just from his vantage point in Singapore where
he was Dean of LKCSB from 2010-2014, but also
from his research in Africa and Latin America.
In 2015, he spent considerable effort travelling
INTERCONNECTIONS
INDUSTRY
“Taking the Harvard
model and simply
copying it in another
country is not
going to happen.”
INTERCONNECTIONS/ VISITING FACULTY
PROFESSOR HOWARD THOMAS
