Academicians from University of Glasgow visit UTAR

Three distinguished academicians named Professor Robert Paton, Dr Ramona Blanes and Dr Marianna Koukou from the Adam Smith Business School (ASBS), University of Glasgow (UofG) visited UTAR Sungai Long Campus on 22 June 2022.  The guests were invited to speak to more than 100 students from the MPU33023 Business and Society course in the Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM). The official visit was organised by Dr Hasnita Ali, who is the lecturer/ tutor of the course, assisted by Dr Corrinne Lee, the course tutor, and the General Office of FAM Faculty.

Professor Robert Paton is the Professor of Management and Director of Development at the ASBS and Deputy Dean Graduate Studies with the College of Social Sciences, UofG, as well as Alternate Cluster Lead in Services and Operations Management. The two other guests were Dr Ramona Blanes, Senior Lecturer Master of Global Business and MBA-MSc Euro-Asian Programme Leader, and Dr Marianna Koukou, a lecturer in Operations and Innovation.

Before the talk took place, the guests met up with Dr Sia Bee Chuan, the dean of FAM, Assoc Prof Dr Mohammad Falahat Nejadmahani, the chairperson of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Sustainability, and Dr Alexander Tay, head of Department of International Business.  Various topics were discussed in the meeting: potential collaboration between UTAR and UofG, participation in conference, and an online summer school organised by the UofG.  After the discussion, some tokens of appreciation were exchanged between Dr Sia and the guests.

Dr Sia (second from left) having a discussion with the guests

From left: Dr Hasnita, Dr Marianna, Dr Sia, Prof Robert, Dr Ramona and Dr Falahat

The talk took place at KB207. Both Professor Robert Paton and Dr Ramona Blanes spoke to the students from four tutorial classes in two different slots. Professor Robert Paton mainly spoke about “Change”, such as how challenging Change is. He said, “Change can be challenging and impactful. There are three concepts under it, namely Security, Sustainability and Skills.”   He elaborated that security applies to many things, such as finance, health, supply chains, personal life, etc.  Some examples were shared with the students, where Security has failed such as the Millennium bug, SARS, Covid-19, Identity Theft, and many others.  He further added, “When it comes to Sustainability, it refers to using a resource without causing any permanent damage to it. There is the Triple Bottom Line concept under Sustainability too, which is a tool to understand a business’ sustainability effort, and it consists of the three Ps; People, Planet and Profit.”

Professor Robert giving his talk enthusiastically

The students listening to the talks attentively

Dr Ramona Blanes took over in the second half of the talk and spoke about Sustainability.  She explained, “Companies need to consider the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDG for short. They also need to ensure their activities are aligned with ESG, which is Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance.”   The enlightening part of her session was when she talked about the last concept of Skills. She said, “Finally, every person, especially students and fresh graduates would require skills for the future when entering the working world. These skills include cognitive flexibility, digital literacy and computational thinking, judgement and decision-making, emotional and social intelligence (ESI), and creative and innovative mindset.”

After the insightful talk, the three guests met Ms Ong Soo Weon, the director of the Division of Corporate Communication and Public Relations.  Additionally, in conjunction with the UTAR 20^th anniversary, the guests were invited to record their warm wishes via video recording by DCCPR.  The visit concluded with a presentation of a token of appreciation from UofG to Ms Ong who accepted it on behalf of Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat, the president of UTAR.

Professor Robert (left) presenting the token of appreciation to Ms Ong (right)

From left: Dr Marianna, Dr Ramona, Professor Robert, Ms Ong, Dr Hasnita and Dr Corrinne Lee