|
Home About JGCG Vision & Mission Advisory Board Editors Contact Us Current Issue Archives Book Reviews Bookshelf Commentaries GCGI: - Arabic - Chinese Mainland - Chinese Traditional - English - German - Japanese - Persian - Turkish Common Good - Conferences - Future & Past Conferences Call for Papers Submission Guidelines Paper Review Form Future Issues Related Links Site Search |
|
THE ROLE AND IMPORTACE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE PROCESS OF GLOBALISATION 1Mića Jovanović, 2Ana Langović Milićević
SUMMARY: In the IT era can freely say that the new society is learning society and require different kinds of learning that provide employment. For economic development education has an important role in developing competence of workers to enhance their mobility and job security. For companies it is very important that their employees can respond to rapid and major changes and strengthen the competence of enterprises and their development. A result of education does not reflect only on individuals but on society as a whole. For the twenty-first century knowledge becomes the main factor of development.
INTRODUCTION Nowadays, due to development of technique and technology it is easier to communicate; distance does not hinder business activities. It is much easier to conduct business even outside one’s own country. A number of factors should be considered during preparation of business activities. One of the most important factors is culture factor, that is, the influence of culture on management. It is essential for educational system to adapt to the changes of environment. According to new demands for various skills at work, educational system should be changed to create new workforce. Due to the changes, the staff should possess various skills, be more flexible and more educated with the knowledge vital for new business demands regarding new technology and awareness of cultural diversity due to globalisation. Various reasons affected the change of education: permanent development and introduction of new technology due to globalisation. Successful businessmen, that is, good managers, should have very good formal education, which implies proper undergraduate studies, specialisations, master studies, even doctoral studies. However, such education loses its power over time since management is conducted in changeable environment. The changes in business world are huge and unpredictable. Therefore, it is essential to expand managers’ knowledge permanently and widen their experience. Due to the process of globalisation and new rules in business, formal education does not seem to be enough, if a person wants to be a manager after short or long work experience. Experience and intuition were sufficient enough to run a company. Permanent education is becoming a prerequisite for promotion of all employees, however, companies invest in further education of key people only. People who are able to take over responsibility and reach decisions independently can help economy to grow. Technology plays an important role since in future it will continue to be vital in business, community and individual lives. DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEED FOR EDUCATION OF MANAGERS The need for permanent education of managers has been caused by the development of science and technology. The need for permanent education of managers is emphasised in production department which changes fast due to the development of science and technology. Therefore, formal education of managers is vital to keep pace with real needs of modern production processes. Until the fifties of the previous century, it used to take longer to introduce new technologies, so managers had sufficient time to adjust to production and learn. The period of fifty years accelerates the introduction of new technology and less time is left to managers to adjust to new achievements. Hence, there is the need for permanent education of managers with the help of short courses and seminars. Gradually, these seminars transformed into permanent forms of education and influenced on all segments of management. That is how first business schools started. The first schools of management had rather universal programme. Later these programmes started to differ depending on work experiences of managers and their prior formal education. The aim of these programmes were to develop the skills of problem analysis; solving problems; analysing the part of system where the problem occurred; analysing the other parts of system which could be affected by the problem and solving the same (12). Therefore, the aim of additional education is to teach staff to utilise the concept of management, that is, planning, organising, motivating and control. Education of management is conducted through various institutional or non-institutional forms. Students at faculties and colleges study management in all its segments. On the other hand, graduates from the faculties of mechanical and electrical engineering, faculty of mining and geology, faculties of economics and medicine who are preparing for managerial posts can be specialised in certain segment of management which will help them to be successful as managers besides having professional, practical knowledge. These students can do master studies without experience and gain knowledge vital for top managers (12). However, a lot of researches and practice in England pointed that postgraduate studies of management are more efficient if they are attended by the students with longer experience in managerial position. Permanent education implies courses within a company to get managers acquainted with new achievements. For example, at the beginning of December universities should organise promotions of all their programmes for the following year. Additionally, distinguished British and European companies should get invitation for their staff to get acquainted with their programmes. The programmes should be presented in the form of one or two-day seminars and the aim should be to attract more students. (12) The courses should last from 5 to 14 days and the focus should be on specific form of management, such as strategic enterprise management, staff management (human resources management), finance management, technology management, research and development management etc. The programme of the courses is intended for junior managers without wide experience. The courses can be a link between their knowledge from university and the beginning of their careers in an enterprise. Besides courses, there are certain programmes organised at faculties with the aim to develop managerial staff. They last from 1 to 6 months and they should offer thorough education to junior students with work experience in the aforementioned forms of management. The programmes differ from the previous one because these ones apply the method of case studies as well as a large number of classes of management. The knowledge gained at these courses can be immediately applied in their everyday activities in their enterprises. The knowledge gained through case analysis has been lately immensely applicable with the change of higher education. The courses of 10 to 15 days are organised to expand knowledge of the level of management below the top one. They are based on brainstorming method and most of the time there is activity based on debate between directors and managers of various companies and lecturers of business school. Naturally, there are traditional forms of lectures, team work, case studies etc. These courses are organised at least once a year where top managers are prepared and educated. Postgraduate business studies in Europe, that is, MBA studies are attended by young people in lower managerial positions with short work experience who aim at top positions in their companies. They choose this kind of studies themselves, but companies can do that as well if they assess the young man as talented and hard-working. Postgraduate business studies can be enrolled by graduates from appropriate faculties, young men with no work experience. In that case they continue their three-year studying at faculty. Big companies in France, England, Japan as well, are frequently in contact with prominent institutions of higher education. They have special contracts with them. On one hand, the contracts are on monitoring the most talented students and, on the other hand, the need for senior staff for the company. Companies partly recruit their junior staff after the first year of full-time postgraduate studies. After the graduation the company provides the posts in top management for high-quality staff. It should be emphasised that the programme of postgraduate studies is rather complex and quite difficult for the students. The programmes comprise all special aforementioned areas of management, as well as specific area for which the student is educated, that is, strategic planning of a company’s growth, marketing, introducing and management of new technologies etc. Apart from lectures, team work, debate, case studies and similar forms of conducting the programme, students are obliged to practise in big companies and participate in projects for big companies. THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN THE PROCESS OF PERFORMING BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF ENTERPRISES In order to realise global business strategies it is essential to prepare managers. There are numerous programmes. The aim of this programme is to enable students to operate in the situation of high international competition. Consequently, the programme enables the visits to certain companies. The visits to Japanese companies are preferable since they could be competition to the companies in European Union concerning ‘third’ markets (10). Permanent education is important for managers as well. Big companies in Japan, Korea, Europe and America have specified the optimal life cycle of professional managers. Life cycle of professionals and the success in business is more certain up to the age of 45. Afterwards, natural psychophysical abilities decline. The best performance of an individual and the time when s/he can reach the peak in her/his career is between the ages of 35 to the age of 55. Then, successful managers can become partners in business. Afterwards, due to the accumulated knowledge and experience they can be counsellors in the company. After the age of 65, East Asian companies do not discard wisdom and knowledge of their professionals. They appoint them as the representatives of their companies in various campaigns until the end of their lives. In order to keep the trend of enhancing knowledge in companies and extend the life cycle of professionals from the age of 40 to 65, it is necessary to stress their permanent education. Therefore, it is vital to permanently educate and expand knowledge of professionals from the age of 40. In that way when there is the decline in their psychophysical ability, the level of knowledge increases. If there is no further education, maximum level which a professional reaches in his /her career will be rather low and the decline of knowledge as s/he gets older will be faster. (12) To summarise, when we talk about education and management we gain knowledge in higher education concerning management. Education in the area of management presents the base to accept problems and the idea that the solutions which used to be applied in past can be used as the solution nowadays. Globalisation imposes new rules for successful business operation. A large number of well-known universities incorporated intercultural management as a course to prepare students for global business. The course presents various business situations caused by cultural diversity. Empirical researches conducted by Hofstede on national and corporative cultures encouraged the growth of intercultural management (8). Intercultural management differs from international management since intercultural management focuses on organisational and human resources behaviour. Intercultural management tries to assess the influence of culture (national and organisational) on perception, interpretation and managers’ behaviour. Culture can be defined as collective programming of mind which differentiates the members of one community from the others. This collective behaviour is the system which is created during the process of socialisation. National culture, which reflects on values, thoughts and behaviour in society, continues to play the original role in spite of the process of globalisation. Regarding management, cultural system gives individuals cognitive abilities and specific approach to solving problems. Consequently, counterparts from other countries will probably find various solutions when faced with the same problems (18). A research carried out in intercultural management focuses on noticing interaction of managers from various systems. The research stresses ’critical incidents’ due to cultural differences. Theses incidents are created during the process of communication or in situations when team work is expected. However, the expectations and behaviour of managers might differ and cause intercultural conflict. Intercultural management plays a vital role in international business activities, when business partners from several countries should work in teams. Nevertheless, nowadays team work is expected in business activities regardless of cultural background of managers. In those situations due to wrong interpretation of verbal and nonverbal communication there can be conflicts and misunderstanding. Several researches pointed the influence of culture when it comes to the choice of negotiation strategy in international business negotiations. The other part of researching pointed that concessions and agreements in negotiations are influenced by culture as well. Concerning international business, majority of empirical papers discussed the outcome of negotiation due to cultures, while theoretical papers were focused on discussing cultural differences between countries. It can be stressed that during the nineties of the previous century great number of researchers paid attention to the area of international business negotiation. What was even more interesting, general image of academic researches in that period was that the researches were fragmented. Although the researches were of great importance, they did not give universal view on the issues which were of significant influence on international business. The researchers in that period pointed that there is a lack of researching of business communication. The explanation of negotiation between people from various cultures was rather general, that is, wide cultural variables were used. However, planning which links those variables with behaviour in negotiation was poorly researched (10). The course, intercultural management, incorporated in academic studies enables mangers to adjust to new demands such as team work where the members are from various cultures. The new business situation imposes team work as the way to resolve problems, therefore, managers are more than ever facing group activities and team work. A large number of international companies can succeed only through proper team work. The criteria for forming these teams are based on international initiative of management or as the consequence of global expansion. The teams formed in this way unite individuals with various interests who can individually contribute to the activity of the team. In this way, it is more effective to realise business activities, since members of the team are forced to discuss and negotiate, that is, exchange their knowledge and different experiences. Apart from the aforementioned advantages, there could be one more conflict due to cultural diversity. When realising business assignments with team members from various cultures, the stress is on the main manager or the team leader. The main task of the manager in the aforementioned cases is to link all the members of the group as one and to strive to realise set objectives (17). Actually, the manager does not have a hierarchical role, but the role of the coordinator of the interests. Under these circumstances, the manager focuses on working conditions of the team, encourages cooperation between the members and tries to harmonise differences that exist between them. To successfully perform the assignment the manager or the team leader, with the members from different cultures, has to be aware that numerous factors can cause misunderstanding. To successfully realise his/her role, even in informal conversation a manager has to bear in mind who the listener is and be aware of the factors that can cause misinterpretation. Synergy between the development of higher education and the growth of companies is natural. The development of faculty is essential for success and individuals in companies and for management likewise. The new age stresses some principles which are vital for education of management: to develop students’ skills for global business, to incorporate academic activities for global social responsibility and to organise the exchange of knowledge between lecturers, media and managers. LITERATURE
|
