Global MBA Ranking 2008

Top MBA programmes 2008
1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton 2. London Business School 3. Columbia Business School 4. Stanford University GSB 5. Harvard Business School 6. Insead 7. MIT: Sloan 8. IE Business School 9. University of Chicago GSB 10. University of Cambridge: Judge

Top masters in management programmes 2007
1. HEC Paris 2. Cems/London School of Economics and Political Science 4. ESCP-EAP European School of Management 5. Essec Business School 6. EM Lyon 7. Grenoble Graduate School of Business 8. Audencia 9. Stockholm School of Economics 10. RSM Erasmus Univeristy

Listen With Your Eyes: Top 10 Nonverbal Communication Tips

Nonverbal communication is the single most powerful form of communication. The best communicators are sensitive to the power of the emotions and thoughts communicated nonverbally. Understanding nonverbal communication improves with practice. The first step in practice is to recognize the power of nonverbal communication.

Multicultural differences in body language, facial expression, use of space, and especially, gestures, are enormous and enormously open to misinterpretation. If you want to mask your feelings or your immediate reaction to information, pay close attention to your nonverbal behavior. Especially to a skilled reader of nonverbal cues, most of us are really open books.

Top Ten Nonverbal Communication Tips

1. Pay Attention to Nonverbal Signals.
2. Look for Incongruent Behaviors.
3. Concentrate on Your Tone of Voice When Speaking.
4. Use Good Eye Contact.
5. Ask Questions About Nonverbal Signals.
6. Use Signals to Make Communication More Effective and Meaningful.
7. Look at Signals as a Group.
8. Consider Context/ situation.
9. Be Aware That Signals Can be Misread.
10. Practice, Practice, Practice.

To gauge your expertise in interpreting nonverbal communication, take these nonverbal communication interpretation quiz questions from the University of California at Santa Cruz. This is a useful Dictionary of Nonverbal Gestures, Signs and Body Language Cues. Check out the pictures that illustrate hundreds of nonverbal communication manners.

The global battle for food, oil and water

At Davos a year ago, the business and finance crowd were still full of the joys of globalisation, while it was the people dealing with international politics who were spreading alarm and despondency. This year the roles were reversed. While the financiers are frightened, the politicians and diplomats are going through a relatively calm period. There is less bloodshed in Iraq; the chances of war between the US and Iran have receded.

The costs of food and energy are rising fast. The availability of water is also becoming an issue, from Australia to Africa. The struggle for these three basic commodities – food, energy and water – came up repeatedly in Davos.

Globalisation – in particular the rise of China and India – is driving a lot of these changes. The world oil price has risen by 80 per cent over the past 12 months and China alone has accounted for about 40 per cent of the increase in oil demand. Global food prices have gone up by about 50 per cent this year. There are short-term reasons for this, such as a drought in Australia and pig disease in China. But the biggest long-term driver of increased prices is growing wealth in China and India.

Urbanisation and industrialisation are both increasing demand for water, at a time when climate change is disrupting supply. The food, energy and water problems all touch on each other. America’s pursuit of alternatives to oil has led to massive investment in biofuels made from maize. That in turn has cut the amount of maize being used for food production and so contributed to rising food prices. The production of biofuels is also very water-intensive. Meanwhile, increased demand for agricultural land to grow more food is leading to the clearing of forest in Brazil – which could worsen global warming – leading to further stress on the world’s water supplies. The potential for political conflicts increases along with the rise in food, energy and water prices. Water shortages had helped to cause the conflict in Darfur. All of these examples are confined within national boundaries. But competition for food, water and energy could also provoke conflict between countries.

The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum was meant to be “collaborative innovation”. It is difficult to think of anything less collaborative or innovative than a new era of resource wars.

The world's greenest countries

Yale University's ranking of 149 countries according to an environmental performance index (EPI)--a weighting of carbon and sulfur emissions, water purity and conservation practices. The top five are Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Costa Rica. Although most developed nations do better, some developing countries do exceptionally good. VN and Laos make it 76 and 101 respectively. Cambodia ranks 136 with the score of 53.8, meaning it is one of the most polluted places to live.

Obituary: Indonesia’s Suharto

The lessons Cambodia could learn from Indonesia: growing and stable while corrupt and authoritarian...

Suharto, the former Indonesian strongman who died Sunday at the age of 86, was reviled as the man who brought Indonesia to its knees when his 32-year rule ended in a frenzy of violence, corruption and economic collapse.

Suharto's achievements were significant, nonetheless. Over the 30 years leading up to the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Indonesia achieved an average economic growth of 7 per cent. Suharto opened the economy to the outside world, and attracted billions in foreign. His rule – oppressive as it was – also brought a measure of harmony to a multi-ethnic society. It kept the threat of extremist Islam in check in the world's largest Muslim nation.

During his rule his six children became notorious for profiting from everything from toll roads to the issuing of driving licences. Although Suharto liberalised the economy, he never nurtured the institutional strengths needed to underpin it. Regulation of the banking sector was weak, and the country was ill-equipped to withstand the economic crisis that hastened the end of his tenure.

Suharto's legacy remains a subject of passionate debate amongst the people he ruled. He led Indonesia out of chaos and built an economic tiger out of a turbulent, multi-ethnic nation. But the rule that began in chaos also ended in chaos, aggravated by the corruption he condoned and even encouraged. In the end, he was the architect of his own demise.

Thailand warns Cambodia over Preah Vihear status

By roatha007

Thai defense ministry has warned Cambodia of possible arms conflicts if it seeks for world heritage status over Preah Vihear unilaterally. The act is a blunt threat and clearly shows that the arrogant country still attempts to control the temple nearly half a century after their defeat at the International Court. The case is an embarrassment for over-proud Thailand.

Why on earth should Cambodia needs approval from Thailand for its temple status. They have been encroaching the area almost up to the temple ladder. Ironically, they are afraid that their territory may be annexed by Cambodia if the status is approved (sic). Their border concern is just an excuse to disrupt the bidding process. Preah Vihear's status has nothing to do with Thailand. UNESCO designation has nothing to do with a country's boundary. Demarcation and marginal issues could be solved latter. Behind the scene, Thai gov't just want to flex their muscle to show that they are nationalist to compensate their shameful defeat. If the iconic, mountain-top temple is voted a world heritage site, their identity ( territory and culture) will be in question because the temple is too closed to their border. The entrance faces Thailand and is accessible only from its side. Some related temples are on Thai soil. Previously, it has voiced concern about the historical and topographical aspects of the temple: It shifted the attention to border issue instead to gain more legitimacy.

What else they want to prove or deceive the world while researchers around the globe know Thailand was originally a part of Khmer empire. It will also be a shame if the Cambodian government can't build a road to the temple from our side. It seems that we are so inferior that our historic monument doesn't deserve the status.

PS: The link to the original article on Bangkokpost's website is not available now. Maybe they deleted it to avoid serious troubles. Here is the facts from the Nation I have just found, which is a blow for the military.

http://nationmultimedia.com/2008/01/26/opinion/opinion_30063499.php

Hidden Traps in Decision Makings

In making decisions, you may be at the mercy of your mind’s strange workings. Here’s how to catch thinking traps before they become judgment disasters.
Bad decisions can often be traced back to the way the decisions were made—the alternatives were not clearly defined, the right information was not collected, the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed. But sometimes the fault lies not in the decision-making process but rather in the mind of the decision maker. The way the human brain works can sabotage the choices we make.
There are eight psychological traps that can affect the way we make business decisions. The anchoring trap leads us to give disproportionate weight to the first information we receive. The status-quo trap biases us toward maintaining the current situation—even when better alternatives exist. The sunk-cost trap inclines us to perpetuate the mistakes of the past. The confirming-evidence trap leads us to seek out information supporting an existing predilection and to discount opposing information. The framing trap occurs when we misstate a problem, undermining the entire decision-making process. The overconfidence trap makes us overestimate the accuracy of our forecasts. The prudence trap leads us to be overcautious when we make estimates about uncertain events. And the recallability trap prompts us to give undue weight to recent, dramatic events.
The best way to avoid all the traps is awareness—forewarned is forearmed. But executives can also take other simple steps to protect themselves and their organizations from these mental lapses.

Lessons from Toyota's long drive

As Toyota becomes the world’s biggest automaker, the company finds its much-heralded ways of managing for the long term to be more important than ever before.

Toyota’s way is to measure everything—even the noise that car doors make when they open and close as workers perform their final inspections on newly manufactured automobiles. By any measure, whether esoteric or mundane, Toyota Motor Corporation has become one of the most successful companies in the world today.

Toyota’s ascension is best captured by the Japanese word jojo: “slowly, gradually, and steadily.” The company is proud of the fact that its management principles are different from those taught in B-schools. Senior executives take great pleasure in explaining that other companies find it difficult to emulate Toyota because its management tools matter less than its mind-set.

A series of interviews with Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s 65-year-old president, and several executive vice presidents revealed that Toyota’s future will depend on its ability to strike the right balance—between the short term and the long term; between being a Japanese company and being a global company; between the manufacturing culture of Toyota City and the design culture of Los Angeles, where some of Toyota’s cars take shape; between the cautiousness of Toyota’s veterans, who are worried about growing too fast, and the confidence of its youngsters, who have seen only success. Toyota must also balance incremental improvements with radical reform.

Cooperation is key to helping Mekong Region

The Greater Sub-Mekong region, which also includes Cambodia, is benefiting from the prosperity,rivalry and perhaps the cooperation between Chian and Japan:

Japanese media said its gov't accelerated diplomatic and aid campaign in the Mekong River region is aimed at countering China's fast growing influence there, because China pursues a policy of "befriending, benefiting and reassuring its neighbors" and pushes for regional economic cooperation while increasing aid for the development of the region. These policies have allowed China's fast growing economy to benefit its neighbors in the Mekong River basin and helped enhance the region's prosperity and stability. China's relations with these countries have entered their best period in history. The situation has prompted some Japanese media entities to cry: "China's influence in that region has grown so much that it has surpassed Japan's."

As a matter of fact, competition and rivalry are not what the relationship between China and Japan's activities in the region is all about. There is a lot of room for the two countries to cooperate in helping the Mekong River region develop. The region faces a host of problems, including serious poverty, sorely inadequate infrastructure, environmental deterioration and a shortage of talent. It would greatly boost the region's development and stability if China and Japan joined hands to help the nations there solve these problems.

China and Japan can also help gear up the development of human resources of the Mekong River nations by channeling their rich manpower, advanced know-how and abundant material resources to the region and by improving local communities' health and sanitation standards.

Cambodian Bourse Planned for 2009

Financial Times, January 22 2008

South Korea's stock exchange and the Cambodian government have agreed to set up a stock exchange in Phnom Penh in 2009, the latest signal of the optimism sweeping the fast growing but deeply impoverished country.

Cambodia’s economy is booming, having grown an average of 9 per cent a year for the past decade, propelled by surging foreign tourist arrivals, garment exports, construction and improvements in agriculture, and Phnom Penh is today keen for all the trappings of a modern economy.

Most of the capital financing Cambodia’s rapid growth has come from external sources, including foreign aid and growing foreign direct investment. A senior World Bank official in Phnom Penh said Cambodia would increasingly need to rely on domestic savings. Local bank lending is surging. Credit to the private sector rose 60 per cent in 2007.

In spite of the rapid expansion, it is far from clear that Cambodia’s private sector, dominated by closely held family businesses, is ready to take the leap to go public. “The key issue will be to raise corporate governance standards,” the World Bank official said.

Tokyo Winter 2008

The snow comes at last! Just took a pic myself fr my freezing room on the third floor. Supposed to miss it this year. There was no snow in Tokyo last year, and snowing here is somehow rare. It had been snowing even in Kyushu, the island in the south. The geography here is not snowy-friendly. It's lucky to be able to enjoy the snow even one day; don't have to go skiing any more. Tokyorites don't like snowing, anyway. There may be snow only one day this year, just to make roads slippery!

Cambodia helped Japan save billions in war redress

Japan effectively bargained over war compensation paid to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations after World War II, using as leverage Cambodia's 1954 offer to give up its claims to redress, according to archival documents released.

In October 1954, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk communicated to Japan via a minister at the Cambodian Embassy in Japan his intent to give up the country's claims to compensation, hoping Japan in return would provide various forms of assistance.

Tokyo thanked Cambodia for the offer and told the minister Japan wanted to show this "example of a mutual offer and benefit based on trust and the spirit of friendship" to the other countries seeking huge amounts of compensation. Japan had been facing compensation demands of more than $ 10 billion from several countries, according to the diplomatic documents.

Japan team finds ancient water site in Cambodia

Japanese archaeologists said Monday they have found a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia used for rituals as far back as the first century.
"Before, it was said that Khmer civilization started from the seventh to ninth century AD, but based on our research here, Khmer civilization went back to the first century AD," said Yoshinori Yasuda, a professor of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. He said that the discovered water channel may be the world's oldest, or some 600 years older than the Tikal ruins in Guatemala in the seventh to ninth centuries.
A series of discovery by Western and Japanese researchers recently have helped promote Khmer civilzation and tourism. Still, the main actor is the Khmer themselves: People tend value only things belong to the rich and the powerful. The French first didn't believe Angkor was built by the Khmer, referring to their inferiority at that time.

The Fish Within Us

What is most surprising is not that we once lived in the sea, but that we are still evolving. "Turning a fish into a human is like turning a Beetle into a hot rod," Shubin says. "As a species, we are actually kind of jury-rigged." In his new book, "Your Inner Fish," Shubin explains how a range of medical conditions, from hiccups to heart disease, are the byproducts of our clunky evolution. "The extraordinary disconnect between our past and our human present means that our bodies fall apart in certain predictable ways," he says. "Our circulatory systems are a good example. They were designed for activity, but we now have the lifestyles of spuds."

The good news is that natural selection may yet correct some of those inefficiencies. A study published in the December Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences found that not only are humans still evolving, but we are doing so at a faster rate than ever before, with genes that affect our diets and brains leading the race. "If humans had always evolved this rapidly, the difference between us and chimps would be 160 times greater than it actually is," says the study's lead author.

The findings have turned some traditional assumptions on their heads. For decades, biologists believed that human evolution had ground to a halt about 10,000 years ago, when the dawn of agriculture and technology gave us unprecedented control over our environments and made us masters of our own destiny. But rather than slow evolution down, those advances, Harpending says, enabled humanity to hit the accelerator. With better technology, our ranks have swelled from millions to billions. This has driven us to colonize more and different regions of the globe.

Egypt Turns Desert Into Farmland

A bird's-eye view shows the farming village of Abu Minqar in Egypt. The village is one of the extreme examples of the country's plan to ''green'' its deserts and transform the barren areas that consume most of the landscape into productive farms and fields. Its existence is proof that Egypt can set up farms anywhere. "There is no desert left at all," said Mohsen Nawara, manager of South Tahrir Station, a research farm founded by the Desert Development Center (DDC) of the American University in Cairo. "It's all green now."

Why should Cambodia be listed as one of the hunger hotspots on earth then...

Polynesians Descended From Taiwanese, Other East Asians

Archaeologists, linguists, and geneticists have spent decades pondering how humans settled the Pacific islands.

The ancestors of today's Polynesians and Micronesians were probably East Asians who quickly island-hopped through Near Oceania—what is now Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands—a new genetic study suggests.

The study also reveals that Melanesian peoples (those from Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji) harbor incredible genetic diversity—evidence of tens of thousands of years of relative isolation and a series of small migrations from Asia.

The Ethics of Talking Politics at Work

The hot-button issues of politics can lead to inflamed tempers that can impede your productivity—and possibly, your progress.

Along with sex, money, and religion, politics is one of the most controversial topics of conversation that exists. Money, more than sex, is the most personal aspect of our lives, and it is the one that opens us up to the greatest potential for embarrassment. Sex, too, is still an off-limits topic for discussion at work and not merely for the legal reasons relating to sexual harassment. Neither your salary nor your sex life is anyone's business at the office. Nor, for most professional settings, are your religious beliefs.

In considering whether it is appropriate to have political discussions on the job, five fundamental ethical principles are at stake: Do No Harm ; Make Things Better; Respect Others; Be Fair; Be Loving.

Simply put, we shouldn't discuss politics in the workplace because, with very few exceptions, these discussions have nothing to do with our job and can only interfere with it. Bottom line: the very real and important need for lively, informed, and vigorous debate is best met before and after one goes to work. Everyone in the body politic will be better off if this rule is treated with the respect it deserves.

Wind Beneat My Wings- September 23, 2001

Don't mean to use it as a propaganda for Bush wars. This song is so soul-catching that it nearly makes me can't hold my tear. It reminds us of our heroes and beloved ones who had passed away and done great jobs.

Is the word Yuon really literally derogatory?

By Navy Phim

I was reading Kenneth So's article on the word Yuon. I would like to submit my piece on it to your website also. It is an excerpt from my book "Reflections of a Khmer Soul. The word Yuon, like the term ethnic cleansing, has been a topic of many discussions in my journey. Yuon is a Khmer word that means Vietnamese. It is neither derogatory nor flattering. As we call Cambodia, Srok Khmer, we also called Vietnam Srok Yuon.In "Khmer Language and the Term Yuon," Bora Touch argues:To say that "yuon" means "savages," critics of the term are likely reliant on the Khmer Rouge's definition from KR Black Book (1978) p.9, a definition that is incorrect and baseless and was included by the KR for the purpose of propaganda. Some Khmer, including Khmer Krom, believe that "yuon" actually derives from "Yuonan," the Chinese word for Vietnam. Others believe it comes from the Yaun (Khan) dynasty, against whose armies both the Khmer and Cham did battle.But in Cambodia, Yuon has somehow become a politically incorrect word that some view as derogatory.Many Cambodian-Americans and local Cambodians disagree on the meaning of the word Yuon. If I were to accept that the meaning changed due to some occurrence in Cambodia and that people outside of Cambodia were out of the loop, I would hope that the world could accept that Yuon can still be used neutrally without a supposedly derogatory connotation. But I'm not convinced that the word has changed in meaning. I think people may change it for their own agenda. Unfortunately, it can bring misunderstanding and animosity when Yuon is used in Cambodia.The new acceptable term for Yuon is Vietnam. I also saw an Internet discussion asserting that the Laotian word for Vietnamese is Yuon or Kaew. To be able to live and have the dignity to use your language without others telling you that certain words have a negative connotation is a luxury that Cambodians do not have. Excerpt from "Reflections of a Khmer Soul"http://www.navyphim.com/

Measuring Liberty

Bush wars have a trade-off: freedom. Civil and democratic rights are in retreat. Cambodia seems to move backward even though it is not the worst yet. The “worst of the worst” include Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Over the past half century, it often seemed that the advance of democracy and basic freedoms was ineluctable. First the Europeans let their colonies go. Then the Soviet empire fell, and with it the communist monopoly on power in eastern Europe. And apartheid ended in South Africa.
Recently, though, freedom's progress may have come to a halt, or even gone into reverse. That, at least, is the conclusion of Freedom House, an august American lobby group whose observations on the state of liberty are a keenly watched indicator. Its report for 2007 speaks of a “profoundly disturbing deterioration” in the global picture, with reversals seen in 38 countries—nearly four times as many as are showing any sign of improvement.

Insiders say that in years past, there was some internal debate at Freedom House over whether or not economic welfare, which affects the range of choices people can make, should be included in the calculus of liberty. But the decision has been to keep economic factors out. How much freer do people feel when they have a few roubles or yuan in their pocket (and access to other goodies like computers and compact discs)?