Conference of University Rectors in Ireland : University Collaboration Business Management Marketing

Business - Management - Marketing

Universities Involved	University College Dublin University of Ulster
Department(s)	Department of Management
Other Universities	Keele University
Project Title / Description	Analysis of Irish and Northern Irish data on Human Resource Development jobs has been carried out as a collaborative exercise between UCD and Ulster University. Funding came from respective Universities and two conference papers have been published.
Contacts	Department of Industrial Relations Tel + 353 1 706 8975/8007 Dorien_g@blackrock.ucd.ie	Dr Marie McHugh Tel 04890 368844/366868 ml.mchugh@ulst.ac.uk	Mr John Thompson Tel 04890 368149 JeThompson@ulst.ac.uk
Business Involvement	Mr John Hynes, Dept of Social Community and Family Affairs. Tel + 353 1 874844/7043574 Mr Tom Wilson, Social Security Agency. Tel 04890 524946

Universities Involved	All Universities in Ireland (North & South)
Department(s)	Department of Management
Project Title / Description	Irish Academy of Management Dr Leo Smyth organised the inaugural IAM conference in NUI Galway in September 1998. Prof. Paul Jeffcut, QUB, is a fellow member with Dr Leo Smyth, Dept of management, NUI Galway of the council of IAM.
Contacts	Prof. Paul Jeffcut Tel 04890 273112 pjeffcut@qub.ac.uk	Dr Wendy Richards Tel + 44 1782 583607 ida18@hrm.keele.ac.uk

Universities Involved	University of Limerick University of Ulster, Magee
Department(s)	Human Resources Management
Other Universities	Cranfield School of Management
Project Title / Description	HRM Practices in Organisations The University of Limerick coordinates the Irish node in the CANET Project: An international study of HRM practices in twenty five counties and based in linkages with leading universities/ business schools in each country. The project is co-ordinated by Cranfield School of Management, UK. The involvement of the University of Ulster will allow the study to include Northern Ireland and will lead to the creation of a database of HRM practises in some 750 organisations
Contacts	Prof. P Gunnigle Tel + 353 61 202637/338171 Patrick.gunnigle@ul.ie	Dr Terry Cradden Tel 04890 371371 t.cradden@ulst.ac.uk	Prof. C Brewster Tel + 44 1234 751122/806 c.Brewster@cranfield.ac.uk
Business Involvement	Based on survey of business organisations.
Development Potential	Yes. This joint project provides the most comprehensive database in management/HRM practises in Ireland. It has immense potential to inform public policy, provide data in business needs and develop knowledge in the field.

Universities Involved	University College Dublin University of Ulster
Department(s)	Dept of Industrial Relations & Human Resources Management.
Project Title / Description	Promoting individual lifelong learning to cope with the challenge of organisational change. Major cuts in the government spending and everincreasing demands for enhanced efficiency, effectiveness and service quality have impacted upon public sector organisations throughout Europe. Such environmental hostility and turbulence have forced these organisations to embark upon programmes of strategic change. This project is concerned with the climate of constant change that characterises the social insurance systems in Sweden, Northern Ireland, Belgium and Ireland, and how this has impacted upon its employees. The structure of the project has been such that the overarching aim at the transnational level has been to promote individual lifelong learning to help individuals cope with the challenge of change. At the regional level this has been operationalised by the university partners working in close association with the organisations on issues that complement the LEONARDO project, but which are central to developments taking place within the organisations. The Irish project has focussed on the Gardiner Street and Tallaght Social Welfare Offices. There has been close liaison between this project and the Strategic Management Initiative within the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. In Northern Ireland the Ulster Business School has worked in collaboration with the Social Security Agency. The project has involved the identification of individual and organisational learning needs in the different countries. It has also involved the development of methods and provision of opportunities that aim to satisfy these needs. To assist in the evaluation of possible methods, an exchange programme has taken place that involved a number of employees from each country visiting the other three countries for two weeks.
Contacts	Dr Marie McHugh (Ulster Business School, UU) Tel 04890 368844 Fax 04890 366868 ml.mchugh@ulst.ac.uk
Business Involvement	Mr John Hynes, DG, Dept of Social Community & Family Affairs. Tel + 353 1 874844 , Fax + 353 1 7043574 Mr Tom Wilson, Social Security Agency. Tel 04890 524946
Development Potential	Extension of the collaboration is being discussed to look at management development within public sector (social welfare) organisation.

Universities Involved	University College Dublin University of Ulster
Department(s)	Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management
Project Title / Description	Developing the Developer an exploration of the role of the HRD professional. Early in the 1990s it was felt that research was needed on the content of human resource development (HRD) jobs in Europe. In the USA such studies had been initiated in the early 1980s and culminated in the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Models for excellence and Models for HRD practice. In 1993 the University of Twente (Netherlands) coordinated a panEuropean study of HRD professional in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Britain. The survey instrument was based on the ASTD Models for HRD Practice. Analysis of the Irish and Northern Irish data has been carried out as a collaborative exercise between UCD and Ulster University. Two conference papers have been presented and an article in currently in the referee process.
The objectives of the study are	To give an insight into the American Society for Training and Development's Models for HRD. In the context of the Models, to profile the Irish and Northern Irish HRD professional. To compare the Irish and Northern Irish results with those of other European countries and then compare the overall European studies with the US models. In the light of the research findings, to encourage debate about HRD practices and the development of the HRD professional. Funding came from the respective Universities. It is expected that the project will conclude in twelve months time.
Outputs	O'Brien, GA and Thompson, JE (1997): 'Developing the Developer: An Exploration of the role of the HRD professional in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland', paper presented at the Second Conference on Management Research in Ireland, in DCU, Dublin. O'Brien, GA (1998): 'Developing the Developer: An Exploration of the role of the HRD professional in the Republic of Ireland' paper presented at the 27th International Federation of Training and Development Organisations World Conference, Dublin; Trinity College. O'Brien, GA and Thompson, JE (1997): 'Developing the Developer: An Exploration of the role of the HRD professional in the Republic of Ireland', International Journal of Training and Development.
Contacts	Mr John Thompson, Ulster University Tel 04890 368149 JE.Thompson@uslt.ac.uk

Universities Involved	Dublin City University University of Ulster, Coleraine
Department(s)	Business School
Other Universities	University of Oxford University of Edinburgh London Business School UMIST University of Exeter
Project Title / Description	The project involves Dr Turley attending the premier US consumer research conference to recruit three top US Consumer researchers to spend two weeks visiting a number of Irish/UK campuses. Funding is done by each university, with each contributing to travel and hospitality expenses. The overall itinerary is managed from Dublin City University Business School. The outcome of this thus far has meant a number of practical benefits. One of the first US visitors Dr David Mick of the University of Wisconsin, Madison; returned as a visiting professor of Marketing as DCU/BS in 1998. Prof. Tom O'Guinn, University of Illinois at Champaign, a visitor in the spring of 1999; returned as a visiting professor for the Autumn semester of that year. Each of the visiting US academic together with the host academics contributed a chapter to a book coedited by Dr Turley, DCUBS and Prof. Brown of the UU. This book was published by Routledge in 1998. The host academic at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Stephanie O'Donohoe, has become a coauthor with Dr Turley for a number of book chapters and conference proceedings.
Contacts	Dr Darach Turley, DCU Tel + 353 1 7045103 darach.turley@dcu.ie	Prof. Stephen Brown UU, Coleraine Tel 04870 324166 sfx.brown@ulst.ac.uk

Universities Involved	University College Cork Queen's University Belfast
Department(s)	Department of Management & Marketing
Project Title / Description	Management and the Cultural Industries Research Network. In late 1997, discussions with Prof. Paul Jeffcutt in Queen's prompted a plan to develop a research network to enhance and extend innovative work in the theory and practice of Management through the building of interdisciplinary linkages between researchers who are working on Cultural Industries (where the primary purpose is the shaping of expressive 'goods' e.g. in the areas of film, music, theatre, art and publishing) and also through focusing on key contemporary questions for organisation and management. The objective was that the research network would cover Ireland and the UK and would build on an existing Britishbased research network with similar interests (formed in 1997). The network aimed to concentrate on extending and enhancing research linkages between centres with established strengths in this work across the island of Ireland. This would take place through the establishment of an interactive website for the development of collaborative activity and a series of workshops on key research areas, followed by the integration and dissemination of this work through a published collection of papers. The Royal Irish Academy provided £500 'seed capital' in February 1999, which was used to partfund a Management and Cultural Industries workshop help in QUB on 12 November 1999 as part of the Belfast Festival. The workshop attracted 60 participants from the UK and Ireland, including senior representatives from a range of creative industries, development agencies and university research units. The plan is to extend this network and to develop further activities e.g. focused research projects, workshops, seminars, websites, etc.
Contacts	Dr Donncha Kavanagh, UCC Tel + 353 21 902242 Fax + 353 21 903377 d.kavanagh@ucc.ie	Prof. Paul Jeffcutt, QUB Tel + 44 1232 273112 Fax + 028 9032 8649 p.jeffcutt@qub.ac.uk
Development Potential	Yes. In particular, it is hoped to formulate a multinational study of the nature of managerial work in sectors like arts, heritage, film, culture, where management has heretofore received scant attention. The research question is essentially about the nature of managerial work and how the entity of 'the manager' is constituted in these settings, and how this differs from our more conventional understandings. In addition, we hope to investigate the translation of concepts as managerialism is imported into these settings. This study would shed light not only on the management of the 'cultural industry', but also on other arenas such as knowledgeintensive organisations, for instance, which could be seen as quite similar to organisations in the cultural industry.

Universities Involved

University of Ulster

Dublin City University

National Distance Education Centre

Department(s)

Information Systems

The Office of the Pro Vice Chancellor

Project Title / Description

Interreg North South all Ireland Business Degree.

This was a joint effort between the University of Ulster, the National Distance Education Centre and the Dublin City University, Business School.

The project started in 1996 and was awarded 250,000 ECUs. This money has been received and the project is now self funding.

The money was used to develop a post graduate course entitled the Management of Operations, through distance education. The first intake of students was in Oct 1997, and the first graduate was in March 2000. The degree is awarded by Dublin City University.

The initial contact for this project was through Professor Wallace Ewart, as he was already involved in other work at NDEC. Professor Ewart continues his involvement with NDEC, as he is the subject leader on a different post graduate programme, the management and applications of IT in Accounting.

Contacts

Anne Morrissey, DCU

Tel + 353 1 700 5480

Fax + 353 1 700 5740

anne.morrissey@dcu.ie

Prof. Wallace Ewart, UU

Tel 04890 267330

rw.ewart@ulst.co.uk

Prof. Brian Leavy, DCU

Tel + 353 1 700 5252

brian.leavy@dcu.ie