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Welcome ....
to your May newsletter, featuring the latest news from The Open University Business School (OUBS)
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Jacqueline is part of the OU / BBC Ideas playlist awards success
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Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management Jacqueline Baxter’s short three-minute video on The power of quiet leadership has been viewed more than 132,000 times since its release in January. It is part of the OU/BBC Ideas playlist which has earned the distinction of Webby Honoree in Video: Science & Education from The Webby Awards, the leading international awards honouring excellence on the internet. This significant achievement, recognised by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, is granted to only the top 20% of the nearly 13,500 projects entered in the 25th Annual Webby Awards.
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Mark teams up with MoneySuperMarket for ‘financial shocks’ survey
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Professor of Organisational Behaviour Mark Fenton-O’Creevy has supported a national survey by MoneySuperMarket to shine a spotlight on the financial shocks that can cause us the most stress. According to the findings, thinking about our finances is enough to make more than half (52%) of us feel anxious, while two in five people (39%) say having a discussion about financial matters can make their heart rate quicken. Also, 29% reported constantly checking their banking app out of anxiety, as a result of their financial situation, was something they had experienced. In addition, 29% also said they had regularly worried about their job security. Articles appeared in The Independent and numerous local, regional and international news outlets and Mark is currently working on a research publication drawing on further analysis of the survey data.
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Alessandro named among the most talented young professors
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Senior Lecturer in Management Alessandro Sancino has been named as one of the best 40 under-40 business school professors by the prestigious Poets&Quants. Now in its ninth year, this identifies the most talented young professors currently teaching in MBA programmes around the world. Also an Associate Professor at the University of Milan-Bicocca, he is in illustrious company with others from the likes of Harvard, Yale and Columbia. Alessandro’s balance of a strong research background and classroom effectiveness meant he was one of the most nominated professors and most impactful researchers, with more than three dozen nominations and nearly 1,200 Google Scholar citations. Read the full story here.
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New-look research centre holds its first event on child labour
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Our Centre for Public Understanding of Finance, Institutions and Networks (PUFIN) has relaunched with an inaugural event focused on Lecturer in Accounting Cristiana Bernardi’s research on child labour within the context of the chocolate industry. Her co-presenter was Professor John Dumay from Macquarie University in Australia with the seminar introduced by Centre Director Professor Ali Ataullah. It attracted nearly 50 participants including charities working on issues related to child labour. Future events will discuss a variety of social issues relating to finance, institutions and networks, together with charities and industry. Check out PUFIN’s free learning resources online including Managing Money for Young Adults, MoneySavingExpert’s Academy of Money and Retirement Planning Made Easy.
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More from our research centres
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Two more of our research centres, the Centre for Policing Research and Learning (CPRL) and the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership (CVSL), recently hosted their annual conferences online. Please visit their websites to find out more.
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Björn and Henry continue to bring you The Bottom Line
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A new nine-part series of the OU/BBC collaboration The Bottom Line starts on Radio 4 this week (Thursday 27 May). Dr Björn Claes (Senior Lecturer in Operations Management) and Dr Henry Lahr (Senior Lecturer in Finance) remain as the OUBS academic consultants for the series which is again presented by OU honorary graduate Evan Davis (pictured). It is looking at the business world post-pandemic, covering a variety of topics with top business leaders from Britain and around the world. Broadcast at 20:30 every Thursday and repeated on Saturdays at 17:30, the podcast is available on the Radio 4 website following transmission with more content via OpenLearn.
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Layla talks about ‘resetting trust in work’
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OUBS’ Research into Employment, Empowerment and Future (REEF) academic centre of excellence is a brand partner with The People Space throughout 2021. Each month, a REEF-affiliated academic is providing their thought leadership on ‘The Great Work Reset’ series. In the latest Resetting Trust in Work article, Dr Layla Branicki, a Senior Lecturer in HR Management and Organisation Studies, says that a crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic tends to hold a mirror up to organisational ethics and responsibilities.
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Becoming a modern mindful, adaptable and productive manager
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OUBS’ latest skills-based microcredential (short course), Business Management: Improving Organisational Practice, is aimed at aspirational junior or middle managers keen to learn about organisational practice and how to improve it. As well as providing a fundamental overview of how organisations work, the course will also prepare learners to rise to the challenges of managing in evolving socio-political, economic and environmental contexts, and to be adaptable. The latest addition to the undergraduate level Business Management suite is being led by Dr Nela Smolovic Jones, a Lecturer in Organisation Studies, and hosted on the OU’s social learning partner platform FutureLearn. It is now open for enrolment with the 10-week course starting on Monday 12 July. More information, including how to register, is available here and you can also view the OU’s rapidly growing range of courses here.
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New OpenLearn course on data-driven organisational change
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A new course which explores how to use data to inform a change within a business or organisational context has launched on OU digital learning platform OpenLearn. ‘Using data to aid organisational change’ is authored by Dr Jacqueline Baxter (Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management) and Dr Sanjay Gandhi (Teaching Fellow). The 10-hour, level two course looks at the type of evidence to gather to inform the proposed change, and how to evaluate data with a view to using it as part of this transformation.
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Helping you to do business in China
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The OU’s Chinese Business Culture Essentials online short course goes beyond the ‘dos and don’ts’, exploring the core Chinese values that permeate through Chinese society and business settings. The course is made up of four units, with each unit expected to take five to eight hours to study with interactive activities. In total, you will need around 36 hours to complete. It will be open for 16 weeks from the start date to allow you to complete at your own pace. It has three start dates in a year and registration closes on Thursday 17 June for the next one on 26 June. Please visit here to find out more and to register, and you can also browse some sample materials free on OpenLearn here.
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Week-long festival was made for learning
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OUBS is a proud supporter of the biggest festival of workplace learning in the UK known as Learning at Work Week. This support is part of Executive Education’s partnership with a national not-for-profit organisation that promotes lifelong learning – Campaign for Learning has organised this annual awareness campaign every May since 1999. A webpage was created to showcase a number of free resources related to this year’s theme of ‘Made for Learning’ which ran all last week (17-23 May).
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Check out the ‘Brain for Business, Brain for Life’ podcast
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A podcast aims to take the lessons from evidence-based academic research, particularly involving the brain and behavioural sciences, and translate them in a way that is accessible for leaders and organisations. Brain for Business, Brain for Life, which started in 2020, is hosted by Associate Lecturer Laurence Knell. The podcast is available on a number of popular platforms such as iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts.
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We are immensely proud of our alumni community and this space is an opportunity to share some of your news, a personal achievement or a promotion, so please get in touch.
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MBA alumna Maria has a great story to tell
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You can read a profile of MBA alumna Maria Chenoweth, who graduated in 2019, here. She leads vital work in promoting more environmentally sustainable clothes production and securing fair and safe treatment of garment workers as the Chief Executive of the innovative textile reuse charity TRAID. Maria and Grace Blakeley are new high-profile research fellows who are strengthening the OU’s engagement with global economics and environmentalism – more here.
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Final career webinar to help make a positive impression online
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The final one in a series of free lunchtime webinars exclusively for our alumni is on Thursday 17 June (13:00 – 14:00). ‘Don’t just turn up – making a positive impression online’ will help to maximise your online presence and create a memorable and distinctive impact, no matter the context you find yourself in. Presenter Janie Van Hool spent 12 years working as an actress in theatre, film, TV and voiceover, both in the UK and internationally, after graduating from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) before entering the corporate world where she has worked with numerous high-profile clients. Further details on the event, the speaker and to register here.
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We have a range of exclusive offers for our OUBS alumni. Click the buttons to find out more. Remember, you can access our career webinar recordings on our website along with a whole range of online careers articles.
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Best wishes
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OUBS Alumni Engagement Team
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The Open University (OU) Business School’s Stakeholder and Alumni Engagement team works with the OU’s Development Office to keep in touch with alumni, partners and supporters. Our privacy policy sets out how the OU obtains, manages, uses and protects your data and relates specifically to information held by both Offices.
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