Edinburgh Business School EBS Annual Event

The Local Ambassador ( Greece ) of the Edinburgh Business School ( EBS ) Heriot Watt University cordially invites you to our annual event :

IELTS -
Εγγυημένα αποτελέσματα

Viral ( Ιώδες) Marketing (Μαρκετινγκ)

 

Regarding Sarah Longair

Sarah Longair graduated from HWU in 2002 with a degree

in Mathematics and Finance, and is now the youngest

Operations Director at Stagecoach UK Bus.

Her chosen course was extremely relevant to her eventual

career: “the statistical maths I studied has been particularly

useful in terms of managing passenger growth.”

In her 4th year, Sarah was accepted on the Stagecoach

graduate recruitment programme and has risen swiftly to

her current position as Operations Director for the West of

Scotland. Sarah attributes much of her success to her time

at Heriot-Watt, in particular the opportunities for selfdevelopment

and a strong person-centred approach from

her tutors. She recalls: “I learnt how to conduct myself, be

self-disciplined, motivated and know when to be serious.

HWU made me grow up. I still regularly see the friends I made

during this time. We all consider ourselves to be successful

and have gone on to work for a variety of leading Scottish

companies.”

One of the things that appealed to Sarah about Stagecoach

was the innovative and progressive culture. The graduate

training programme included a wide spectrum of

experiences from marketing to engineering and of course the

opportunity to learn how to drive a bus.

After rising through the ranks, with the assistance of the

Graduate training programme, things have moved full

circle as Sarah is now a trained Assessor for their Graduate

Assessment Centre. One exciting project that Sarah is to work

on in the coming months, as part of the UK Government’s Green Travel Plan, is a tax-free travel scheme which employers

can provide to their staff.

Sarah is delighted with where her degree has taken her, and is looking forward to a bright future with one of Scotland’s

biggest transport providers.

More information about the Heriot Watt Edinburgh Business School Alumni in Greece can be found here.

Why Successful People Leave Work Early

Aimee Groth

Try this for a day: don't answer every phone call. Stop checking your email every two minutes. And leave work early. You'll be astounded at how much more you'll get done.

According to a study published in the Psychological Review conducted by Dr. K. Anders Ericcson, the key to great success is working harder in short bursts of time. Then give yourself a break before getting back to work.
The trick is staying focused. Ericsson and his team evaluated a group of musicians to find out what the "excellent" players were doing differently. They found that violinists who practiced more deliberately, say for 4 hours, accomplished more than others who slaved away for 7 hours. The best performers set goals for their practice sessions and required themselves to take breaks.

Looking at the chart, you can see that the best violin students practiced with greater intensity just before the lunch hour and then took a break before starting up again at 4 p.m. -- whereas the other students practiced more steadily throughout the entire day.

The researchers found that successful people in other professions had similar habits:
"While completing a novel, famous authors tend to write only for 4 hours during the morning, leaving the rest of the day for rest and recuperation. Hence successful authors, who can control their work habits and are motivated to optimize their productivity, limit their most important intellectual activity to a fixed daily amount when working on projects requiring long periods of time to complete."

Timothy Ferriss gives similar advice in his New York Times bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek. He stresses the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 law, which is that 80 percent of outputs come from 20 percent of inputs. So stay focused, and you'll do more in less time.

What to look for in an MBA program

An MBA program is only good as the components of the program. This means that the program must reflect current requirements and be adequately armed with a complete selection of core and elective courses. Crucial to any program is proper content and structure, elective alternatives, teaching quality and relevance to current business needs.

Faculty

The quality of any MBA program is directly related to the abilities and qualifications of the staff teaching, and supporting the program. The academic reputation of faculty and staff members, as well as their research credentials and ability to enthusiastically transfer knowledge form a foundation to the quality of any MBA program under consideration.

Culture

Each business school has a culture that is pretty well distinct from another business school. The same of course applies to the corporate world. The prospective MBA student should understand the target business school’s culture and should ensure their ability to fit in to the respective culture.

Size

The size of a particular business school may be an indication of the involvement and resources related to the business school. Large business schools have more resources at the student’s disposal but can be impersonal. Smaller business schools, intentionally or otherwise, usually allow more personal involvement but can be restrictive when it comes to resources.

Facilities

Facilities provide an important support mechanism for any studies. A business school should at least be equipped with good and relevant libraries, multimedia broadband communication systems and related media centers. Sports and recreation facilities may also be desirable.

Careers Services

An organized career service can be a strategic asset for any graduate school of business. Good career services provide proper career guidance, job matching and placement offices. Adequately staffed guidance services help graduates properly reflect and prepare for targeted job applications and interviews.

Internationalism

Business is becoming international and geographic borders are slowly melting away. Most future job seekers and workers will engage their skills in a multicultural multinational multilingual environment. Adaptation is critical for career and business success. As a result an internationally oriented business school may reflect more business reality than a business school limited to a particular location.

Accreditation

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 20th Anniversary Edition of Which MBA? 2009, “accreditation acts as an assurance that a school’s curriculum meets a minimum standard in terms of what is taught, the quality of students that are admitted, and the standard of the faculty.”
The three main accreditation bodies when it comes to MBA studies are the US AACSB International, the European EQUIS and the British AMBA. These organizations are international and a chosen MBA program should belong to a business school that adheres to the standards fostered by the above organizations.

Sources:
Bickerstaffe, George. 20th Anniversary Edition: Which MBA? 2009. London: The Economist Intelligence Unit

Edinburgh Business School MBA Graduates - Heriot Watt University

Graduates of the Heriot Watt- EBS MBA program who are residents of Greece are welcome to join the Edinburgh Business School (EBS) MBA Alumni of Greece.

Please contact us at edinpress (gmail) for further information.

Bounded Rationality and Management Decision Making

The concept and associated decision model of bounded rationality was first discussed by Herbert Simon in his celebrated book Models of Man published in 1957 by John Wiley and Sons.

Simon basically stipulates that individual decision making is not rational as assumed by a number of theories, especially dealing with economics issues. Individual decision making is limited by a number of boundary conditions such as the individual's intellectual traits, time, and non perfect information.

Non perfect information for example, can pertain to limited access to reliable information or raw information, information corruption through layered processing and/or simply lack of information.

Usually a number of models dealing with economics and the social sciences assume, for the sake of simplicity that humans on average are rational entities and have sufficient if not more than enough information to make the most rational decision. For example, the basic microeconomic concept of marginal utility rests on this basic assumption of rational choice.

Simon's theory of bounded rationality states that individuals as entities are only partially rational and behaviour as well as decision making is influenced by a number if nonrational factors including emotions, prejudices and other subjective biases (Simon, Herbert (1957). "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice", in Models of Man, Social and Rational: Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting. New York: Wiley).

When applied to management decisions, managers, usually because of time constraints, lack of information, and cognitive factors usually make numerous daily decisions and seek to make the best possible decision considering the circumstances, rather than the optimal decision; the optimal decision would be the most rational decision under perfect circumstances. Perfect circumstances include perfect information.


This also implies that a particular manager faced with the same challenge but at different time may make a different decision at that time.

So instead of employing purely rational problem optimization techniques, mainly because of the complexity of the situation, cost/time and cognitive limitations, managers will opt for a heuristic approach to problem solving (such as trial and error, best or educated guesses, and past experiences) to come up with the best decision possible which may or may not approach an optimal decision, if such exists.

Bounded Rationality Explained Through an Example

The concept of bounded rationality can be illustrated by a simple purchasing example:
John wishes to buy a new and expensive stereo system. John, in trying to decide on a particular brand consults with a number of friends, relatives as well as trade journals. John decides to purchase ReasonableStereo. While at the store, the saleswoman, Janet, explains and proves to John that he can do much better with his budget if he goes for OptimalStereo. OptimalStereo gives better value for money with respect to cost, performance and fidelity, design, warranties as well as style.
John nevertheless, even if he would receive more value for his money with OptimalStereo, OptimalStereo being the rational choice, opts for ReasonableStereo.