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This event took place on 4th October 2006
Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Ideas and practices travel but they don't always travel well. In the world of business people often talk about knowledge transfer as if knowledge were a thing which can be lifted out of one context and placed in another. However, as ideas and practices travel from one context to another they require translation and are often corrupted.
In this lecture Mark Fenton-O'Creevy will look at three contexts in which ideas and practices travel.
His lecture will look first at the travel of ideas across national boundaries and will draw on research into the translation of management ideas between countries with different cultures and different social and economic institutions. Many argue that globalization has brought about a cross-national convergence of management practices. However, while capitalism has become a dominant economic mode around the world, it is practiced in many different forms. Drawing on research in this area he will argue that the extent of convergence is often overstated.
The second area he will consider is the translation between academic practice and workplace practice. Using examples from research on the role of traders in investment banks and from his period as Director of the centre for Practice Based Professional Learning, he will argue that Higher Education needs less focus on knowledge acquisition and a much greater focus on enabling students to learn the skills of translating ideas into new contexts.
Finally the lecture will touch on the travel of management ideas and practices from the private sector to the public sector. Using examples from higher education he will argue that, while such ideas may on occasion translate successfully, they are often either corrupted as they are bent to serve the status quo or are adopted for mainly rhetorical purposes. |
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 Click below to play the event (60 minutes) |
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