Here is a roundup of the most relevant and interesting international news of the week:
Eurozone outlooks still diverging –BBC
Four reasons why the euro will survive – Fortune Magazine
Where creators are welcome -The Economist
China Cuts Lending and Its Economic Growth Slows -The New York Times
Here is a roundup of the most relevant international news of the week:
BP to Pursue Sale of TNK-BP Stake BBC
London’s Extreme Olympic Makeover Fortune Magazine
Teetering on the Edge The Economist
China Lets Its Currency Depreciate The New York Times
Greetings from Nanjing! It’s a pleasure to be reporting from China, while I am studying abroad here.
It didn’t take too long to adjust to the new environment upon arrival in China, but this is likely because I have had some instruction in Mandarin back in the States and and travel experience from my study abroad in Italy. However, I noticed that a few of my program-mates have gone through periods of culture shock and homesickness, which is completely understandable (as China’s culture is in some respects quite different than that of the United States).
One thing that I did have to get accustomed to was to be constantly alert when crossing busy streets. There is a constant flow of motorists and a lack of traffic lights in Nanjing, and motorists aren’t afraid to honk at you if you are perceived as “being in the way”. I don’t know how many times an overzealous motorist has attempted to run me over even though I had the right of way.
Another topic of note is that the Chinese perception of politeness differs from that in America. We are used to saying ‘please’ (qǐng) and ‘thank you’ (xièxie) for daily interactions. In China, these phrases are often reserved for times when very strong displays of politeness and emotion are required. Saying “thank you” to a cashier when you are getting your change may sometimes result in a strange look from the opposite end – somewhere between a look of disbelief and a look of discomfort. (In China, the common outlook is that customers “give” their patronage and money to a store, so there is no need for the customer to say thank you in such transactions.)
Likewise, the term ‘sorry (duìbuqǐ)’ is usually also reserved for extremely impolite situations. Thus, if someone bumps into you on a crowded subway (and this is bound to happen every time one takes the subway), one learns that an apology from the offending party is a rare occurrence indeed.
Nonetheless, China is changing everyday. In particular, the youth generation in China is picking up more western habits, and starting to incorporate more polite colloquialisms into daily speech. Thus, if inclined to do so, one should feel free to use qǐng, xièxie, and duìbuqǐ.
Anyway, these cultural differences allow one to gain perspective whilst being in a new land and do not hold one back from the study abroad experience. There are seemingly countless sights, eats, and experiences available in China. I’ll update with more cultural tidbits and interesting places to visit in China within the next few weeks or so. I hope you’ll look forward to my column!
Until then – zai4jian4 (再見)!
Johnson is currently studying Chinese at Nanjing University through CSI’s intensive Chinese language program. His studies are generously funded by the CV Starr fellowship. He is pleased to serve as WCIB’s first overseas Foreign Affairs Correspondent.
Here’s this week’s roundup of the most newsworthy and interesting international business stories:
Viewpoint: Africa Must Do More to Profit from China — BBC
What the Chinese Want — The Wall Street Journal
Brazil’s Economy: A Bull Diminished — The Economist
In Spain, Bank Transfers Reflect Broader Fears — The New York Times
Our trip to the Rubin Museum a couple of months ago inspired us to go beyond just the museum itself and look at how Tibetan art and culture inspired Baruch students working in new media and the faculty fellowship fostered by Dr. Stan Altman.
You don’t have to fly all the way to Tibet to get a taste of the culture. There are many places right here in New York City to sample some of the rich culture. Check out some of these Tibetan cultural institutions:
Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art
Louise Klusek, Head of Reference at the Newman Library talks to us about her role in the development of the International Business Guide and how Baruch students and professionals are benefiting from it.
The International Business Guide is part of a collection of over 100 guides that the librarians at Baruch have developed for student research. It is one of seven guides that cover international business topics. It is best to think about the guides as research portals that bring together in one place all the library databases and some important web resources to help with international business research assignments.
Where did the idea come from?
The idea for the guides came from my work with several professors and their international business students. I often have particular classes and assignments in mind when I think about putting together a new guide. So for example, I built the International Business Guide to support Professor Grein’s classes; the International Trade Guide around an assignment for Professor Wymbs’ classes; the Multinational Finance Guide for Professor Gardberg; the Emerging Markets Guide for Professor Hunter, and the International Companies Guide for Professor LaManna’s BPL5100 classes.
When I visit classes to talk about research, I want students to think about making strategic choices about the best research process to follow and the best research resources to use for their assignments. At Baruch, we are fortunate to have many of the same databases that I used when I was a corporate librarian at Salomon Smith Barney. These are the same databases that our students will find on their desktops when they get a job on Wall Street.
The Library has been publishing guides for about four years now. We started by creating guides that would answer some of the common questions students asked us at the reference desk. These were things like: How do I research a company? How do I do a SWOT analysis? How do I cite my sources correctly? We also partnered with faculty and created guides for specific assignments. These course guides usually indicate how to find books and articles and how to cite sources.
What type of planning goes into the guides?
Typically I start by thinking about what type of resources students will need for their research assignments. Sometimes I work with a specific assignment in mind but not always. It is easy for me to decide which databases to feature but I also have to decide which Web sources should be included. Many international organizations, such as the OECD, IMF, United Nations and the World Bank have valuable databases and report series that are hard to find on the web. The guides are a great place to feature these resources.
After I decide which sources to include, I try to arrange them in logical categories. So, for example, because the International Business Guide helps students evaluate the investment climate and business conditions of countries, I used these categories: economics, labor, politics and law, society and culture, technology and trade.
I spend some time writing up the “Getting Started” page so students will know what to expect from the guide. Then I write the database descriptions and design the pages of the guide. I always rank the database lists rather than put them in alphabetical order because I know students tend to click into the first item on a list.
Another thing I ask myself is how much instruction and support needs to be added to the guide. Databases with unfamiliar search interfaces might need a link to the database’s “Help” page.
Why do the guide? To build information competency skills or for anyone doing research?
Both. It is hard for librarians to personally reach out to our students and the guides are one way we can make contact in an online environment in which students feel comfortable. The guides are available 24/7 and from on campus or off. They are structured so that they can be used for many types of research projects and are used in a wide range of classes: marketing, management, finance, international business and even in sociology.
How do you measure the effectiveness/impact of a guide?
We track usage with monthly statistical reports so we can see how often students connect to any one of our guides. The International Business Guide gets over 100 hits each month. One of our most popular guides on Industry Research gets over 250 hits a month. We also get reports from our database publishers that let us know how often the databases are used, how long user sessions last, and which reports from a particular database are downloaded most often.
I also see the impact of the guides when I get e-mails from students.
How do you prepare students to do effective research?
The first step is to encourage them to move beyond Google. Simple exposure to the power of databases like Factiva for international business news works. Students quickly recognize the value of the respected information sources such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times that they can access from these databases. We also want to expose them to specialized resources, like ISI Emerging Markets, that they might not know exist.