The Horizon of Reason

The rat race

Peter Prevos — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:49:18 +0000

After several months of essay writing I finally have some time to reflect. I do enjoy studying the MBA, but sometimes it does makes me wonder why I do this. When I studied philosophy I decided to put my career on hold. Now that I am finishing this MBA I feel like I need to [...]

Sometimes mystery is more important than knowledge

Peter Prevos — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:17:45 +0000

I have recently been introduced to ted.com, a great website that features “riveting talks by remarkable people”. One of the talks that I found very interesting is by J.J. Abrams, one of the creators of the TV series Lost. One of the most thought provoking things he says is that “Sometimes mystery is more important than [...]

Vietnamese selfishness

Peter Prevos — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:03:05 +0000

Asian cultures are usually characterised as being collective in nature. This basically means that people prioritise the objectives of a group over their own individual objectives Sitting on a fifth floor café in Hanoi, sipping a Bia Ha Noi and watching the traffic, I would almost contradict that age old wisdom about collective cultures. As [...]

Is Management a science?

Peter Prevos — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:57:43 +0000

On the train from Hanoi to Sapa I shared a cabin with two English women. One was completing her PhD studies in corporate social responsibility and lamented the amount of work it takes to promote. One professor of the Graduate School of Management of La Trobe university once tried to convice some students to continue with [...]

A night out with the Vietnamese students

Peter Prevos — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:39:48 +0000

The expedition is now in full swing and we have spoken to several organisations and met some very interesting people in different organisations around Hanoi. Yesterday we visited our fellow MBA students at Hanoi University who were attending a lecture about Frederick Taylor (this links to an essay I wrote last year). Taylor is the founder of [...]

The Vietnamese Way

Peter Prevos — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:36:07 +0000

Our researc topic for our expedition to Vietnam is Human Resource Management. As we are narrowing the topic down we found that local managers and academics are very interested in human resource management theories that are based in Western thinking. They indicated that there is no Vietnamese human resource management theory and that they translate foreign [...]

The Rings of Hanoi

Peter Prevos — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:00:05 +0000

Strolling along the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi we met a group of Vietnamese students who were interviewing foreigners to practice their English as part of a university assignment. They asked us about our experiences with being in a different culture. After the interview I performed some magic for them.

Networking

Peter Prevos — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:43:01 +0000

Last night the Graduate School hosted a dinner for all students on the expedition and we met some staff from Hanoi university and some businesses in Hanoi that are participating in the research projects. We met somebody from a large company in Vietnam who is doint research on human resource management. Somehow the conversation moved to [...]

First day of the Tour of Duty

Peter Prevos — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:22:51 +0000

We arrived in Hanoi yesterday afternoon and it feels great to be back in Asia after so many years. In a manner, Vietnam is a mythical place in contemporary culture. It is the place where the Vietnam War took place and the sage of many great products of contemporary culture, such as Full Metal Jacket, [...]

Hanoi expedition

Peter Prevos — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:21:55 +0000

Yesterday I left Australia to join a group of MBA students from La Trobe University on an expedition to Hanoi. The purpose of this trip is to find out about how Vietnamese managers deal with human resource issues. I am in Singapore now, waiting around between flights. Singapore is my home away from home in Asia. [...]