Networking

This is an 'everyday' term in today's business world. I just completed a subject entitled 'Network Theory', and everything in the academic context seemed fairly logical... however, I am surprised that such basic approach is still lacking in the business world. Companies are still guarding tightly their respective corporate boundaries, and cooperations are fairly surface in nature. Trust is a big barrier to deeper cooperation, mindset of the management could be another.

Recently I was asked to provide some suggestions of how my University can have cooperation with its counterparts in China apart from exchanging students for a semester. In my mind, there are countless possibilities to cooperate especially from neutral organizations like universities!

Kajaani is the sister or friendship city of Jiujiang (Jiangxi province), and our university is partner university with at least 4 academic institutions in China... apart from student exchange, we could arrange other simple activities like staff exchange, web lectues, web courses to strenthen the relationship.

In addition, we can also extend the cooperation to the city, provincial and regional level where the academic institutions can bridge research efforts for our local businesses - market research, technolocical competencies and like.  The Finnish academia has lots to offer in the technological aspect, whilst the Chinese partners would add value to our businesses by way of market research, consumer knowledge, etc. If each Finnish university or regional cluster could strengthen their relationship through such aspect, then within Finland, we could build a knowledge rich network that can help each other to enhance our contacts into Chinese market... it would be a 'win win situation'!