[photopress:MBA_Geely_fengyin.jpg,full,alignright]First a snappy title: Achieving the Low Cost Strategy Through the Innovation in the Product Architecture and Inter-Firm Relationship — A Study of Chinese Cars Made By Geely and its Suppliers.
Which is the way theses always sound.
Now the abstract: The purpose of this paper is to put forward the hypothesis that a transformation from closed integral architecture to quasi-open modular architecture contributes to the achievement of a low-cost competitive strategy by Chinese carmakers. Since 2006 China has become the 3rd largest player in the automobile industry in terms of production. Emerging Chinese carmakers have developed an innovative approach to product architecture so as to compete effectively with their foreign counterparts. This paper has both theoretical and empirical objectives.
The author is Wang Hua and his paper shows that China has developed its own style in making motor cars — a snazzy example in our illustration — so that it can compete on the world market where it is already the third biggest player.
The key phrase under the author’s name is Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management.
The Antai College of Economics and Management of Shanghai Jiaotong University and Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management jointly established the AEMBA (Antai Euromed Marseille MBA).
And what comes out of it are ideas — expressed in this paper is a revolutionary idea in automobile manufacture, you can read it on the Social Science Research Network — which have direct application to multi-national companies.
The students attending this course are already achievers in their own right. They have been working for a few years, possibly in one of the multi-national companies which, more and more frequently, have, because logic demands it, a presence in China. The course focusses on finance and global management. All of which sounds very modern but, in truth, has a solid history.
In 1872, the Chambre de Commerce et Industrie Marseille-Provence (CCIMP), created what is today the Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management, establishing the first (and therefore, the oldest) graduate business school in France. Euromed Marseille is one of the top ten French business school and is in the the Financial Times ranking of the top 40 best European business schools.
From the other side, Shanghai Jiaotong University — formerly the Nanyang Public School founded in 1896 — was the first Chinese University to establish a department of management science. In 2006, the department of management science was renamed the Antai College of Economics and Management (AMEC).
In 2003, the Antai—Euromed Marseille MBA (AEMBA) program was started.
Everyone who takes the course has a high command of English. About 18% are international participants and 90% are from multi-national companies.
It works by way of modular teaching, concentrating on four full days (from Thursday to Sunday or Saturday to Tuesday) each month in the delivery of one course. The program lasts for 18 months and participants take 17 courses and have a 3-month project.
When they graduate they have an MBA degree from the Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management, and a certificate issued by ACEM, Shanghai Jiaotong University.
It is an amazing example of international co-operation directed at management education. Education without frontiers.