Commentary

Professor Lim Chong Yah's call to greatly reduce Singapore's rich/poor wage gap as a matter of national urgency, has aroused much interest - he is not only is one of the long standing prominent economists in Singapore, but also happens to be related to Mr Lee Kuan Yew by marriage thus making it natural for one to wonder whether the issue was discussed between them before being brought out in public.

Following on from Part 1, what leaders do that make them successful is to respond to the country context so that their behaviors are consistent with the values and beliefs of the prevailing culture. Leaders also need to respond to their company culture which creates expectations and norms of how they should act to help their company deliver business goals.

The New Realities

The fallout from the financial crisis has been loss of face, wealth, homes, jobs, and/or businesses for many people. What disturbs me is that the financial crisis is not the root problem, the attitudes that caused it are.

Consumers spend a large proportion of their time on their mobile devices. A study by Flurry analytics showed that in Q1 2012 daily smartphone app consumption rose to 77 minutes per day.

OVER the past 30 years, there has been increasing data to suggest that leadership has a lot more to do with inspiration and vision, rather than straightforward technical competence.

PEOPLE purchase products and services for both logical and psychological reasons. Some products and services because they make life easier for us by saving us time, effort and money.

With a declining economy coupled with rising rents and wages, businesses in Singapore are more interested than ever in increasing productivity.

Guest Blogging simply means writing and publishing a blog post on someone else’s website or blog. The opportunity to guest blog may be by an invitation from the host blogger or a request from the interested guest blogger.

How does one distinguish between a fad and a social or business transformation? And in which category should we put Facebook, Twitter and all the other web-based networks that come under the heading of social media?

In the struggle to maximise business growth, enterprises in Singapore and all over the world face the testing challenge of lowering operational costs whilst meeting ever-increasing customer expectations.

“As a universal language, sport can be a powerful medium for social and economic change: it can be utilized to bridge cultural gaps, resolve conflict and educate people in ways that very few activities can” (World Economic Forum, 2012: https://members.weforum.org/pdf/GAC/issue_descriptions/RoleofSportsinSociety.pdf).

Anyone who breathes the air of Singapore at rush hour knows that traditional working practices are not good for the environment. The car emissions from Singapore’s commuters are bad for air pollution, bad for health, and bad for the economy.

The word "scholar" has a special meaning in Singapore, different from the usual definition "person devoted to the pursuit of knowledge" - here is means "someone who received a full scholarship from a government department or major corporation to study for a degree, in return for a contractual obligation (also known as bond) to work for the sponsor for X years".

In 2012 so far, financial analysts continuously predicted when the stock markets would reach an optimal level and the magnitude of their recoveries. 

Calvino loved the term consultant. Men with vague titles were drawn to zone life. Every grifter in S.E. ASsia was some kind of consultant’. Christopher Moore , Comfort Zone, 1995. Organizations employ consultants to do things that they can’t do themselves. Or things that they, either haven’t got the time or inclination to do themselves. Consultancy covers a wide range of activities. But for the purpose of this article, let me confine it to management consultancy. The origins of management consultancy are originally Anglo-American. Even today the term ‘management consultant’ remains synonymous with these two countries. In the Beginning. The first management consultants emerged during the 1890s in the US. Their role was to help manufacturing companies raise productivity. However, in those days, they were not called management consultants but industrial engineers.