【Student】NSYSU students’ teams win 3 prizes for CSR proposals during the 8th PwC Taiwan Camping for Good
Students of NSYSU participated in the 8th PwC Taiwan Camping for Good, during which, in groups, they submitted CSR project promotion and execution proposals for three corporations: Cathay Financial Holdings, Chunghwa Telecom, and International CSRC Investment Holdings (CSRC). Three teams of NSYSU students joined competitions of the event and made the University the biggest winner of the contest, with three prizes for the best CSR project and one eloquence award.
In the CSR project proposal competition, five students of the NSYSU Department of Business Management: Hao Liou, Hsiang-Mei Li, Yu-Chiao Fu, Yi-Chen Wei, and Wo-Hua Lin submitted an image promotion proposal for Cathay Life Insurance that involves reducing carbon emissions by going paperless, showing a way to reduce carbon emissions in the long term. The team found out that the main focus of the target customers of Cathay Life was to save money and not to directly engage in actions for carbon emissions reduction, and thus, came up with a way to make customers save money by reducing the company’s carbon footprint. They applied the concept of review and readjustment of the company's internal and external affairs they learned in class and designed an internal training program, vegetarian food days, and educational vlogs to first raise the awareness of environmental problems among the employees and then, extend the knowledge to their customers. The team also suggested regular sharing of data on electricity savings with the employees and designed a plan to encourage external customers to contribute by joining the electricity-saving refund plan. The customers apply for monthly electronic receipts from Taiwan Power Company; if they succeed in saving electricity, they can log in to the official website of Cathay Life and participate in an interactive game to learn about carbon emissions labels, the related environmental policy of Cathay Life, collect points and get an electricity bill discount. The team engaged in a week of brainstorm on the project, identified problems, and drew up solutions. They found out that it is vital to connect the solutions to customers’ needs and draw up a personalized plan to more effectively promote their idea. The team put their efforts in drawing up a concrete plan in line with customers’ needs, which gained great acknowledgment, and won the first prize and the eloquence award.
The team of the College of Management competing for the Chunghwa Telecom CSR project proposal was formed by students of the second year of the master program of the Institute of Marketing Communications: Bing-Yu Tsai, Chang-Cheng Tu, Yu-Chien Duh, I-Hao Chang, and Jui-Chu Liu, who believe that sustainable development will be the key trend in the future. The mission of the team was to attain the 11th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): Sustainable Cities and Communities by using such technologies as 5G, Internet of Things, and AI to assist vulnerable groups, such as the hearing or vision impaired or the illiterate, in finding information on medical treatment via a mobile application, combining smart scheduling with AR speech-based navigation. Based on the technologies of AI and the Internet of Things, the application provides information on the fastest arrangements for medical treatment for target groups of patients to smoothly reach the right clinic. The team said that their proposal aimed at creating a safer, friendlier, and more equal public space, applying real data analysis to increase its reliability and feasibility; their team’s work won the first prize for the CSR project for Chunghwa Telecom.
The cross-university and interdepartmental team working on the CSR proposal for CSRC Group included NSYSU students: Yu-Xiu Lin and You-Fong Wu of the Institute of Human Resource Management, Yi-Chen Wu of the Department of Business Management, student of the Institute of Business and Management at National Chiao Tung University Yu-Hung Cheng, and student of the Department of Accountancy and Graduate Institute of Finance at National Cheng Kung University Yan-Ruei Pan. The team had to reverse the environmentally-unfriendly image of CSRC Group, which produces carbon black products, and to promote the practice of circular economy in daily life. The team chose to combine carbon emissions reduction with 3D printing in industry-academia cooperation; they arranged a workshop on campus conducted by a collaborating printing contractor and formed a positive image of carbon black raw material by CSRC for use in 3D printing and promoted the model of circular economy during the event. Inspired by 3D printed art installations made of recycled plastic in overseas countries, the team invited artists to use raw carbon black to create 3D printed art, stage props for theatrical performances, and promoted the positive image of carbon black material in art and lifestyle. In their proposal, the team included stakeholders’ evaluation and ESG performance evaluation, hoping to reach the goals indicated in the SDG: cities’ sustainability, climate initiative, and partnership relations. Their work won them the first prize for CSR project for CSRC Group.
Dean of the College of Management at NSYSU San-Yih Hwang said that one of the education focuses of the College is to cultivate future business and management professionals with a sense of social responsibility and the concept of sustainability in mind. In 2019, the College established the Office of Responsibility and Sustainability Actions and has published so far two College Social Responsibility Annual Reports, continually promoting social responsibility actions in the College, its departments, and institutes. The three groups won 3 prizes, reflecting NSYSU students’ commitment to the issues of CSR and the business world’s acknowledgment of their actions. The victory was an honor for the College of Management, the students, and teachers.
PwC Taiwan Sustainable Development Service Corporation has been organizing PwC Taiwan Camping for Good since 2016. It was the first CSR-themed camp for students in Taiwan, and nearly 550 students have participated until now. During the camp, lecturers of different fields were invited to share knowledge and propose sustainability actions for enterprises. The students engaged in the simulation of climate negotiations to experience the atmosphere of such meetings played an original interactive sustainability-themed board game and got involved in a workshop, which let them understand the SDGs more in-depth and gave them a proper idea and knowledge of sustainability, positively raising the awareness and the focus on the topic of sustainability in Taiwan.
The participants of the 8th edition of PwC Taiwan Camping for Good The team of the winning CSR proposal for Cathay Life Insurance. From the left are Wo-Hua Lin, Yu-Chiao Fu, Yi-Chen Wei, representative of Cathay Life Insurance, Hsiang-Mei Li, and Hao Liou, and the team counselor. The team of the NSYSU Department of Business Management not only won the first prize for their CSR project proposal for Cathay Life Insurance but also won the eloquence award. The NSYSU team competing for the CSR project proposal for Chunghwa Telecom. From the left are Bing-Yu Tsai, Jui-Chu Liu, the senior manager of Chunghwa Telecom, camp team counselor Hsin-Ju Hsieh, and members Yu-Chien Duh, I-Hao Chang, and Chang-Cheng Tu. The team with the winning CSR project proposal for CSRC Group. From the left are Yu-Xiu Lin, Yi-Chen Wu, representative of CSRC, Yu-Hung Cheng, Yan-Ruei Pan, You-Fong Wu, and team counselor. NSYSU students, corporate representatives and managerial staff of PwC Taiwan
Fresh off the victory at “Taiwan In My Eyes’ NSYSU students have done it once again and emerged victorious at the recently concluded Asia Pacific Youth Exchange Online And Global Innovation Idea Competition. Today, we reminisce about the competition with the first-place winner's Sam Lee and Leanne Shih, from the GHRM MBA program, Jasmine Chang and Keval Mehta from IBMBA, and the program co-ordinator Edward Tseng also from IBMBA.
For APYE Online And GSIIC, participants were requested to develop a business plan relating to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly relating to the issues created by Covid-19. The competition aims to empower the younger generation, raise awareness of timely issues and co-create youth-led and youth ideate development interventions. There were two parts of the competition: ideation and final pitching-our students got the first place in the final pitching stage of the competition.
Sam discovered about the competition through Facebook and decided to contact the rest of the members if they were interested in participating to which all the group members agreed. For Leanne, the opportunity to learn something new motivated her to participate, and Keval comments that since it was organized by the UN, the 'credibility,' as well as the bigger platform offered by the online mode of the competition, provided an impetus for participating. Sam also says that the certificate received through the competition will be valuable for her future. According to Jasmine, it was the opportunity to learn from different people that inspired her to compete.
With a catchy yet meaningful group name as "Greennovation," it’s no wonder our students caught the attention of the organizers. It was Leanne that came up with this quirky name. She shares:
"Since our program is related to some eco-friendly products and this competition asked us to give some innovative ideas, so I just combined these two words and came up with the name"
For the topic of their presentation, they had to focus on one or more SDGS’s out of 17. Greennovation members decided to concentrate on the timely and relevant SDGS of 'no poverty, 'decent work and economic growth,' 'industry, innovation and infrastructure,' 'sustainable cities and communities,' 'responsible consumption and production,' and 'climate action.' Our students provided meticulously researched solutions to the problem of excessive use of plastic shopping bags and improving self-reliance and localized production.
Throughout the entire run of the competition, the team members also forged some unforgettable memories. Sam reminisces that they would play some games after the presentation to relax and spend some time together, and she says, "it was a good time." For Leanne, it was the building of friendship and learning to work as a team that meant the most
But it wasn’t all fun and games as our students encountered some challenges as well. Keval mentions that some of the other teams were already established and were already running social businesses and were much stronger than them. Greennovation members were in an ideation stage while some were already in an implementation stage. However, by some stroke of luck, the organizers decided to split the competition into an 'ideation' and 'implementation' part, and in the later, our students persevered and came out on top. Leanne also mentions that since the judges didn't like their idea initially, they worked harder and made their idea more reasonable and workable.
When they found out that they made it to the top 8, the team members were very surprised. In fact, they didn’t even know when the top 8 were announced, but when the list was displayed, they were enthralled, surprised, and happy to see their group name. After that, they had to quickly do the final presentation for about 5 minutes. After days of brainstorming, researching, dealing with setbacks, and formulating their ideas, Greennovation bagged the first place. Leanne described the moment as 'amazing.' What is even more amazing about their victory is that they weren’t just competing with groups from Taiwan. In fact, they went head to head with 40 highly accomplished groups representing 17 countries from the Asia Pacific region.
The group members also shared that it wasn’t the monetary prize that mattered but the learning and enriching experience. For Keval, it was the ‘skill development’ and learning to do an online presentation that he valued the most. Edward, who provided information and necessary support to the team, comments that the process of seeing team Greenovation’s project develop from a nascent to a full-fledged plan was the most valuable experience. He also encouraged the group members to make a small prototype of their social business. From the competition, Jasmine also saw the positive side of humanity and was inspired as she shares:
"I learned that although life is hard and there are a lot of problems in the world, there are also a lot of people trying to make the world better. "
As of now, due to their busy schedules, the team members have decided to halt their project momentarily. In the future, they hope to bring their project to fruition and contribute to the SDGs.
From a small idea to dealing with setbacks and finally winning, NSYSU GHRM MBA & IBMBA students Sam, Leanne, Jasmine, and Keval have brought honor to the university. NSYSU GHRM MBA is immensely proud of their achievement and encourages all students to replicate their participative nature, hard work, and dedication.
【Interview】IBMBA Alumni Christopher Clausen(Class of 2011)
Christopher Clausen(second from the right)
Christopher Clausen Originally from the USA Lives and works in Hong Kong IBMBA Alumni Class of 2011 NSYSU, Taiwan
As part of the Leading Global Academia in Taiwan, the International Business MBA and Global HRM MBA programs at NSYSU are committed to provide a diverse and inclusive learning environment for our local and international students. Our alumnus Christopher Clausen came from America to Taiwan to study in the IBMBA program. Zhanna Samodurova, President of the Students Association, conducted an interview with Christopher and asked him a few questions about his experience.
-Christopher, what was your favorite course during your entire program, why?
My favorite class was a microeconomics class taught by professor David Andersson. I tried to find the exact name of the course in my transcripts, but I could not find it. It was like a seminar and small group format in which I liked discussing microeconomics with my classmates and the professor. I only discovered in NSYSU how much I am into economics. If I could start my studies all over again, I would definitely choose economics instead of psychology.
-Let’s talk about your work experience. Did you have any internship while studying?
I did an internship at a little trading company which was owned by one of my classmates. At that time I did not take it very serious. I was looking for something that was convenient for while I was in Taiwan and for which I could work over the summer. An advice that I would like to share with current students and myself if I could go back into time, is to take an internship seriously because when I am hiring people I always look at their previous internships in the field that I am hiring for. I would recommend to do as many internships as possible, apply early and often. Keep in mind to find an internship in the field that you are interested in after you complete your MBA program.
-Could you please tell us about your current position?
I have been with the same firm for 8 years now, it is called JLL. We are a real estate services agency, commercial real estate services agency and main source of income is office leasing. We help companies find office spaces and our agents earn commissions. Furthermore, we provide other services like designing and constructing these offices. We have a sister company called LaSalle who are direct investors in the real estate sector all over the world. I am responsible for the market research, so I am tracking and sizing the market and its opportunities. I monetize all of this data and we sell it to institutional investors like pension funds, private equity firms and investment banks. I worked my way up from the junior level to director level now. I started of in the local market in Beijing and after a couple of years there was a vacancy in the regional team in Hong Kong.
-Did you feel that Degree from NSYSU helped you while job-hunting period?
Yeah, definitely! Like I said earlier, I learned a lot about Excel at NSYSU. Moreover, I learned a lot of soft skills during my presentations that I did. I did not really experience that in my studies before coming to NSYSU. These soft skills really helped me in my career and working in teams as well. It is important that you learn how to present well.
-Would you recommend this program to your friends or future Master students?
I always tell my friends and family that it really depends on your goals what type of Master program you choose. Personally, the IBMBA program was a great choice since it matched with my future goals. I did not exactly know what I wanted to do after my graduation, so doing a general MBA program made sense to me. I would definitely recommend it to people in a similar situation, but it depends on your circumstances.
-Who was your favorite professor during your studying at NSYSU, why?
There were a couple of professors that I liked. One of them was David Andersson and I really enjoyed his classes. The other professor that I want to mention is professor Yih Jeng who also was my thesis advisor. I cannot recall the name of his course, but I do remember that he was using the spreadsheets software of Excel during his course. This was the first time that I had ever seen a professor using advanced features of Excel, which made me keen to go home and teach myself. I am using Excel on a daily basis and it advanced my career in my current job. I enjoyed working with him as thesis advisor, since he had a good mix of giving me my freedom and giving me guidance.
-Why did you choose Taiwan for studying?
I was already living in Taiwan to be a teacher, but after a year I realized I was not cut out to be a teacher. I was shooting pool with a friend and we both decided to go back to school to get a MBA program. I applied to two different MBA programs and got accepted to both. In the end, I chose NSYSU since they offered me financial aid and I liked the overall setting of NSYSU. Furthermore, I made this decision just after the recession of 2008 so it just felt like a perfect time to start a MBA program.
-What do you like about the country Taiwan?
First of all, I really like hiking and the outdoors so Taiwan is a perfect country for me. Furthermore, I like the history of Taiwan and the Taiwanese food. This is probably what I miss the most. I really enjoyed the night markets, I used to live next to the Shida night market in Taipei which is the best night market in Taiwan according to my opinion. We have night markets in Hong Kong, but it is not the same like the Taiwan.
-Why did you choose the IBMBA Program at NSYSU?
That is a very difficult question. I knew I wanted a general and international MBA program which was taught in English. The other MBA programs that they offered at that time were the EMBA program and a MBA program taught in Chinese. My Chinese was not sufficient enough to follow the MBA program taught in Chinese, so I decided to do the IBMBA program.
Respondent: Christopher Clausen (NSYSU, IBMBA Alumni, Class of 2011) Interviewer: Zhanna Samodurova (President of Students Association, 2020) Date: 20/06/2020
【NSYSU】Results of brand trust survey conducted by international collaboration of NSYSU published
JZN Brand Research Center and the College of Management of National Sun Yat-sen University were authorized to use the survey tools of Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, to conduct a brand trust survey covering 40 top consumer brands in Taiwan in 17 different sectors. According to the survey, Giant Manufacturing Co. ranked first for consumer trust. As for retail channels, Family Mart and PX Mart ranked high: 2nd and 5th respectively. Foreign brands such as Starbucks or Panasonic have also occupied a steady position in Taiwan, 3rd and 4th ranks, respectively.
The survey used "brand trust" as the overall indicator and then was subdivided into three types of trust, including value trust, functional trust, and relationship trust. It also conducted the brand ranking referring to word of mouth. Director of NSYSU JZN Brand Research Center and Professor of the Department of Information Management Fen-Hui Lin compared and ranked brands in 17 sectors; some of them are highly-reputed domestic brands, however, they lag far behind competitors. For example, 7-Eleven (President Chain Store Corporation) has over 5,000 convenience stores in Taiwan, which is the highest number of stores among chain retailers in Taiwan. However, it ranks last for brand trust among 4 brands of convenience stores, outranked by such brands as Family Mart and PX Mart. The results of this survey may be taken as a signal for 7-Eleven (President Chain Store Corporation) to strengthen the consumer-brand relationship.
It might come as a surprise that EVA Air outranked China Airlines for brand trust, despite last year’s strike that last from June 20th to July 10th. Professor Fen-Hui Lin said that EVA Air received rather negative news coverage despite managing the crisis and that Taiwanese consumers could rationally look at the dispute and this is why the survey demonstrates a comparatively high rank for brand trust.
Reputable long-established state-owned brands were outrun by new brands in two sectors. Professor Lin pointed out that one of such sectors are courier and postal services: President Transnet courier service outranked Chunghwa Post for brand trust. Chunghwa Post is partially state-owned and has over a hundred years of history; besides postal, it also provides banking services and life insurance. Despite recent overhaul to improve the efficiency and property activation, Chunghwa Post is outranked by President Transnet (under Uni President), which provides the convenience and efficiency of President Chain Store Corporation, after authorization by Yamato Transport. Another example is the sector of passenger transportation: the consumers put much more trust in Taiwan High Speed Rail than in Taiwan Railways. Taiwan Railways is a state-owned brand with a long-established reputation, providing public transportation services. However, its history became also a burden, as overhauling would be a difficult and burdensome task, especially in our fast-changing modern society, and require adequate management capacity.
The members of the brand trust survey team included Professor Fen-Hui Lin - Director of the JZN Brand Research Center, research assistant Ching-Chih Hsieh, master program student Yen-Pin Wang, and Associate Professor Linda Shi of the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria in Canada. The team conducted the survey online from July 23rd to September 15th, 2019, and collected information from 2,010 respondents aged above 18. Brands were evaluated in five major aspects: brand trust, values-based trust, functional trust, relationship trust, and word of mouth; the questionnaire included 17 questions. The team took into consideration up to top four businesses of 17 sectors that appeared in the 2019 ranking of 2,000 businesses with the highest revenues by CommonWealth Magazine. Then, the most representative brands of these businesses were chosen and this is how a ranking of 40 enterprises and brands was arranged.
Read more (Chinese version only): https://jzn.nsysu.edu.tw/p/404-1043-238780.php?Lang=zh-tw
Note: The University of Victoria in Canada ranks 364th in the QS World University Ranking published in May 2020 and 2nd in Canada’s Top Comprehensive Schools 2020. It is thus one of the top academic institutions in Canada. Starting from 2015, Gustavson School of Business begun to arrange rankings of over 300 domestic and foreign highly-reputed brands, conducting consumer trust surveys every year and assessing every brand’s performance. The survey results, besides raising consumers’ awareness, are a reference for businesses’ brand strategy.
The value-based trust index in this survey represents consumers’ acknowledgment of a brand’s values and its corporate social responsibility, and of how it treats its employees, the environment, and the community. Giant Manufacturing Co. is still the top-ranking business for value-based trust; the top ten ranks were dominated by retailers (PX Mart, Family Mart, Carrefour), a coffee shop (Starbucks), a telecommunications firm (Chunghwa Telecom), food brand (Quaker), home appliances brand (Panasonic), car brand (Toyota), and daily necessities brand (Kao).
Functional trust ranking displays the brands with the most reliable and innovative products and services that won customers’ trust for their functionality. The first ten ranks are similar to the value-based trust ranking. What is worth noticing, is that the 3rd position of Panasonic in the ranking, proving consumers’ trust in the functionality and reliability of their home and electrical appliances. In addition, the entering of ASUSTeK Computer and President Transnet into the top ten list indicatess consumers’ trust in the quality of the products and services of these brands.
The relationship trust index indicates the interaction of the consumers with the brand, including privacy policy, customer responsiveness, honesty in communication, and customer service that build up customer’s trust for the brand. The winner of this ranking is Starbucks, with Asus and Acer entering the top ten, which proves their excellent relationships with the customers.
The ranking by word of mouth indicates the willingness of customers to recommend a certain brand to other people, because of their satisfaction, brand’s promotions, or special offers. To a brand, such publicity is an additional advantage. The word of mouth ranking represents people’s willingness to promote a certain brand in one’s social circles; among the top ten are four major retailers, Chunghwa Post, and Taiwan High Speed Rail. Professor Lin said that this survey proved a relatively high consumers’ trust in the services of necessities brands - retailers, transportation and telecommunications service providers, food and drink, and electronics brands. Many brands of such industries as software, electronics, cars, housing brokers ranked rather low. It might be because the consumer does not have many opportunities to interact with such a brand and get to know it, and thus a relation of trust between brands and consumers is harder to establish.
“Summer Internship Sharing Event” is one of GHRM and IBMBA program’s annual career development activities organized for the students. This year, the event was held on the 16th of September 2020 on the 11th floor of NSYSU library.
The event started with the Director of International Programs, Dr. Sharon Wang, who introduced several internship resources such as the EFMD Global Talent Portal and Global Internship Facilitation of Taiwan, Office of Career Development at NSYSU and the free insurance provided by the university.
Gary Yuan, an IBMBA student, started the sharing session and talked about his internship experience at a company called “Air Liquide Far Eastern”. At the beginning of his presentation, Gary remarked that if it wasn’t for the pandemic, he would have traveled to Paris. As an intern, Gary had to work for the president’s office and his responsibilities included risk mapping, UX – voice of customer survey, taking part in company’s CSR activities and assisting the president. He noted that as a Taiwanese working in a French company, he became aware of the lingual and cultural differences. Gary mentioned that his life at NSYSU prepared and helped him land the internship and is thankful for his internship experience as it helped him realize his potential.
After Gary, Alicia Tseng from the department of Business Administration talked about her Swire Coca cola summer internship experience. Alicia not only talked about how she secured the prestigious internship opportunity in the hypercompetitive job market, but she also gave tips and suggestions to the participants on how to land an internship opportunity at a top tier company. For her internship, she was part of the sales and marketing department (commercial leadership team) and performed tasks related to data collection, integrating data, involving in business development and maintaining customer relationships. She mentioned that the internship experience definitely broadened her horizons. She ended her presentation with an encouraging message saying “never feel frustrated by the job rejection letters.”
Following Alicia, GHRM IBMBA student Evelyn Lee talked about her experience in the “Taiwan in my eyes” competition. Throughout the competition, Evelyn along with her three other teammates visited 11 organizations and observed their activities related to the sustainable development goals set up by the United Nations. At the conclusion of the competition, Evelyn and her team were awarded the third prize as well as the ‘popularity award’. She mentioned that being part of the competition not only provided her the opportunity to visit different companies but also taught her to work together with people from diverse backgrounds.
The event continued with IBMBA student Stan Tsai who shared about his CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) competition experience. Stan shared what he learned during his CFA competition. Moreover, he provided the attendees with very detailed and practical tips for doing report presentation and selling the product to a client. For reports, Stan remarked that “more isn’t always better, less isn’t either” and that there should be a correct balance. At the end, he noted that understanding the audience is essential and that one should always be prepared to be asked about anything.
Lastly, GHRM MBA student Hkawn San (Joy) shared about her extremely fun summer internship at “Gallant Ocean Group” seafood company. She mentioned that her job hunting for an internship started with tons of rejection. After many rejections, she reached out to one of her professors about internship opportunities and he helped her land her summer internship. At Gallant Ocean, she was assigned to the import department and she had to inspect seafood quality. She jokingly mentioned that what made her internship super enjoyable was she got paid for eating yummy seafood. Despite her limitations with Chinese, her supervisors in the company were always understanding and helped her tremendously.
James Tseng, GHRM MBA first year student remarked that he enjoyed the event and found it helpful since it had a variety of presentations and that he acquired useful tips for landing internships. Internships are important for management students as they provide first-hand exposure of working in the real world and the event like this provides students with useful tips for getting and excelling internships.
