Ønskes: højtuddannede (danske!) iværksættere - CBS Observer

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eSangathan is an EU funded project
dealing with the fundamental
problem of the ageing knowledge
worker. As European citizens keep
getting older, the most likely solution
would be that people will have
to work longer. The inadequacy of
most European nations to deal with
this impasse has encouraged the
EU to push this issue higher up on
the agenda, allowing all kinds of
alliances to focus and be funded.
The focus of eSangathan lies
firmly on knowledge sharing, aiming
to tackle this problem through
Information and Communications
Technology (ICT), but including
an intercultural perspective. This
consists of an alliance with India,
where working longer is already a
common practice, and a large proportion
of the retired knowledge
workers continue to work for their
former employers as experts.
However, a lack of ICT tools
makes these Indian senior expert’s
lives more complicated than necessary.
eSangathan wishes to experiment
on how they could benefit
from using collaborative ICT tools,
and this is where two major stakeholders
– CBS’ Centre for Applied
Information and Communications
Technology (CAICT) and
Indian multi billion corporation
Mahindra&Mahindra – have stepped
in to run the pilot project.
A tale of two pilots
The project is titled “Collaborative
Working Environments and Social
Innovations for Seniors” and holds
two pilot projects. One pilot is
running in the Öresund region of
Sweden and Denmark, testing the
Indian social model, which using
European technological capabilities
should enable more European 50+
knowledge workers to re-enter the
labor market.
The other pilot is running in India
in one of the country’s major corporations,
testing how the implementation
of a Collaborative Working
Environment could facilitate and
increase efficiency in the work and
life of expert retirees. The Mahindra
& Mahindra Corporation, as a member
of the consortium, is hosting
and managing this pilot project with
the technical support of its subsidiary
Tech Mahindra.
Social ICT innovation
The project consequently is a two
way street in terms of a shared
interest, as project alliances usually
are, catering to both European
interest in the Indian social models
and Indian interest in the European
ICT methodologies.
Associate Professor Leif Bloch
in-house newspaper for copenhagen business school
Of long term thinking and broad horizons
In a buzzword riddled business world of stakeholder networks, knowledge sharing and collaborative working
environments, CBS professors are doing their best to keep up. CBS’ involvement in the eSangathan project includes
all of the above – with an Indian social twist
Proving that there's life in the old dogs yet - something that Indian businesses rely on, CBS Associate professor Leif Bloch Rasmussen's eSangathan project
facilitates a best practice knowledge sharing, providing ICT-support for Indian grey knowledge and learning how to keep the very seniors working here.
non-retirement
By Lidewei Mulders
Photo: Liselotte Østergaard
Rasmussen, who is in charge at the
CAICT-end of the project, explains:
- In the EU, the workforce is
ageing, and knowledge is lost as
seniors move out of the organization.
In India they hold on to their
retired employees, acknowledging
the need for their knowledge, and
also need to develop better tools
to facilitate this. This project looks
at how ICT can be used to create
more flexible working methods,
in order to increase knowledge
sharing and enable people to stay
involved in organizations for longer.
This gives the project its social connection
in the EU and its informational
connection in India.
The alliance between
Mahindra&Mahindra and Leif Bloch
Rasmussen was also struck through
the company’s curiosity about
European ways of thinking.
- As Mahindra&Mahindra has
plans to make a strategic move
into Europe through acquisitions,
they are particularly interested in
European models of decision making.
The company’s interest in this
project is also that they will learn
more about the European way of
doing business. They recognize the
fact that doing business is quite different
in Europe, and they hope to
learn ways of establishing networks
in the European way, Leif Bloch
Rasmussen elaborates.
Mahindra&Mahindra is part of
the Mahindra Group, a multi billion
Indian consortium of over 400,000
employees in the business sectors
of automotive, ICT and financial services.
As they are in the process of
expanding into Europe, they seek to
acquire companies that will complement
and enlarge them in the consortium’s
automotive and farming
equipment business area, and are
trying to make deals quickly.
- It is a huge
company, and
they have a lot
of money to
spend, so they
are looking to
make a fast
move, hoping
the methodology
used in
the project
will help them
along the way,
says Leif Bloch
Rasmussen.
Scandinavian methodology
The methodology developed
by CBS and Folkuniversitetet in
Landskrona (the Swedish Partner
in the project) and used in the
project is called the “Kundskabende
Systemer”, and it is primarily used
to create social innovation:
- It is made up out of eight tools
to create a collaborative working
environment and should help
to make sense of the world. It is
based on the philosophical prac-
‘I think it would be good
for CBS as an institution to
value a broader range of
influences than just those
of Michael Porter and BCG.
The school could be so much
more innovative if it stuck
less to the beaten path.
Leif Bloch Rasmussen
Associate professor
tice of open dialogue, meaning
that being open minded will create
new ways of thinking and therefore
more innovation. One of the
theorists, we use, is David Snowdon
(former head of IBM Knowledge
Management; now head of the
Cynefin Centre in Wales), as well
as Manuel Castells on the networking
society, Leif Bloch Rasmussen
explains and points out that in
this project, sense making takes an
important role by establishing an
open inquiry from the start.
- This is followed by the relation
making, where teams define
their own themes with 30 people
sitting in India and 30 people in
the Öresund region. The message
of the project is to try and look
for other cultural ways of doing
business and being open minded,
which is beneficial to innovation.
Because when people try to hide
their knowledge and try to register
and trademark their ideas, they
stop the flow of information and
thereby stop the advancement of
knowledge, Leif Bloch Rasmussen
continues and emphasizes:
- In the quest of solving the
problems of the ageing society, it
seems that nations need every help
they can get.
Sustainable innovation
Rasmussen’s methodology aims
to combine the ICT and the social
development in an optimum way.
The result of the project will be a
white paper that should stipulate
advice for the EU on making policy
decisions on how to use ICT for
seniors to enhance their functionality
and knowledge transfer in the
workplace – with the added value
of having examined how seniors
function in the workplace in different
cultural settings.
The lessons learned from this
project and the Indian involvement,
where competing
on sustainability
and long term
thinking is a bigger
factor than
in the Western
world. We can
and should cooperate
more on
innovation from
the Bottom of
the Pyramid as
expressed by C.K.
Prahalad – the
four billion poor
people, as Leif Bloch Rasmussen is
quite happy to conclude:
- I think it would be good for
CBS as an institution to value a
broader range of influences than
just those of Milton Friedman,
Michael Porter and BCG. The
school could be so much more
innovative if it stuck less to the
beaten path.
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