Kategori: faculty

The Visiting Professor Series of the Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM) 2022, hosted by the Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, goes on. In their recent agenda, the Management Study Program invited Prof. Clotilde Coron, from Sorbonne Business School, France, to a Guest Lecture Management: Organizational Theories and Flexibility Organizational Design. The event was conducted virtually through the Zoom Cloud Meeting and was attended by 270 participants.

Starting the discussion of organizational theory, Prof. Coron explains the definition of organization and organizational theory. In general, she explained that an organization is a group of individuals with the objective of accomplishing a specified goal. However, in real life, there must be challenges faced by an organization to achieve its goal. These problems are usually related to the alignment between the individual and organization’s objective, distribution of duties, and control process. “Therefore, in an organization, it is crucial to ensure that all members have a similar objective to the organization’s goal. Hence, an organization must ensure that the collaborative objective within the organization can be internalized as members’ objective,” explains Prof. Coron.

Meanwhile, regarding organizational theory, Prof. Coron explained various commonly-used theories to understand an organization. Further, she explained the classical theories, human relations, contingency theories, and systemic theories. “Not all organizations have the same system. There is a specific characteristic in each organization, which is affected by internal factors such as technology, strategy, qualification level, organization’s age, and size. In this matter, a theory is focused on the function and objectives of an organization to improve its efficiency,” reveals Prof. Coron.

After the material presentation, the event conducted on Thursday, October 27th, 2022, continues with a questions and answers session led by Dr. Wulan Permatasari, SE., MM., as Moderator. The participants’ enthusiasm, which was dominated by students, was proved by the number of questions delivered by participants.

Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, invited Prof. Daniel Chicksand from Birmingham Business School (UK) in a Visiting Professor Agenda. The current agenda was part of the Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM) 2022, conducted virtually on Thursday, October 20th, 2022.

The event went interactively with the attendance of the lecturers of operation management study from the Management Study Program and was led by Alifah Fibayani, MSc., as the Moderator. Opening the material presentation, Prof. Chicksand invited the participants to answer a question regarding the journal ranking system in Indonesia, whether Indonesia follows the Scopus and Scimago system or adopts a specific system in the country. Following the opening question, the Professor explains the first step to be prepared by a researcher before publishing their research articles. “Right now, getting published in a reputable international journal is getting harder. Before starting the publication process, it is better if you have a specific theme for you to follow, either to develop the existing research or to establish your expertise identity as a researcher,” reveals Prof. Chicksand.

Further, Prof. Chicksand delivers another question for material discussion regarding the reason for getting published. In line with the participants’ answers, in this case, Prof. Chicksand states that one of the reasons for publication is to disseminate potential solutions to the problems in the community or business.

The discussion is followed by the stages or aspects that need to be considered by the author in choosing a publication outlet. Two aspects that need to be considered in choosing the right outlet are the journal’s impact factor and ranking. Aside from journal selection, Prof. Chicksand also shares specific reasons for a publisher to reject a manuscript. “Sometimes the problem lies in how you formulate the research problem because sometimes authors like to understate the contribution of their research.

Concluding the discussion, Prof. Chicksand delivers four top tips for a successful publication process. The first is to choose the right theory for the planned research. The second is to establish a continuous process from article preparation through collaboration. Third, the author and researcher need to establish resilience and flexibility, and lastly, a researcher needs to learn from their past mistake. “Sometimes we need to build a resilient and persistent stance, while at the same time, we need to quickly move on from a rejection,” reveals Prof. Chicksand.

The agenda, which is filled with interactive discussion and experience sharing, will be followed-up with participants’ article review by Prof. Chicksand.

Technology transformation has motivated the industrial sector to improve their product and service. This improvement is applicable not only to big corporations but also to MSMEs, which must adapt to the current condition to survive in the highly competitive market. One of the transformations that can’t be avoided by business is the penetration of the internet, which has become a crucial part of daily human life.

The existence of the internet has brought a substantial effect on the business sector, encouraging corporations and MSMEs to expand their business by taking advantage of the internet, especially e-commerce. The Polengan Village’s BUMDES and MSMEs have long realized this opportunity, but many of the MSMEs in the village are yet to know and understand how to adopt digital marketing.

Considering this problem, the Creative Economy Research Group’s Community Service Program Team, led by Prof. Dr. Asri Laksmi Riani, MS., along with its members Prof. Dr. Hunik Sri Runing Sawitri, S.E., M.Si., Suryandari Istiqomah, SE, MSc., Dra. Anastasia Riani Suprapti, M.Si., and Dr. Intan Novela Qurrotul Aini, S.E., M.Si., provided a Digital Marketing, Branding, and Packaging Training.

In this training, the Community Service Team involves students in delivering training material to the MSMEs in Polengan Village. The training is divided into three sessions, starting with training in branding delivered by Brillian Raiszhul, who encourages MSMEs entrepreneurs to learn how to attract prospective customers through product photographs. The picture provided, indeed, must consider a favorable angle and color composition.

The following session was packaging training, considering that after understanding how to attract customers’ attention through a picture, the MSMEs’ entrepreneur can enhance their packaging to add value to their product. This session is delivered by Salsabilla Indah, who shows the stages of designing beautiful and enticing packaging for prospective customers.

The last session was concluded with digital marketing training, delivered by Afifah Hanindia, who invited the participants to register their MSMEs to several social media, such as Instagram and Facebook, as well as Shopee e-commerce that can allow them to distribute their product to more locations, thus increasing the income of Polengan Village residents.

After the material dissemination, the agenda goes on with monitoring and assistance for the participants.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all sectors of our daily life, starting from health, education, and the economy, which brought challenges and alterations to various business levels. The effect of the pandemic hit the MSMEs sector hard, where its business was managed by individuals or households.

To survive, the MSMEs sector must keep on innovating to deliver premium products and services to their customers. This problem brought concern to BUMDES and MSME in Polengan Village, Srumbung Sub-District, Magelang Municipality, which attempted to initiate an innovation to process material available in their surrounding environment.

The wish of BUMDES and MSME in Polengan Village later received a response from a community service team from the Creative Economy Research Group, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) UNS, led by Prof. Dr. Asri Laksmi Riani, MS., in the form of a Vegetable Product Innovation Training.

This training was conducted on 20 July 2022 in collaboration with Mr. Bambang Tri Admojo, who demonstrated several dishes and cuisines using local vegetables in front of the BUMDES and MSMEs in Polengan.

The demo shows how to cook three types of dishes, namely cassava leaf chips, crispy spinach, and tiwul sponge cake.

During the training, the coach provided material and invited the participants to keeping-up with the cooking process. Participants are allowed to inquire many questions during the training.

The participants’ enthusiasm and interest during the training are shown in their efforts to keep up with the cooking process.

Besides production innovation, this community service program also encourages Polengan Village BUMDES and MSMEs to participate in marketing innovation through the internet. Therefore, the community service team provided supporting equipment to aid online sales to the village apparatus on 10 October 2022.

Conducting the Visiting Professor series under the Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM), Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, invited Prof. Daniel Chicksand from Birmingham Business School, UK. The event conducted virtually on Thursday, October 6th, 2022, discusses Queuing Theory in Operation Management Research.

Through the Zoom Cloud Meeting platform, the agenda was attended by 80 participants and was led by Dr. Yong Dirgiatmo, a lecturer of the Management Study Program, as Moderator. In this agenda, Prof. Chicksand delivered material entitled ‘Operation Research, Capacity Management, and Queuing Theory’ for about 75 minutes, divided into two sessions.

Starting the presentation, Prof. Chicksand explained the definition of capacity management, which involves business capacity, market demand, and forecast. Meanwhile, a business needs capacity management because of the need to align production capacity to market demand. Production capacity that is lower than market demand will lead to production delay and loss of sales opportunity, on the contrary, when production capacity is too big, it will lead to higher costs.

“You can manage long-term market demand by storing products. For instance, when inventory (low capacity) is not aligned with market demand, such as the Covid-19 case leading to long queues at a hospital and empty products in a supermarket. Meanwhile, when product inventory exceeds market demand, there will be many unsold products, leftover, or, in a restaurant setting, empty table,” said Prof. Chicksand.

Further, Prof. Chicksand explains about the techniques available to measure market demand fluctuation, alternative production planning, and mixed planning. Meanwhile, regarding queuing theory, Prof. Chicksand states that ‘queue’ does not always bear a negative connotation because the absence of queue signs an over-capacity. “Queuing theory is usually applied in staff downsizing, schedule planning, and inventory planning to improve customer service,” he explains in the guest lecture as the continuation of the Supply Chain Management Guest Lecture.

The Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, hosted another Guest Lecture as part of the Visiting Professor Series in Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM) 2022, Thursday, October 6th, 2022. In this guest lecture series, the Study Program invited Associate Professor Clotilde Coron from Sorbonne Business School, France, to deliver material on Diversity and Gender Equality.

Led by Dewanti Cahyaningsih SE, M.Rech., the guest lecture was attended by more than 230 participants through the Zoom Cloud Meeting platform. Starting the material dissemination, Assoc. Prof. Coron explains that the topic of diversity is starting to attract the industrial sectors’ attention. However, there are numerous different approaches to discussing diversity. “There are many different approaches in this topic discussion, this including the different significance of subjects and topics in each country, for instance, the USA with the black life’s matter (BLM) topic or France with sexual orientation. Therefore, it is important to consider your point of view on diversity and equality,” explains Prof. Coron.

The current guest lecture with Prof. Coron will cover the definition of diversity and equality, gender equality, disability inclusion, and bias in human resource management, as well as methods available to reduce the bias. Regarding the definition of diversity, Prof. Coron invited students to choose the most appropriate words to describe diversity through the Wooclap platform.

“Diversity in this matter refers to the condition of the workforce representing the natural condition of the population in a country. The idea of diversity aims to avoid discrimination because when a company does not discriminate against people, then the composition of the workforce in the company will represent the composition of the community,” said Prof. Coron.

Material discussion continues with the difference between inclusion and equality, where inclusion is a crucial idea within diversity. Diversity with no inclusion will never lead to equality. “Because the objective of inclusion is to empower people through mutual respect and appreciation for personal condition as the inherent factor of diversity.”