This seminar is part of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Luncheon Seminar Series, sponsored by the Korean Studies Program. The luncheon is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required. Please RSVP to Okky Choi by 12 noon on Wednesday, November 12 if you wish to attend and have lunch reserved for you.

This seminar is part of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Luncheon Seminar Series, sponsored by the Korean Studies Program. The luncheon is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required. Please RSVP to Okky Choi by 12 noon on Wednesday, October 29 if you wish to attend and have lunch reserved for you.

This seminar is part of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Luncheon Seminar Series, sponsored by the Korean Studies Program. The luncheon is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required. Please RSVP to Okky Choi by 12 noon on Wednesday, October 8 if you wish to attend and have lunch reserved for you. Chiho Sawada received his Ph.D. from Harvard in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, earned his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and did graduate research at Seoul National University and University of Tokyo.

11:45 am luncheon 12:00 pm program begins Lunch provided only to those who make a reservation with Ms. Okky Choi by 12:00 pm on Wednesday, May 28. You can contact her via email at okkychoi@stanford.edu or via phone at 650-724-8271.

About the Talk Everyone likes the city full of parks and open space. But why has more and more open space been lost in Tokyo, while other metropolitan areas such as San Francisco succeed in keeping greeneries? Based on the research and work experience in both Tokyo and San Francisco, Tomoko Takeuchi analyzes why greenery areas are disappearing in Tokyo and proposes a recovery plan. The discussion topics include: - Current problems of the park planning in Tokyo. - Social, historical, and natural comparison between Tokyo and San Francisco. - Advantages of San Francisco's park planning over that of Tokyo - Recommendation for the city planning policy of Tokyo Tomoko Takeuchi is a chief city planner at Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Japan and currently a visiting scholar at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford. She obtained a master degree in landscape architecture from the University of Tokyo.

In recent years, despite the Chinese economy's rapid growth -- the highest in the world -- and China's progress in improving its financial system, serious risks and problems in the Chinese stock market remain. After examining such issues as high speculation and high P/E ratios in the Chinese stock market, Ms. Wang, in her work with Dr. Lawrence Lau (Shorenstein APARC), argues that the Chinese government should formulate certain tax policies. These proposed policies would not only increase the corporate after-tax profits but they would also encourage the substitution of equity for debt. Currently such a strategy would lower the P/E ratios without lowering the stock prices, attract new long-term investors, and strengthen the stability of the stock market. It will not significantly reduce fiscal revenue but likely increase the tax revenue in the long run. Please join us for a lively discussion of the issues and policies that Ms. Wang proposes in her presentation.

Professor Ferrary will present the results of a comparative study between Silicon Valley and Sophia Antipolis (France). He and co-authors Michel Bernasconi (Ceram) and Ludovic DiBiaggio (Ceram) examine to what extent the endogenous growth of a high-tech cluster depends on two factors:

1. The complete set of communities of practices (Wenger, 1998) providing the complementary competences needed to create and develop start-ups (e.g. scientific researchers, managers, engineers, VC, lawyers, consultants, etc.)
2. The quality of interactions between these communities of practices, defined as a group of people linked by strong ties (Granovetter, 1973) to produce expertises through frequent interactions. The coordination and circulation of information depend on the quality of weak ties between these communities.

Is a high-tech cluster handicapped if a community of practices is missing? And/or if the quality of inter-communities interactions is poor? Professor Ferrary will share the results of testing these hypotheses in Silicon Valley and Sophia Antipolis.

About the Speaker

Michel Ferrary is Professor of Management at Ceram Graduate School of Business in Sophia-Antipolis (French Riviera). Previously, he was a visiting scholar for two years at Stanford's Department of Sociology, where he analyzed social networks in Silicon Valley and the new practices of corporate venturing used by large high-tech companies. Professor Ferrary has published journal articles on a wide array of topics, including labor markets, competencies management, banking strategy, the use of social networks in banking activities, corporate venturing, and social networks in Silicon Valley. He received his PhD in business administration from HEC Business School (France).

This is a presentation of joint work with Dr. Rafiq Dossani, Shorenstein APARC. About the Talk: IT (Information Technology) outsourcing has become a standard approach for many Fortune 3000 and smaller companies to achieve cost-effectiveness. However, while outsourcing at the low end of the value chain has gained acceptance, many issues remain unresolved at the high end of the IT value chain. We develop a characterization of outsourcing firms, suppliers, and tasks that is useful in providing guidelines on when to outsource, and whom to outsource to. These guidelines for IT outsourcing strategies are based on a study of US customers, and Indian IT suppliers, involving questionnaires and interviews. To our knowledge, this is first study that has captured the supplier characteristics in the level of detail, which will be discussed by Dr. Akella in his talk. Professor Ram Akella is currently professor of IE and Management, and was the founding director, SUNY Center for Excellence in Global Enterprise Management. At Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University, as a faculty member and director, Professor Akella has led major multi-million dollar interdisciplinary team efforts in high tech and semiconductors. His current research interests include in process learning, quality, fab economic models, cost of ownership and financial justification for IT Management and equipment, production planning and control, and bio-informatics. His other interests are enterprise systems, IT and software, financial engineering, high tech and e-business, and range from cell and factory level design and control to enterprise-wide coordination and logistics, including supply chain management and contracts, financial engineering and investment, demand management, e-commerce and e-business exchanges, and product and process portfolios for risk management and design capacity management.