On the afternoonof December 18th, an academic report of Professor Steven Kelman was presented in classroom C205. Guests attended are Ms. Han Jing, director of the office of the Provincial Foreign Affairs Committee; Professor Zhao Songzheng, dean of School of Management; Professor Wang Chunping, director of MBA education of NPU and other university deputies. More than 100 people, including teachers, students from School of Management, MPA students from School of Humanities and Law listened to the report.
Professor Che Ada, the assistant dean of School of Management, hosted the seminar. He gave Professor Kelman a warm welcome on behalf of the faculty and introduced the guest speaker briefly. In return, Professor Kelman expressed his greetings to the audience with his moving wittiness and started reporting. The report was based on his research achievement titled “Hard, Soft or Tough Love”, casting a question of “What Kinds of Organizational Culture Promote Successful Performance in Cross-Organizational Collaborations?” To begin with, he outlined the framework of the academic research from data selection to academic impact, in which the main methodologies used are case studies and social investigations. He then unfolded the study results about the efficiency of the organizational cooperation among three kinds of culture, which he caricatured “Hard”, “Soft” and “Tough Love”. At last, Professor Kelman illustrated the data and methods he used to support his conclusion in detail, which aroused enormous interest of students.
This report successfully triggered the academic sparks among teachers and students, disseminated the academic frontiers and created a good atmosphere for future study. (School of Management, Ma Deming, Translation: Zhang Yanmei)
The introduction of the reporter: Professor Kelman received his PhD from Harvard University in 1978. Now he owns several positions, for instance, the Weather head Professor of Harvard University's Kennedy School of government, editor-in-chief of International Journal of Public Management, and the vice-chairman of the “International Public Management Network”. In 1993-1997, Professor Kelman acted as an office director of Office of Management and Budgeting Federal procurement policies. Besides, he kept the title of the academician of American National Public Management Academy from 1995 until now. His main academic interests include government procurement, public organization theory and government performance. Also, he has published ten academic monographs and dozens of papers. He also writes for a column in a newspaper. His studies and thinking have a profound influence on the research and practice of the USA, even the international public management.
