Dean's Corner - The GSBPP Newsletter

The Times They Are A-Changin. Bob Dylan said that in the 1960's and it is as true today as it was then. Perhaps the only thing different then vs. now is the pace of change and the number of uncertainties we have to deal with have increased rapidly. One of the criticisms of academia is that we often are studying events looking back to see what we can learn vs. trying to anticipate the future from our past research. Clearly, for us to continue to be a leading edge Business and Public Policy School we will have to keep setting our sites on how to better to understand and deal with the possible future scenarios based on our research. Our research is the lifeblood of understanding more of the trends of what might be as well as the way to keep our fundamental classroom teaching enriched with leading edge knowledge. As we go forward in the months ahead I have two major issues I expect to work on with the faculty, students and sponsors as appropriate: (a) how we are organized to take full advantage of teaching, advising, consulting, publications and research, and (b) development of the GSBPP Strategy to guide us thru the future.

In the case of our organization, my goal is to see us have more flexibility for our faculty to meet our research and teaching needs while giving us more flexibility to respond to the research needs that we must do to be a leading research driven school. I am confident that working with our entire faculty we can achieve the proper balance to make sure we meet both needs. In addition, I want the organization structure we have to be simple, understandable, and easy to use. It also needs to reflect accountabilities by the roles people hold in the organization. Everyone should know what those are. The roles will link to our strategy and yearly plans and budgets. I can assure you that each and every one of you will have an opportunity to be involved in this process.

Speaking of flexibility, I was pleased to award certificates of Appreciation to Lt. Col. Bryan Hudgens, Keebom Kang, Rene Rendon and Uday Apte for their outstanding response to a need in the EMBA program to make some rapid changes to meet new needs. The team worked together and made it happen in the very tight deadline. Pat Flanagan, recent Director of the EMBA program, applauded the efforts and said they had a very positive response from our sponsors.

For our strategy, a lot of good work has been done in the past and I think we can build on that work. Since it was last studied, a lot has changed in the environment we deal with as have our sponsors. In the near future I will form a strategic planning committee that will reflect our school. The committee will help me coalesce ideas and thoughts, will join me in soliciting your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. While the committee needs to be a workable size, I would like any of you who wish to devote some focused time on being on the committee to let me know. I won't be able to accommodate everyone, but it will help me select people who are desirous of spending the time on this important activity for our school. Even if you can not devote time to the committee work, each of you will have multiple opportunities to critique, dialogue and discuss our strategy. I see it as an iterative process. When it is done, we will feel it is ours. That WE own it and support it.

Presentations & Publications

Suchan, J . (2006). Refereed Journal Article Changing organizational communication practices and norms: A framework. Journal of Business and Technical Communication , 20, 1, pp. 1-43.

Suchan, J. , Conference Presentation, The effect of organizational metaphors on changing written communication practice: Three cases. The Association for Business Communication Annual Meeting, Oct. 20-22, 2005 , Irvine , CA .

David R. Henderson , "The New Industrial Economist", Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2006.

Nissen , M.E. , Harnessing Knowledge Dynamics: Principled Organizational Knowing & Learning Hershey , PA : IRM Press (2006).

Thomas, G.F., Jansen, E., & Hocevar, S.P .  "Building Collaborative Capacity in an Inter-Organizational Context."  3rd Annual Acquisition Research Symposium,  May 18, 2006.

Thomas, G. F.   "The Role of Communication in Implementing Strategic Plans."  28th Annual Conference for Management Communication Association,  May 4-7, 2006 , Los Angeles , CA .

Philip J. Candreva and L. R. Jones , "Congressional Delegation of Spending Power to the Defense Department in the Post 9-11 Period," Public Budgeting & Finance , 25/4 (2005): 1-19.

An article by Leslie Sekerka and Rick Bagozzi , Self-regulation as the Cornerstone to Virtuous Action , was selected to appear in the book entitled European Positive Psychology . Their premise is that if we hope to achieve moral strength in response to the moral demands of daily work life, a better understanding of the influences that foster the desire to engage in right action is essential. They extend research on moral decision making by identifying specific affective and cognitive factors that influence the desire to act. Published, March 2006.

Leslie Sekerka and Roxanne Zolin's paper entitled Proactive versus reactive approaches to ethical dilemmas: Battling moral mediocrity with professional courage published in the 24(4) issue of Business & Professional Ethics Journal - . This piece springs from a larger research initiative that examines moral courage in the workplace, in collaboration with the University of Michigan and made possible by the Ethics in Action Research and Education Program (sponsored by the United States Navy Supply Corps).

Susan M. Sanchez and Paul J. Sanchez, "Very large fractional factorial and central composite designs," ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation , 15(4): 362-377 (2005).

Susan M. Sanchez , "Work smarter, not harder: Guidelines for designing simulation experiments," Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, eds. M. E. Kuhl, N. Steiger, B. Armstrong, and J. A. Joines. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers: Piscataway, NJ, 69-82.

Susan M. Sanchez, Hong Wan, and Thomas W. Lucas, "A two-phase factor screening procedure for simulation experiments," Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, eds. M. E. Kuhl, N. Steiger, B. Armstrong, and J. A. Joines. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers: Piscataway , NJ , 223-230.

Adam Forsyth, Susan Sanchez, and Hong Wan, "Exploring edge organization models for network-centric operations," Research Discussion Section, Center for Edge Power, Naval Postgraduate School , 9 December 2005 .

Thomas W. Lucas, Felix Martinez-Tiburcio, and Susan M. Sanchez , "Using simulation to study the protection of critical maritime assets," International Maritime Protection Symposium, Honolulu , Hawaii , 13 December 2005 .

Susan Sanchez, Tom Lucas, and Paul Sanchez, "Experimental designs for large-scale simulations," Project Albert International Workshop #11, Honolulu , HI , 1-10 February 2006.

Zolin, Roxanne (2005) Trust in networks , for the program "International Defense Transformation " offered by Center for Civilian-Military Relations in partnership with Headquarters Allied Command Transformation (HQ ACT) and the Commander, Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) Joint Experimentation Directorate. December 2006.

Zolin, Roxanne and Lewis, Ira (2006) The birth of new enterprises: public or private by genetics or by design? USASBE, 2006.

Zolin, Roxanne , (2005) Market, hierarchy and clan: Are trust and control compliments or supplements when crossing organizational boundaries? EIASM Conference October 2005, Amsterdam .

Zolin, Roxanne (2005) What new visions of trust can the Mayer, Davis and Schoorman model provide in the 21 st century? Symposium organizer and facilitator, Academy of Management , August 2005.

Professional Activities

CDR Philip J. Candreva prepared a report at the personal request of the Deputy CFO for the Department of Defense entitled, "Depreciation of Capital Assets: Management Alternatives and Implications."

Jim Suchan organized and led a panel entitled "Business Communication Research: Past, Present, and Future" at the Association for Business Communication Annual Meeting in Irvine CA. Composed of former outstanding research award and best publication award winners, the panel described new knowledge the discipline has created over the last 20 years and debated the future research questions the discipline needs to address.

Cary Simon conducted a two-day Strategic Change workshop for MGEN Johnson and 14 executive directors from the 1,600 personnel Army Field Support Command in Rock Is. Ill. February 9-10, 2006 . Much is at stake this year as the participants struggle to dismantle the AFSC, spin-off the ammunition component (transfer 400 employees to Joint Munitions Command), accept (for the first time) 250 inbound soldiers including approximately eight O-6s, all designed to create a transformed Army Sustainment Command with an expanded logistics, equipment maintenance and theatre support mission. MGEN Johnson empowered the directors when he said words to the effect of, even though the new mission of the ASC is currently unclear, move out smartly - we (the Army) cannot wait until October, start accomplishing the new mission requirements now.

Susan Sanchez was elected to a one-year term as Secretary of the Winter Simulation Conference Board of Directors.

Professor Larry Jones was honored as the recipient of the Aaron B. Wildavsky Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Public Budgeting and Financial Management. The Wildavsky Award was presented to him at an awards luncheon in Washington D. C. by the Association for Budgeting and Finance (ABFM), a section of the American Society for Public Administration. Professor Jones is one of the leading professors in the Financial Management Group at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey , California .

JSOPE now known as the International Military Ethics Society - At this year's JSCOPE in Washington , DC , Leslie Sekerka chaired the session on Military Education and Moral Development. In the session she highlighted how reflection and dialogue on one's identity, through narratives, can help elevate personal and organizational incongruencies. The organization adopted a formal name change, now known at IMES.

Supply Corps officers "putting on the eagle" work to create command climates or moral excellence - Leslie Sekerka facilitated a specialized workshop for this year's USN Supply Corps Captain Select Conference at the USNSC headquarters, Mechanicsburg , PA. The session used an Appreciative Inquiry interview exercise to evoke positive dialogue. Applying this strength-based technique to examine existing core strengths, participants examined what factors help to create workplace environments that encourage and promote sustained moral excellence in the Navy.

Ken Doerr has been elected to the BPP Faculty Council Representative position.  Ken joins Don Summers as our two current representatives, with Tom Hughes as our alternate.