Tracking 'chameleons' one way to address lack of business skill

By NEIL SANDERSON

New Zealand needs to track down its "chameleons", people who have migrated to countries with greater economic opportunities but who have blended in so well they are not highly visible.

Professor David Teece of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, says tapping into such expatriates is critical in augmenting the skills available within New Zealand.

Speaking at the start of the second day of the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference in Auckland this morning, Professor Teece said his own region, California's Silicon Valley, had highly skilled immigrants from many countries. Some, such as the Chinese and Indians had formed distinct professional organisations with strong links to their home countries.

He advocated setting up a database of New Zealanders overseas, listing names, addresses and qualifications, and making the information available to the public and private sectors. Such a database could be managed by a non-profit entity.

Drawing on the skills of New Zealand overseas was one way of responding to a shortage of business management skill in New Zealand.

"New Zealand has many excellent managers, don't get me wrong, but I don't believe it's got its fair share."

One reason was that business schools in their modern form did not arrive in New Zealand until the 1980s. Prior to that, he said, management education focused on accounting and administration.

"Training has been limited, and few students have gone abroad for the MBA degree because fellowships are typically not provided in that category. So New Zealanders studying abroad have generally chosen academic disciplines where they could receive financial help."

Another reason was that "the Government ran so much of the economy for so long" although that had since changed.

He said although New Zealand has "a decent quota" of active entrepreneurs, there appears to be a high degree of naivete in the New Zealand venture capital community.

"Business plans are frequently highly incomplete, and entrepreneurs are frequently loners. But entrepreneurship is about achieving 'new combinations'. The entrepreneur's chief function is to bring things together, and to build an enterprise.

"I think there are role models of successful entrepreneurs worthy of emulation. Members of the new breed need to be identified, brought forward, and their mentoring capabilities tapped."

He said a shortage of mentoring and guidance was a bigger problem for New Zealand that a general lack of funding.

Professor Teece was also critical of New Zealand tertiary education which he said was "not adequately supporting the needs of enterprise" in supplying "specialised skills".

"The US education system is widely regarded as a source of national competitive advantage. It has been quite accessible and, moreover, it has always had a strong practical component."

He pointed to the free flow of faculty between US universities and industry - and the fact that prominent high tech companies such as Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Intel had been founded by university professors.

He said there were few such examples in New Zealand.

"The university curriculum is slow to respond to the needs of industry, and industry, perceiving limited value in close relationships with the university, is often reluctant to spend time, effort and money on university-industry relations, despite their established great importance to the innovation process overseas."

He said active advisory groups from industry should be involved with universities, and vice versa. This would not require a sacrifice in research excellence.

"The great American research universities have achieved both academic excellence and relevance while also meeting the needs of agriculture and industry."

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