Organizational Structure Singapore Management University Is One

¶ … Organizational Structure

Singapore Management University is one of the universities in Singapore whose development was overseen by the Higher Education Division as an autonomous university alongside three other universities namely National University of Singapore, the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore University of Technology and Design (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2012). This university was officially incorporated in 2000 and was the first private university that was sponsored by the government. Just like the National University of Singapore.

The university hosts an average of 7,000 students in the six schools that are within the university offering the undergraduate, graduate and even the PhD levels of education and training. The main schools within the university are Accountancy school, Business Management school, Information Systems management school, Economics, social sciences and Law (Singapore Management University, 2012a). These are among other research centers as well as providing programs that are custom made for those who are working professionals. The university has a distinguishing factor from the other universities in the region in that it requires its students to undergo a minimum of 80 hours of community service and minimum of 10 weeks of internship, these an be done overseas or locally but have to be met before one graduates.

The next likely concern is then how such a massive university is governed and what would be the management system of the university and how these various schools coordinate their activities to ensure they fit into the ultimate goal of the SMU without much difficulty. This management is a taxing one bearing the seven thousand and above students who are hosted by the institution in the various schools as shown.

To increase efficiency in the delivery of knowledge and training, the external environment of the university is such that each school or institution under the university has been allocated a different physical location and sufficient buildings and infrastructure to enable them operates as though they are independent of each other. Each f these six schools is headed by their own deans. The dean has the responsibility of ensuring that the daily running of the school is smooth and the objectives of the school are met in line with the wider vision of the SMU. This he does with the assistance of several officials within his office like the associate deans, associate directors, assistant director, managers, assistant managers, administrative executives among others as may be required according to the needs in each office.

In each school, there is also a management structure that is efficiently structured to help in the running, decision making and growing of the schools. There is in place an Advisory Board in each school that is charged with the streamlining the curriculum of each of the schools, advice on the changes that may be required in the school, check and give feedback on the performance of the students, arrange for the internships of the students in the various schools, act as a liaison between the research by the schools and the real industry/market out there, these being some of the general responsibilities of the Advisory Boards in various schools (Singapore Management University, 2012b). There are however some other functions that are specific to the schools. The Advisory Board is headed by a chairperson with several other members, to the tune of eight, from highly respectable professions and positions being the members of the advisory board.

The idea of an advisory board is also used in the other significant institutions within the university and is not restricted to the schools alone. The Li Ka Shing Library also has an advisory board or commonly referred to as the Institutional Repository Advisory Board. It has almost the same purposes as the other school advisory boards' functions as it oversees the smooth running of the library and the facilitation of research work among the students and the teaching staff. It also has a chairperson, the members as well as the ex-officio who are the members of the Advisory Board.

At the apex of the SMU management structure is the Board of Trustees. They are the ultimate governing authority of the university and have the ultimate decisions that will affect the entire university in each of the schools that are under SMU.

The Board of Trustees is considered the central structure in the management of the university and it consists of twenty members who sit in the board to handle the various administrative issue of the university as a whole. The Board of trustees is headed by the Chairman (currently Mr. Ho Kwon Ping) assisted by the deputy chairman (currently Professor John Rodney Niland). The other eminent members of the Board of Trustees are Ms Chua Sock Koong, Mr. Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, Dr. Choong May Ling Mimi, Ms Saw Phaik Hwa, Mr. Zulkifli Bin Baharudin, Dr. Gan See Khem, Mr. Chartsiri Sophonpanich, Mr. Paul Beh, Mr. Kuok Khoon Ean, Mr. Anil Thadani, Professor Janice Bellace, BG Hugh Lim, Mr. Robert Michael Tomlin, Dr. Loo Choon Yong, Mr. Andrew Y. Yan, Mr. Timothy Chia, Mr. Sanjiv Misra and Mr. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (Singapore Management University, 2012c).

This is the body that is largely charged with the formulation of the policies that guide and promote the values of the university. It also ensures that the interaction between the university and the community (immediate or far off) is a cordial one and adheres to the ethics of the institution.

As seen above, there needs to be a close interaction between the university and the external environment that comes into contact with it. The external environment is usually divided into the Directly interactive forces and the Indirectly interactive forces. The directly interactive forces of the external environment will include the stakeholders of the university, the clients/students, suppliers to the university, competitors and such like (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2012). In the particular case of the SMU the directly interactive forces are the students whose composition is quite sensitive as there are students from various parts of the world from different cultural backgrounds. This composition is due to the fact that the SMU has an American kind of system in their operations hence attracting a wide attendance from all over the world. There is therefore a need for the management structure as noted above since this is the management that can effectively handle the various needs of such a population. The Board of trustees has a widely sourced membership that contributes the vast experience that they have to enable the university appropriately handle the external environment.