Bond University awards Kenichi Ohmae an honorary doctorate

Legendary Japanese management thinker Kenichi Ohmae has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Bond University.

In today’s Higher Ed Daily Brief: Bond bestows honorary doctorate, historic climate measurements

Business thinker honoured

Legendary Japanese management thinker Kenichi Ohmae has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Bond University.

Credited with introducing the West to the Japanese approach to business strategy in the 1990s, Dr Ohmae has been associated with Bond since 1998 when he co-developed an MBA with the university which was specifically designed for Japanese business.

Bond vice-chancellor Tim Brailsford said he an “innovative force in international education”.

“For almost 20 years, Dr Ohmae has been a much-valued partner of Bond University and during this time he has forged strong and lasting relations between Australia and Japan,” Professor Brailsford said

“He has made significant, strong and consistent contributions to management thinking, corporate strategy and international business.”

Since 2012 Dr Ohmae has been an honorary adjunct professor at the Bond Business School.

Tea trees tell the tale

University of Adelaide researchers have analysed preserved paperbark Tea Tree leaves at the bottom of North Stradbroke Island’s Swallow Lagoon in Queensland to measure changes in rainfall over the past 7000 years. The leaves have been collecting in the sediment of the lagoon for that period and variations in the chemistry of the leaves allow researchers to reconstruct past rainfall. For example the distribution of carbon isotopes in the leaves changes depending on the level of moisture stress that was experienced by the tree when it was alive.

Their study, published in Scientific Reports, found evidence of major variations in rainfall, with a wet period 5000-6000 years ago (corresponding to a La Nina-type climate) and a drier period 3000 years ago (in an El Nino phase).

It found that the little ice age, from 1450 to 1850, was unusually wet.

Another finding was that droughts as severe as the millennium drought from 1997 to 2009 occur much more frequently than the current prediction of one every 10,000 years. They are probably 10 times more frequent, said researcher John Tibby.