UPFRONT AAMO fired up

The Asian Association of Management Organisations (AAMO) is looking to lift its international standing on the back of an increasing global interest in organisational leadership and better management practices.
The chairmanship of AAMO, held for two years by the New Zealand Institute of Management until the end of last year, has passed to India which has committed the current 11 country grouping to growth and “increased influence and relevance”, not just in Asia but globally.
India’s booming economy is fuelling an increasingly bullish confidence in its future. The economy has been opened up to encourage foreign investment and freer trade access to the Indian market. But the Indian chairman of AAMO, Dr J J Irani told last month’s AAMO council meeting in Mumbai that India’s rapidly growing economy increased the country’s need to lift management skills and standards. And India wanted to use its growing influence to promote management excellence generally.
With its newfound political and economic confidence, India is willing to invest in AAMO’s expansion by funding initiatives that will link the organisation more closely with regional groups such as ASEAN and the European Association of Management Organisations.
AAMO’s current membership includes New Zealand, Australia, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Irani, senior executive with India’s largest industrial company Tata, wants to attract China and other major Asian economies from the Middle East to South East Asia into the organisation.
It is, he said, the organisation’s new priority to “get more members into the AAMO fold and to expand the reach and range of AAMO activities”. He believes the more aggressive approach will help leverage and promote management organisations in member countries and create global body that promotes management excellence and, in particular, more ethical management practices.
AAMO adopted new constitution when its full assembly met in Auckland last year and India plans to use its new constitution to revitalise and greatly expand the organisation. “It will help us make AAMO the management arm of regional groupings like ASEAN,” said Irani. “AAMO is currently not well known as the Asia Pacific grouping of national management organisations,” he said.
The organisation plans to establish regional management magazine, to promote regional management research, to encourage cross-cultural transfers of young managers between member countries and to carry out regional benchmarking studies.
Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Qatar sent observers to the Mumbai meeting and all signalled an interest in joining the organisation. The next council meeting is in Kuala Lumpur in November and the organisation will promote major international management conference in New Delhi in March next year.