This is a presentation of joint work with Dr. Rafiq Dossani, Shorenstein APARC. About the Talk: IT (Information Technology) outsourcing has become a standard approach for many Fortune 3000 and smaller companies to achieve cost-effectiveness. However, while outsourcing at the low end of the value chain has gained acceptance, many issues remain unresolved at the high end of the IT value chain. We develop a characterization of outsourcing firms, suppliers, and tasks that is useful in providing guidelines on when to outsource, and whom to outsource to. These guidelines for IT outsourcing strategies are based on a study of US customers, and Indian IT suppliers, involving questionnaires and interviews. To our knowledge, this is first study that has captured the supplier characteristics in the level of detail, which will be discussed by Dr. Akella in his talk. Professor Ram Akella is currently professor of IE and Management, and was the founding director, SUNY Center for Excellence in Global Enterprise Management. At Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University, as a faculty member and director, Professor Akella has led major multi-million dollar interdisciplinary team efforts in high tech and semiconductors. His current research interests include in process learning, quality, fab economic models, cost of ownership and financial justification for IT Management and equipment, production planning and control, and bio-informatics. His other interests are enterprise systems, IT and software, financial engineering, high tech and e-business, and range from cell and factory level design and control to enterprise-wide coordination and logistics, including supply chain management and contracts, financial engineering and investment, demand management, e-commerce and e-business exchanges, and product and process portfolios for risk management and design capacity management.

In Japan, fiscal decentralization has recently received public attention as a solution for the problematic intergovernmental fiscal relationship between its central and local governments, and as a potential solution for some of the country's most serious problems such as the large size of total government expenditures, its continuously inactive economy, and its huge public debt. This fiscal decentralization policy is actively being discussed within the Koizumi cabinet especially between Mr. Shiokawa and Mr. Katayama. Mr. Akaiwa will discuss following issues based on his interdisciplinary research:

1. What are the problems in the current intergovernmental fiscal relationship in Japan?
   
2. How has the fiscal decentralization policy been argued among bureaucrats and politicians for several decades?
   
3. What are the expected effects of the fiscal decentralization policy in both economic and political contexts?
   
4. How should the Japanese government implement fiscal decentralization policy?

Is unipolarity--American primacy--good or bad for the world? For Southeast Asia? For Indonesia? How dangerous or constructive is the Bush doctrine of preemption? Should the U.S. try to spread democracy abroad? If not, why not? If so, why and how--by example, persuasion, force? Has the war in Iraq squandered American "soft power"? How has that conflict affected the campaign against terrorism in Southeast Asia? Has the U.S. been ignoring the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? Or has ASEAN become so irrelevant that it deserves to be ignored? In the run-up to Indonesia's presidential election in April 2004, should the U.S. support the incumbent, Megawati Sukarnoputri? Or would that only strengthen her Islamist opponents by enabling them to portray her as an American pawn? What grade does the Bush administration's policy toward North Korea deserve? These are among the questions to be addressed in a wide-ranging evaluation of what the United States is doing, should be doing, and should not be doing in Asia.

Jusuf Wanandi has long been Indonesia's best-known analyst of Southeast Asian regionalism and the politics and foreign policies of Indonesia and the United States. He holds leadership positions in the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, the Prasetiya Mulya Graduate School of Management in Jakarta, and the Foundation of Panca Bhakti University in Pontianak (West Kalimantan). He heads the company that publishes Indonesia's leading English-language daily, The Jakarta Post. He co-founded Indonesia's most successful foreign-affairs think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. He has co-authored or co-edited more than a dozen books, including Europe and the Asia Pacific (1998), Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region (1993), and Asia and the Major Powers (1988).

Mrs. Sadako Ogata assumed office as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on 18 February 1991. She was elected to this post by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1990, for three years starting 1 January 1991. Mrs. Ogata was reelected on 4 November 1993 for a further period of five years (January 1994 to December 1998). On 29 September 1998, Mrs. Ogata was reelected by the General Assembly to a further two-year period (see Press Release). Mrs. Ogata was Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo since 1989. Prior to that (1987-1988), she was Director of the Institute of International Relations at the same university. Since 1980, she was Professor at the Institute. Mrs. Ogata was the Independent Expert of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the Human Rights Situation in Myanmar in 1990. From 1982 to 1985, she was Representative of Japan on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. From 1978 to 1979, she was Chairman of the Executive Board of UNICEF. Professor Ogata received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1963, an M.A. in International Relations from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 1953 and a B.A. from the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo in 1951. Professor Ogata has published a number of books on diplomatic history and international relations as well as numerous articles. Recent publications include: "Refugees, A Multilateral Response to Humanitarian Crises," Elberg Lecture delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, UNHCR 1992; "The Movement of People," RSA Journal Volume V, 140 (5432), The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 1992; "Towards a European Immigration," The Philip Morris Institute for Public Policy Research, Brussels, 1993; and "Refugees in Asia: From Exodus to Solutions," Charles Rostov lecture delivered at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1995.