At the 30th EIBA conference in Ljubljana in late 2004 the 18th doctoral tutorial was held. I was very impressed by the names on the list of faculty participants – namely Professors Buckley, Cantwell, Doz, Grosse, Hakanson, Hennart, and Van Den Bulcke – and looked forward to the event. It turned out to be a tremendously positive experience: The organisation by EIASM, the local organisers at the University of Ljubljana and the chairman Danny van den Bulcke was very good. The faculty was well informed about the presented thesis proposals and made many challenging comments. The group of participants was quite diverse, representing eight countries. Topics ranged from more “macro”-oriented themes of country competitiveness and market structure to “micro”-views of SME and MNE strategies and performance. Throughout, the doctoral students maintained a good level of presentation and content quality, so that although not directly related or within the scope of research to each other, the topics of the tutorial were interesting for all participants. Particularly interesting was the faculty critique on all presented papers, not just on one’s own paper. Their comments very well highlighted important points in the research process and methodological and conceptual “key success factors” that are extremely useful for the successful completion of the thesis.

With two half-day sessions and a group of ten Ph.D. students, the tutorial was very well suited for interaction between and within the group of students and faculty. EIBA 2004 was the first (international business) conference for many of the tutorial participants. Therefore the doctoral tutorial was also a prime starting point for the whole conference. From there, the attendants joined on many occasions during the EIBA conference and also had a much better basis for meeting new scholars from all over the world.

Future improvements may be accomplished with more precise and earlier guidelines towards paper specifications (pages etc.) and tutorial structure. I can sincerely recommend EIBA to all doctoral students related to the field of international business – not only for the doctoral tutorial but also for the EIBA conference with a very warm and interesting flair throughout. I must thank the faculty members again for their very useful support and encouragement. Winning the “best thesis proposal” award was a big honour for me and has strengthened my pursuit of research in the field of international business.

Nejc M. Jakopin is from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Duisburg. He is award winner of the Best Thesis Proposal Award, 2004.

Writing a thesis is like departing on a long journey, exploring the unknown. The unknown comes sometimes in terms of time but most importantly in terms of obstacles during that journey. Reaching the ultimate destination of the voyage does not, in any case, coincide with the end. I believe that it just signs just the end of the beginning.

There is a poem, by a famous Greek writer Constantinos Kavafis, entitled Ithaca. Ithaca according to Homer was the homeland of Ulysses. Ulysses after the end of the Trojan War had a ten yearlong journey to get back to Ithaca. During this trip he faced many difficulties and he confronted large threats. Someone might start wonder how this resembles to the writing of a PhD thesis…
Well the poem starts like this:

As you set out for Ithaca
hope the voyage is long,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

Ithaca is the final destination, your final goal. Then why should someone wish and hope that the voyage should be long and full of adventure and discovery? It is in the nature of true researcher the willingness to learn more and more, to explore unexplored paths in the human knowledge. During this journey you may face many difficulties, disillusionments but at the same time many joys and successes. At the end what remains is a sweet flavour of knowledge. And the poem goes on:

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure and joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;

It is the process of learning that gives satisfaction to the researcher that fulfills his greediness for wisdom. And this is why the journey should not be a short or an easy one. The poem ends when Ulysses, the researcher in our metaphor, reaches his final destination, Ithaca:

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
This way, wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithacans mean.

The end of the expedition signals the acquisition of knowledge, the so desired gift of wisdom.

In every researcher’s mission towards knowledge, there are some special moments that scarify this process. Some of them are joyful and provide the necessary encouragement and support for the long trip, others are full of sorrow and make you fell like putting an end to the journey.

At the end what you usually keep in your heart is a sweet memory of every moment good or hard. What gives you support and encouragement is the feeling that you are not alone in this journey towards Ithaca…

Sometimes you find yourself embraced by a large family. A family, whose members are other researchers, pioneers who make their own travel. This travel for most of the time is a lonely one. There are though some moments where people sharing the same or similar worries come together. It is those times that you get inspired, encouraged and stimulated to continue the trip. It is those times that you renew your rendezvous for the next time, for the next intermediate destination as Ulysses did.

For me this large family is the European and International Business Academy (EIBA). I still remember that cloudy and misty afternoon in December of 1999 in Manchester. It was my first time travelling outside Greece after a very long time. I reached Manchester late in the afternoon and I was desperately trying to find out where my accommodation was located. It was my first meeting with Danny, and I think everybody knows him with his first name. I remember that we were both kind of lost…

The annual meeting of EIBA in Manchester was for me the first meeting with what I consider now my academic family. I was still on my first year of my PhD and that was my first presentation to an international conference. Since then I have only missed one meeting, that in Maastricht. I have to confess that I really regretted that afterwards. There are small things that I still keep in mind from each EIBA. From Manchester it was the anxiety of my first international presentation and the impressive hotel that the organisers selected to host the conference. From Paris it was the marvellous Gala dinner while travelling through Seine. In Copenhagen, the Hans Christian Andersen tales and a workshop session where I presented one of my papers and in the audience there were people like John Dunning, Seev Hirsch, Robert Pearce and John Daniels. The fifth chapter of my thesis is heavily influenced from that workshop session. I would like to thank all the participants and especially Professor Tamir Agmon, for his inspired comments and suggestions.

Finally, from Ljubljana it was the warm hospitality of the local organisers. I have to confess that last year’s EIBA reminded me a lot of the EIBA we organised in Athens.

I have to admit that organising EIBA’s 28th Annual Meeting in Athens had a real impact on the way I see the Academy. It was then that I almost learned each delegate but his or hers first name. I still keep in mind all the small details from that meeting. I felt like hosting my intellectual family. We, my supervisor Marina Papanastassiou, my colleagues Constantina Kottaridi and Catherine Glynou, all did our best to make that occasion an unforgettable one for everybody.

Now, having finished my PhD last summer, I work as a Lecturer in International Business in Kent Business School and I really look forwards to the next EIBA Conference in Oslo. I will meet my old friends and academic family there…

See you all in Oslo…

Fragkiskos Filippaios

EIBA-EIASM Tutorial 2004

While 40 students applied for the EIBA-EIASM Doctoral Tutorial 2003 in Copenhagen, there were only 20 submissions for the Ljubljana Tutorial by students from 17 different countries. As only 10 students could be invited to present their thesis proposal it meant that less students had to be refused than the year before, although still only half of them could participate. The EIBA Board has discussed this in order to try to render service to more students. Because this would have meant that the format of the Tutorial would have to be changed, the Board decided to maintain the system that has proved successful during all those years.

Western Europe, Northern Europe and East and Central Europe, each had 4 applicants, while three each came from Southern Europe and Asia and 2 students were from North America. In the final selection Western Europe and Eastern and Central Europe( ECE) each counted three doctoral students, compared to two from Northern Europe and one each from Southern Europe and North America.

The Faculty consisted of Peter Buckley, Yves Doz, Rob Grosse, Lars Häkanson, Jean-François Hennart, John Cantwell (co-chair) and Danny Van Den Bulcke (chair).