IN MEMORIAM CARLOS HEMAIS (1947-2005)

Our Brazilian colleague Carlos Hemais passed away in the 22nd October 2005. Fighting against the fatal disease for more than one year, Carlos died two days before the beginning of the 5th Workshop on the Internationalisation of Firms which he organised with the usual commitment and eagerness to foster the exchange of perspectives among international business scholars.

Many EIBA colleagues will remember him. Very discreet, he was an excellent companion for a conversation on a wide number of topics, from international business (he had extensively researched on internationalisation strategies) to the challenges of studying or working abroad or to the wonders of his native Brazil. I first met in a flight Paris-Athens, in 2002. We were together in the same row, and we started talking (in English) just to discover that we might switch to Portuguese, and that both of us were going to Athens with the same objective – to attend the 28th EEIBA Conference. We started then a friendship for life (so short his own, unfortunately…), strengthened with opportunities to meet in both Brazil and Portugal and in successive EIBA Conferences: in 2003 in Copenhagen, in 2004 in Ljubljana. Not in Oslo, in 2005, as we expected.

After getting a bachelor’s degree in law, Carlos was gradually attracted to business administration, getting a bachelor’s degree and then a Master in Administration Science, from COPPEAD (Brazil). He was granted a PhD in Industrial and Business Studies by the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. As other Latin-American fellows, Carlos came into the international business field from his professional interest in technology transfer and commercialisation issues. Based on his experience in the polymer industry he developed a model of international transfer of technology (Technology Management, 3 (3), 1997). Since the early 2000’s he focussed his interests in internationalisation, and more specifically on how the so-called Nordic approach might explain the internationalisation of Brazilian firms. This was exactly the topic he addressed in his first EIBA presentation in Athens. In 2003 he was behind the organisation of the 4th Workshop on the Internationalisation of Firms, of COPPEAD (Rio de Janeiro), and invited Matts Forsgren and Ingmar Bjorkmann as key-note lecturers. This year he had invited John Dunning, Danny Van den Bulcke and myself. Unfortunately, death came first.
Carlos was also editor of the Latin American Business Review, since 2003. At COPPEAD he coordinated MBA courses on International Business and Business Management. He was still able to publish his last book, already in the second half of 2005: a two volume on the Desafios dos Mercados Externos (the challenge of foreign markets).

I lost a friend and EIBA an increasingly committed member. On behalf of the EIBA Board, I would like to express our sorrows to his wife Barbara and to his son Marcus. There will be now another star in the sky, helping us to extend and deepen our knowledge on international business… but I will miss Carlos friendship and kind presence in our EIBA Conferences.

Vitor Corado Simões