Dear colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to announce that the 32nd EIBA Annual Conference will be held at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland from the 7th to the 9th of December 2006.

The EIBA Annual Conference offers all members a great opportunity for presenting and discussing on-going research work in order to reach a synthetic understanding of the main questions of this year’s conference theme: “Regional and National Drivers of Business Location and Competitiveness”. This theme invites reflection on the major challenges faced by industrialised countries in the context of globalisation of productions and markets. The issue will be addressed at the Opening Plenary Session with the presence of the former President of Switzerland and former Minister of Economics, Mr. Joseph Deiss, John Dunning, Emeritus Professor University of Reading (UK) and Rutgers (US), and the CEO of Ernst &Young Switzerland, Mr. Peter Athanas.

A second plenary session, chaired by Gaston Gaudard - former rector of the University of Fribourg-, will be dedicated to Outstanding Issues Regarding International Business Competitiveness and will count with the participation of Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements; of Christian Ketels, Member of the faculty at the Harvard Business School and of Lars Oxelheim, professor at the University of Lund and affiliate of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI), Stockholm.

This year’s EIBA Fellows session will be held in honor to Prof. Sanjaya Lall. Organized by Francesca Sanna-Randaccio and chaired by John Dunning the session will discuss about Multinationals, Technology and Development together with John Cantwell (Professor, Rutgers University), Anne Miroux (Chief of the Investment Issues Analysis Branch, UNCTAD) and Karl Sauvant (Executive Director, Columbia Program on International Investment, Columbia University).

Other interesting panel sessions will also be organised, some of which will commemorate particular events and research contributions to the International Business area. Together with these sessions, presentations of many interesting papers selected from the 294 papers submitted this year, will configure the program of the Conference.

Thanks to the great help of the track chairs and the efforts of the reviewers we intend to organize an academically and socially successful EIBA conference. The conference venue will be the new campus of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Fribourg which is only 10 minutes walk from the city center and the main Conference hotel, the NH Hotel. For further details on the conference program, accomodation and other practical information please visit the conference web page: http://www.unifr.ch/pes/eiba2006/

I am looking forward to welcoming you in Fribourg.

Kindest regards,

Philippe Gugler
EIBA President 2006
Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
University of Fribourg