Up to FrEIBAburg, Switzerland, for EIBAs 32nd Annual Conference
Three years ago changes were carried out in the organisational structure of EIBA and its relationship with EIASM which takes care of the EIBA Secretariat. Since the successful conferences in Athens, Copenhagen, Ljubljana and Oslo, EIBA has found a new 'élan' and has been able to improve its financial situation. The Executive Committee and the Board, which now counts 20 national representatives, is getting useful support from the EIBA Fellows who not only offer their experience but also took new important iniatives under its first Dean John Dunning. Klaus Macharzina has been elected as his successor and is certainly going to continue along the same lines (see further for more news on the EIBA Fellows)
The theme of this year's conference is 'Regional and National Drivers of Business Location and Competitiveness'. Maybe it is not a coincidence that the term 'location' figures in the conference theme title. The EIBA meeting is taking place in Fribourg, the French speaking part of this multilingual country. The German speaking inhabitants refer to it as Freiburg. There is little chance that the international business experts who will travel to Fribourg-Freibourg from far away places, will end up in Freiburg, Germany, even though originally there was some confusion about the country in which the 32nd Annual Conference of EIBA was going to be organized. To avoid any possible confusion in December 2006 a request will be made to the mayor of this beautiful city to change the name into FrEIBAburg and FrIBAburg phonetically, as some members of EIBA pronounce the 'ei' as the French 'i' and the English 'e'...
To be serious again, it has to be stressed that Philippe Gugler and his young and enthusiastic team are sparing no efforts to make the upcoming conference into another academically and socially successful event. The members of the EIBA Board were able to admire the new faculty building of Dean Philippe Gugler during their visit to the conference site at the end of April, when the interim Board meeting was held in Fribourg (see group picture).
EIBA Board 2006
This will be the first time that EIBA will meet in Switzerland. It might have been the second time if an American professor at IMEDE (now called IMD) would have gone through with his plans to host EIBA in Lausanne for its 12th Annual Meeting. However, only one year before the conference had to take place, it was cancelled for reasons that never became very clear. To avoid that EIBA would have to skip an annual conference, Neil Hood - who had hosted the 1985 conference in Glasgow - and myself - who had accepted to organize the 1987 meeting in Antwerp, decided to look frantically for another venue for 1986. Thanks to Ian Jones and City University it became possible to have the conference in London. This joint effort between Neil, Ian and myself allowed us to assure continuity in EIBA's expansion at that time. It is very sad that Neil Hood, one of the main pillars of EIBA during the 1980s, passed away last February (see In Memoriam further in this issue).
As a result of the 'last minute' cancellation of Lausanne twenty years ago, the Board realised that EIBA needed more long term planning for its future conferences. This is why both the Board and the General Assembly have already approved the location of the next two conferences, i.e. Catania, Sicily in 2007 and Tallinn, Estonia in 2008, of which respectively Grazia Santangelo and Enn Listra as organizers and future EIBA presidents will take care of. Although several members and national representatives have expressed interest in hosting a future EIBA conference and inviting EIBA members to their university and country, 2009 has not yet been decided upon. While organizing an EIBA Conference is hard work, it is also highly rewarding in terms of recognition and exposure for one's alma mater and long lasting professional contacts and friendships.
With its plenary sessions, special panels and presentation of papers the Annual Conference clearly is the mainstay of EIBAs activities. Yet, also the Doctoral Tutorial has become an essential part of the Conference. In Fribourg the Doctoral Tutorial will be organized tor the 20th time. To commemorate this anniversary a panel will be organized with the participation of both Faculty members and former winners of the so-called Best Thesis Proposal. The new conveners of the Tutorial John Cantwell and Udo Zander, received no less than 50 applications of Ph.d. students. While the Doctoral Tutorial awards the best thesis proposal, the prestigious Gunnar Hedlund Award granted by IBB from the Stockhom School of Economics consecrates the best thesis. After one year of interruption it will be back on the agenda. And of course there are other awards like the Copenhagen Prize and a new Elsevier IBR award. Since Jorma Ollila received the first such award in Oslo, he has been nominated as Manager of the Year 2006 (see further). During the last two conferences a number of commemorative sessions were organised in which recognition was given to some IB scholars. Sketches of their careers, based on speeches or introductions to 'festschrifts' are included in this issue of EIBA-zine.
See you in FrEIBAburg!!!
Danny Van Den Bulcke |