by Danny Van Den Bulcke

The Doctoral Tutorial  Faculty in Fribourg was co-chaired by John Cantwell (Rutgers University) and Udo Zander (Stockholm School of Economics). The other members of the Faculty were Jean François Hennart (Tilburg University), Torben Pedersen (Copenhagen Business School), Lucia Piscitello (Milan Polytechnic) and Francesca Sanna Randaccio (University of Rome-La Sapienza).

Fifty students, a record number, applied for the 20th Doctoral Tutorial. Based on the tutorial format only 12 could be invited to present their thesis proposal during a full day session  that took place before the EIBA Conference got started.

Almost two thirds of the applicants were nationals from European countries. With 12 applications, students from Western Europe represented one fourth of the total , compared to one tenth from Northern Europe. Quite high was the interest from students from so-called emerging countries. Nationals from Russia, China and India (11 in total) were almost as important as Western Europe. If  the  Ph.d. students applying from the ASEAN countries Thailand and Vietnam are added to this latter group (+ 5) those countries represent one third of the total candidates.

If one looks at the country of study instead of the country of origin a different picture emerges. The UK + Ireland, which counted only one national in the country of origin classification, host 15 Ph.d. students at their universities, almost one third of the total applicants. Western Europe and Northern Europe come in as second and third in this ranking with about one fourth. While most of the Western European doctoral students prepare their Ph.d. in their own country, this is less the case for Northern Europe that succeeds in attracting a higher  proportion of foreign doctoral students.

A similar split-up for the 12 students that were invited  to come to Fribourg, reveals that the selection based on the quality of the summary proposal that was submitted to the Faculty chairs,  more or less reflects the total population of the applicants. Two thirds of the nominated students were European. Students from Western Europe and Asia took up one quarter  each of the available positions for the Tutorial. On the basis of the country of study, the selected students were divided in three equal parts of one third for West Europe, North Europe and Asia.

In general the classification of the doctoral students for 2006 confirms the analysis that was conducted for the 20 years that the Doctoral Tutorial for the Best Thesis proposal has been organized. The UK + Ireland and Norhern Europe remain the preferred destination for students coming from Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. Also the number of Ph.d. students from emerging economies who had hoped to be invited to present their proposal is increasing, meaning that EIBA’s Tutorial is becoming more and more global. An innovation of the 2006 Tutorial was that 8 students were given the opportunity to present their doctoral project in a separate poster session. It is not clear if this additional event allowed to eliminate the disappointment of the students who could not participate in the main tutorial session.

The impressions from the winner of the Best Thesis Proposal for 2006 (see infra) indicate that the students appreciate the contributions from the Faculty in enormously.

by Roger Smeets – Nijmegen School of Management, The Netherlands

Having been asked to briefly reflect upon the 20th EIBA doctoral tutorial, held on 7 December 2006 in Fribourg, it is tempting to give an explanation of how the tutorial works. However, my predecessor (Katharina Kretschmer, last year’s winner) has already done a great job in doing so, so I will use this opportunity to give a more personal account of the event.

 Although I am still quite inexperienced in presenting at conferences, one lesson I have taken at heart very early on is that really nobody ever reads the paper I am presenting. Sure, my supervisor warned me on several occasions that this might happen, but being young and naïve (and also a bit arrogant I suppose) I was convinced that people want to know, or better yet, are awaiting the message that I want to convey. Alas, I have been let down time and again….until the doctoral tutorial.

Indeed, the single greatest benefit of participating in the tutorial without a doubt has been to receive very detailed feedback on my thesis proposal from a highly renowned faculty, which actually read what I had written. Admittedly, it was quite scary to stand there and absorb the critique on my magnum opus, but the comments I (and all of us) received were very sharp and made a great deal of sense. Especially, I would like to thank Professor John Cantwell (who was also co-chairing the tutorial) and Professor Lucia Piscitello who both served as discussants of my paper. I would also like to thank Professor Francesca Sanna-Randaccio for her stimulating and supportive comments.

A second lesson that I have picked up from my limited conference experience is that developing a network and networking skills is crucial. It really is quite unnerving to find yourself lost in the often large and unfamiliar crowds at conferences. Yet again the doctoral tutorial provides an opportunity, as it serves as an excellent platform for networking. The PhD students that I met during the tutorial really lifted my spirit and I want to thank Kamil, Clara, Elena, Irina, Lamia, Valérie, Claes, Lisa,  Simona, Maetinee and Huu Le for the great time we had during and after the tutorial. I suspect that I will meet many of them at future (EIBA) conferences.

This year’s tutorial had an additional feature as it celebrated its 20th birthday. For this occasion there was a special panel session on 9 December. During this session, part of this and previous years’ faculty presented some facts, figures and personal views on the history of the doctoral tutorial. Also, one of the first tutorial winners (1989), Professor Jorma Larimo, and the winner of 2001, Rekha Krishnan, shared some of their views with us. Rekha also was a finalist for the 2006 Gunnar Hedlund Award, which I think nicely demonstrates the value added of the tutorial – both in its ability to recognize promising research as well as to stimulate its further development. I therefore also want to congratulate and thank Professor Daniel van den Bulcke as the initiator and inspirator of the EIBA doctoral tutorial, for creating such a useful platform where young scholars meet each other and senior faculty to discuss ideas. Because – as stressed by Professor Peter Buckley during this session – it is therein, rather than handing out an award, in which the true value added of the doctoral tutorial lies.

Finally, I also want to thank the rest of the tutorial faculty – Professor Udo Zander (co-chair), Professor Torben Pedersen and Professor Jean-François Hennart – for their inspiring comments and suggestions, and Professor Philippe Gugler and his team for having organized a truly wonderful conference.

by Danny Van Den Bulcke

In a panel session at the Fribourg Conference in December 2006 about ‘Doctoral Studies in International Business’ comments were made about this yearly event, which has become one of the basic features of the EIBA Conferences.

EIBA’s first Doctoral Tutorial was organized by Danny Van Den Bulcke in Antwerp in 1987. The Faculty of this first consortium consisted of Peter Buckley, John Dunning, Geert Hofstede and Danny Van Den Bulcke. Only six Ph.d. students showed up at the University of Antwerp for this new initiative. Two of them came from Western European countries, while three originated from Southern Europe and one from Northern Europe. The winner of the Best Thesis Proposal in this first doctoral contest was Andreas Zielke from the University of Dortmund.

Panel: Danny Van Den Bulcke, Udo Zander, John Cantwell, Rehka Krishnan and Jean-François Hennart

The general objectives of the EIBA Doctoral Tutorial are first of all to provide an opportunity for doctoral students in international business (IB) to discuss their research plans with a distinguished international faculty and their Ph.d. student colleagues. Secondly it allows students to actively participate in the EIBA conference, which gives them the possibility to get exposed to recent developments in the theory and practice of  IB, to get acquainted with other IB specialists and researchers, and to become part of an existing network or establish a network of their own in their specific field of interest.

That the Doctoral Tutorial has grown over the years is illustrated by the 20th anniversary meeting at the University of Fribourg. John Cantwell and Udo Zander had taken over from Danny Van Den Bulcke, who organized and chaired 18 of the previous tutorials. No less than 50 Ph.d. students from all over the world applied in 2006. And because the approach followed in the Tutorial used from the very first year was regarded by both the Faculty and the students as an excellent ‘formula’ to give as much feedback as possible, only between 10 and 12 students could be invited to present their thesis proposal. Exceptionally in Fribourg a poster session was programmed for an additional 8 students.

Next to Danny Van Den Bulcke, who chaired this special session, five other scholars presented their views about EIBA’s doctoral tutorial. Two of them were previous winners of the Best Thesis Proposal, while three had been or were  members of the Faculty. The first speaker was Jorma Larimo, who was co-winner of the Prize in Berlin in 1988 and who since then not only became a prominent EIBA member, e.g. as national representative of Finland, but also was  the organizer of a doctoral tutorial at Vaasa University, which became part of the Nordic Doctoral Tutorial which is mainly focused on students from Scandinavian countries.

Rekha Krishnan,  who prepared her Ph.d. at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and is now at Simon Fraser University in Canada, won the Prize for the Best Thesis Proposal in 2001 in Paris. She discussed the usefulness of the tutorial for students from developing countries and formulated suggestions for managing a doctoral project.

John Cantwell, co- chair of the Faculty of the Doctoral Tutorial in 2005 and 2006, together with Udo Zander, made a comparison of doctoral studies and consortia in Europe and North America , while Jean François Hennart, the record holder as Faculty member, presented his impressions about the specific characteristics of EIBA’s tutorial in the context of doctoral studies in Europe. He stressed that the EIBA tutorial had been the first major initiative in international business and had become a trend setter as it inspired other organizations like AIB-UK  and the Nordic initiative.

Udo Zander analysed the themes of the doctoral projects as brought forward by the selected students.  It was interesting to see, not only how the subjects of the theses had evolved during a twenty year period, but also how they compared with the topics presented during EIBA and AIB conferences. Hopefully the results of these studies might become available in a future issue of EIBAzine. 

Danny Van Den Bulcke provided some historical data to allow the audience to better evaluate the contributions of the tutorial. However, for a number of criteria the figures were not available for the whole twenty year period. He stressed from the beginning that a systematic distinction was made between the data about the applicants for the tutorial and the students that were selected to present their proposal during the conference. Only for the latter group was information available for the twenty yearrs under consideration. Although there have been ups and downs in the number of applications over the years, the trend in the number of students who wanted to enroll was clearly upwards.

The Ph.d. applicants (1997-2006)

Based on information for the last ten years about the nationality of the doctoral students applied 300 applied , which – regretfully - meant that over the whole period only one out of three could be invited to present the project during the conference. Two thirds of those students were nationals from Continental Europe, as compared to one fifth from Asia and Oceania, while about one twentieth had the natinality of a country in North or South America or Africa and the Middle East. Within Continental Europe one third had the nationality of a West European country, compared to one fifth for East and Central Europe and South Europe.

While the nationality of the applying students tells us one hing about doctoral studies in IB, the country of stydy shows a somewhat different picture. Continental Europe hosted two thirds of the Ph.d. students, while within this region Western Europe took up half, compared to one third for Northern Europe and about 7% each for East and Central and Southern Europe. With only 2% of the students having the British nationality, 23 % had chosen to study there. It would be interesting to find out if this brain gain for Western Europe and Britain has a more long term effect  in terms of appointments and publications or other criteria.

The doctoral nominees (1990-2006)

For the 179 students who were invited to present their proposal at the tutorial data are available for a period of 16 years. About one quarter  had the nationality of a Western European (28%) or Northern European  (23%) country, compared to about one tenth for Southern Europe (12%) and East and Central Europe (10%). Among the nationals from non Continental Europe, Asia and Oceania took up 13% of the total,  while North and South America  reached 8% and Africa and the Middle East 3%.

While the UK and Ireland counted only 3% in the classification based on nationality, the universities in these countries succeeded in attracting almost one out of 5 of those students (18%). Over the whole period 1990-2006 both Western Europe(30%) and Northern Europe (27%) more or less kept their attractiveness for doctoral IB students in proportion to the nationality criterion.

The Faculty (1991-2006)

During the 16 years that track was kept of the Faculty, EIBA was able to rely on 104 Faculty members to work together with the Ph.d. students a whole day at the tutorial, after having read the proposals beforehand. While a number of scholars could be regarded as composing the core of the Faculty there always was rotation by bringing in new members, sometimes based on the specific topics of some of the students. Half of the faculty members were nationals from Western Europe, while 30% were British and 16% were from North America. Three percent each were Austraian and Israli nationals.

The winners (1987-2006)

That twenty years of doctoral tutorials organized by EIBA, with the active collaboration of EISM, shows 27 winners, is of course due to the fact that the Faculty could not always agree, which proposal should be awarded the Prize of the Best Thesis Proposal. Seven times two winners were chosen. The majority of the winners came from Western Europe and North America.

To be completed?

by Danny Van Den Bulcke

One of the highlights of the EIBA conferences is the special session by the doctoral students who have been selected for the Hedlund Award which grants € 10,000 to the Best Doctoral thesis. Last year the award went to Jon Erik Lervik,  while Denise Dunlap-Hinkler and Rekha Krishnan were the runners up for this important prize, which was launched 10 years ago by the Stockholm School of Economics, IIB, in honour of Gunnar Hedlund. In 2007 the award will be attributed for the 9th time as 2004 and 2005 had been taken together.

Finalists: Rehka Krishnan, Jon Erik Lervik and Denise Dunlap-Hinkler

Gunnar Hedlund was one of the most gifted and creative international business scholars in Europe, whose early death was most untimely for our profession and for EIBA. Gunnar was very active in our organization and was also a member of the Faculty of the Doctoral Tutorial in its early years.

During the 9 years (1998-2006) that data are available about those nominated for the  Award,  29 students were selected as the ‘final four’ or ‘final three’ for the Prize of the Best Doctoral Thesis (Hedlund Award). Almost 60 % (17) of those students did their doctoral studies in the US (compared to only one quarter (7) in Western Europe, 14% (4) in the UK and one in Australia. It would seem that to do doctoral studies in the US increases the chances of winning this prestigious Prize. However, it would be necessary to have figures about the number of applicants and their nationality as well as their country of study to confirm this hypothesis. Maybe a more complete picture of the decade during which the Hedlund Prize has been granted will be presented in the upcoming  9th or 10th award winning ceremony in Catania or Tallinn.

Four of the nominated Ph.d. students for the Hedlund Award had participated in EIBA’s Doctoral Tutorial. Three of those students had been winners of the ‘Award for Best Thesis Proposal’, while a fourth one had been in the selection of the students that were nominated for the Tutorial. Also three of them studied in the UK, although they came from Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands.

In AIB,  the competitition for the ‘Best Doctoral Thesis’ is known as the ‘Farmer Best  Dissertation Award’, in honour of Richard  N. Farmer a former professor at the University of Indiana, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of international business studies. Again no complete figures are available as  to the number of applicants and winners during the many years that this prize has been awarded. However, it is quite impressive that no less than three participants in  EIBA’s ‘Best Doctoral Thesis Proposal’ (of which two were former winners) have also won  AIB’s Best Thesis Competition,i.e. Jeffrey Johnson (an American who did his Ph.d. studies at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland), Camilla Noonan (who is Irish and got her Ph.d. from the University of Reading, UK) and this year Rekha Krishnan (who is Indian and prepared her doctorate at Tilburg University in the Netherlands). It might be interesting to add that both Camilla Noonan and Rekha Krishnan were among the runners up of the Hedlund Award, but failed to get the top prize.