by Danny Van Den Bulcke

“At an EIBA Conference you might bump into a bunch of grey-haired dignitaries, looking solemn and absorbed in serious conversation. Chances are that you are seeing a group of EIBA Fellows, discussing the state of international business in general and of EIBA in particular.

EIBA Fellows are a new species of EIBA members, created by the EIBA Board and General Assembly a few years ago. The initiative was taken by Reijo Luostarinen, one of the former Presidents of EIBA. Becoming an EIBA Fellow is a great honour. It is the recognition of scholarly leadership in the field of international business. At the same time, the election as EIBA Fellow is a recognition of significant contributions  to our association.

But EIBA Fellows are not just there to bask in the sun of their past achievements. They also have the duty to serve EIBA in whatever capacity possible. EIBA Fellows are an intellectual resource for EIBA to draw on and are supposed to enhance the standing of EIBA within the academic discipline, with business, government bodies and other associations. EIBA Fellows constitute a sounding board for the Executive Committee and the Board especially for long term, strategic issues. EIBA Fellows have the advantage of distance from day-today decision making in EIBA and can use their expereience for critical reflection. EIBA Fellows have their (annual) meeting during the EIBA Conference, but they can also be involved in the meantime.”

This could have been written by Klaus Macharzina, Dean of the Fellows of EIBA, or by his predecessor John Dunning who was the first Dean of  the Fellows. In fact it was written by Berend Wierenga, Dean of the EMAC Fellows. The European Marketing Academy (EMAC), which also belongs to the associations for which EIASM takes care of the administration, created EMAC Fellowships at about the same time as EIBA.
The above text was taken from The EMAC Chronicle, the printed  Newsletter of EMAC (page 21), and on the basis of some unauthorised editoral liberty, the acronym EMAC was replaced by EIBA. Also ‘marketing’ was changed into ‘international business’ and Susan Douglas was replaced by Reijo Luostarinen.

Initiatives taken by the EIBA Fellows are for instance the annual organization of a special panel on a timely and relevant international business topic, the yearly election of the EIBA Award of Distinguished Honorary Fellow. Last year this honour was bestowed on Karl Sauvant, Executive Director of the Columbia Program for International Investment and previously with UNCTAD and the year before to Jorma Ollila, CEO from Nokia at that time.

And of course a major initiative was the launching of the Wandel and Goltermann EIBA Fellows Award which was negotiated by Klaus Macharzina. The winner of the first of those Fellowships,  Jahan Peerally from the University of Mauritius got the opportunity to engage into research activities at the  Richard Ivey School of Business of the Univesity of Western Ontario, London, Canada. At the end of her Fellowship she was appointed at HEC in Montréal. Her advice to the potential applicants for the second EIBA Fellows’ Fellowship in this issue of EIBAzine should be most useful. Hopefully the Fellows will be able to continue to finance such an important initiative that opens up so many opportunities for a young scholar as testified by Jahan Peerally.

This year Jean-François Hennart (Tilburg University) and Marjan Svetlicic (University of Ljubljana) have been elected as New Fellows.

by Jahan Peerally, HEC Montreal

At the time that I was awarded the EIBA fellows research award, I was a lecturer at the University of Mauritius and also a PhD staff/student in International Business.  The EIBA award was a great opportunity for me to expand my research horizons and experience from my interaction with other academics and researchers, especially from more advanced countries, engaged in the research process.  I must therefore reiterate my most heartfelt gratitude to the Wandel and Goltermann Foundation and the EIBA Fellows for providing me with such an essential research, but most importantly, the learning opportunity.

The research project submitted to the panel of EIBA Fellows for the award of  Promising Young Researcher in International Business was entitled 'International versus National R&D Collaborations: A Study of Canadian Manufacturing SMEs'.  Following my attachment at the Richard Ivey Business School (UWO), it was decided that the feasibility of this project was challenging since datasets on key factors related to Canadian manufacturing SMEs in general, and in the context of the research, was not readily available.  Similarly, collecting primary data through a survey was deemed too lengthy a process for collecting the necessary data to successfully conduct and complete the research project in the time available.

In my case, alternative research projects were considered and explored.  Considerable time and resources were expended on background research for the most promising project research centred on the timing of entry by developed country multinationals in emerging markets which are specifically subject to high political uncertainty and risks.  Unfortunately, this research avenue had to be set aside due to lack of key data and certain methodological hurdles.  The research project was finalised based on the datasets that I possessed already on foreign-owned and domestic firms in the Mauritius textile industry.  The research emphasis was shifted to analysing the internationalisation of product innovation capabilities in the context of low-R&D firms, namely textile firms, which are not considered as being located in an industry that generates major technological breakthroughs.  Instead the textile industry is  mainly seen as an industry where firms generate innovations that represent mostly movements along a technological frontier.

In general, products which are considered as fairly unchanging in nature and embody low levels of innovations are viewed as being largely the result of process innovation as opposed to product innovation activities.  This view is founded on the suggestion that the competitiveness of such products is principally dependent upon shortened production cycles and cost reduction processes both forming the bases for standardization and mass-production.  Hence, there seems to be a general consensus that the technological capabilities of firms which manufacture low-R&D products are a function of their process innovation activities.   The same consensus is deemed applicable to textile firms located in developing countries which are viewed mainly as mass-producing units of low-R&D products.  Following from this premise, the main research enquiry is targeted at determining how significant product innovation activities are to the technological capability development of textile firms which produce textile products such as yarn, dyes, fabrics and garments.

The research addresses the above query within the context of Mauritius a small industrializing country and explores the dynamism between product innovation activities and the technological capabilities of textile firms categorized as small-medium enterprises and large enterprises and; domestic enterprises and subsidiaries of multinational enterprise.  The study shows that, contrary to what is generally accepted, product innovation capabilities are as crucial as process innovation capabilities in the overall development of low-R&D firms’ technological base. 

As the recipient of the  first EIBA Fellows award, I would like, as part of this article, share some salient points of guidance to future applicants so that they are able to make the most of their research attachment under the EIBA Fellows research award.

Thus in preparing the research proposal, one has to remember that the project is undertaken in a different country and research environment.  Being from a developing country, I had automatically assumed that access to datasets were more of a problematic issue where I was from, mainly due to poor IT infrastructure.  Though in more advanced countries datasets may be available, sometimes there are important bureaucratic, financial or confidentiality hurdles to overcome in order to access those.  Bearing in mind that the research attachment period at the university is usually for a year, one has to determine data needs well ahead of time and ensure that such data can be obtained within the time constraints of the attachment.  Of course, determining data needs ahead of time within a country context which is unfamiliar can be complex, thus the nature of the project becomes instrumental in determining those same data needs.  Another factor is to consider attachment at a university where one can have access to proprietary university databases.  This is where the difficult task of choosing between scholars with whom  one wishes to work with and the feasibility of undertaking a research project that requires collecting primary data comes in.  Though not a generalisation, such trade-offs between the nature of the research project, the collaboration one wishes to have and  the access to data have to be considered when drawing up the research proposal.  Alternative versions of the same research proposal based on different data sources (for example by pre-selecting back-up industry samples) should also be considered.

Finally as the recipient of the EIBA Fellows award 2005-2006, it is my personal experience that apart from the opportunity to do research, I was provided with an opportunity to learn more about the research process in a different environment and how to manage such a process.  Similarly, the skill of marrying the idiosyncrasies of a research project with the optimal academic environment, data requirement whilst also finding the ideal match in terms of collaborators, is one that can only be learnt through experiences.

EIBA Fellows Award to a Promising Young Researcher for 2008-09
sponsored by the Wandel & Goltermann Foundation

The EIBA Fellows were established by the European International Business Academy (EIBA) Annual Meeting in Paris in December 2001. Fellowships recognize outstanding achievements in research and education in the field of international business, and the number of Fellows is restricted to no more than 20. The EIBA Fellows consist of a group of senior scholars that represent, between them, a distinctively European contribution to thinking in the field of international business studies. The Fellows are engaged in a number of initiatives in support of EIBA and its objectives.

The EIBA Fellows are pleased to announce the second EIBA Fellows Research Award for a Promising Young Scholar in International Business. The first Award was made in 2005, for the academic year 2005-06. The winner of the Young Scholar's award will receive Euros 15,000. The purpose of this award is to help to broaden the research programme of promising younger scholars in the international business field, to widen their network of research contacts and open a new research collaboration for them at an early stage of their academic careers, and to enhance the formation of international research exchange arrangements amongst international business scholars. The award is given for the conduct of some specified piece of original research in a new host institution, and not for the completion of any coursework requirements. Currently registered doctoral students who are working on an international business topic, or those that have successfully defended such theses within the last three years (since March 2005), are eligible to apply.  The award represents a contribution towards the living expenses of the recipient, and is to be paid directly to the awardee.

Applications should be made by doctoral or recent post-doctoral candidates themselves, but they should be supported by a proposed supervisor (in the doctoral case) or local coordinator (in the post-doctoral case) of the intended research that holds a faculty appointment in a host institution that is located outside the country of the home institution with which the candidate is currently affiliated. The host institution cannot be the university at which the candidate is or was registered for a PhD. The host institution should further list the names of all its existing faculty that are likely to be involved in supporting the project locally. The host institution also needs to supply an assurance that they support the application, and if successful, that they will provide the necessary office, computing and library facilities to the candidate to enable the proposed research project to proceed, and the funding of any other such additional project-related support that they (the host institution) deem to be necessary. The supervisor/local coordinator will be responsible for ensuring that all the local research facilities listed are provided, and encouraging a positive interaction between the awardee and local faculty. Currently registered doctoral students should also have the support of their own PhD supervisor on behalf of the home institution at which they are registered for a PhD. Projects should be of up to one year's duration, for a period to be specified and to run during the academic year 2008-09 (or as close to that year as is feasible). The successful candidate will be expected to make reference to the support of the award in all publications that directly result from the visiting year abroad.

Candidates are asked to submit a research proposal on a form that will be provided upon request, which includes the outline of a project that can be reasonably undertaken within a year. The outline of the proposed project should be contained in a maximum of 5 pages (not including bibliography), and must include the following sections: (i) specific aims; (ii) theoretical and empirical relevance (the body of literature to which the project most relates); (iii) methodology; (iv) hypotheses or expected findings; (v) significance for your longer term objectives, and plans for dissemination; (vi) advantages of the proposed collaboration and host institution for the conduct of this project; and (vii) bibliography. The evaluation process will include an assessment of the value and feasibility of the project itself, as well as the capabilities of the candidate, and the capacity of the supervisor/local coordinator and host institution to support the proposed research. Therefore, applicants need to work together with the proposed supervisor/local coordinator at this early stage to devise a project that will be a good fit from both sides. At the conclusion of the award, the recipient is required to provide the Fellows with a report of the progress made on the project, the key findings, an evaluation of the collaboration and an indication of any unanticipated difficulties that were encountered. Proposals will be considered by a committee of the EIBA Fellows that will be established for this purpose. The committee expects to reach its decision by 1st May 2008. Proposals should be sent by the deadline to the Dean of the EIBA Fellows, Professor Klaus Macharzina <kmach3@aol.com>, from whom an application form can be obtained.

The closing date for applications is: 31st March 2008