by Tamar Almor – The College of Management, Israel

Between 1990 and 1992 the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) organized three consecutive summer schools which took place in Gilleleje, located at the Northern coast of Denmark.

The Danish Summer Research Institute (DSRI) was organized by Lauge Stetting, Art Stonehill, John Dunning and Christian Nielsen, who were able to obtain funding from the (then) EEC in order to allow senior and junior scholars to get together and study the benefits of the "Europe 1992" project.

From left to right: Torben Pedersen, Lars Oxelheim, Trond Randoj, Danny Van den Bulcke, Krzysztof Obloj, Seev Hirsch, John Dunning, Tamar Almar and Christian Bellak

In Gilleleje, a remote vacation village, about 40 Ph.D. students and about 40 of their supervisors got together for two weeks during three consecutive summers in order to work together on the Ph.D. studies conducted at the time.  Senior scholars who participated included John Dunning, Lauge Stetting, Art Stonehill, Christian Nielsen, Seev Hirsch, Michael Czinkota, John Daniels, Peter Gray, Gunnar Hedlund, Danny Van Den Bulcke, Duane Kujawa, Donald Lessard, Peter Lorange, Reijo Luostarinen, Lars Oxelheim and Terutomo Ozawa to mention just a few.

The Ph.D. students that attended DSRI included among others Philippe Gugler, Christian Bellak, Torben Pedersen, Nicole Coviello, Hong Liu, Lyn Amine, Pontus Braunerhjelm, Tamar Almor, Peggy Chaudhry, Dorothee Feils, Ivo Zander, Rebecca Marchan, Carol Howard, Michael Moffett, Rajneesh Narula, Bent Petersen, Trond Randøy, Matija Rojec, Krzysztof Obloj and Steen Thompsen. While presenting lists of names may seem to make for boring reading, it is interesting to see that quite a few of the Ph.D. candidates on the list have become well known scholars within the last fifteen years and some of them have become presidents of EIBA.

The DSRI created an international academic network and provided a great career start for many of the junior scholars who have become well established researchers in their own right. I would even go so far and say that the DSRI was crucial for the development of the next generation of European IB scholars. In addition, the summer schools created a lot of research and international cooperation, which translated into tens of working papers and a number of books.

At the 31st EIBA conference, Christian Bellak, Seev Hirsch and I initiated the idea for a panel which eventually was organized by Christian Bellak for the 32nd EIBA conference and which examined the contribution of DSRI and the research questions that were raised at the time.

One of the research topics at DSRI examined “Outsiders’ Response to European Integration - Implications of the European economic integration for insiders and outsiders." At the time it was argued that the competitive position of outsider countries was expected to be affected adversely by the European integration (EC92). Moreover, it was argued that countries with Small Open Economies (SMOPECs) would be affected less favorably than large countries. Indeed, it was found at the time by Hirsch and Almor, that outsider firms responded to EC92 with increased FDI in the European Union, especially in knowledge-intensive industries where fear of exclusion from “Fortress Europe" was high at the time.

Over the years many of the SMOPEC outsider countries started to look for ways to join the EU and lower trade barriers through arrangements. While fortress Europe has not materialized, the process of creating a European Union has affected businesses and countries tremendously.

In the panel, several speakers highlighted various aspects of European integration and non-integration fifteen years after project Europe 1992.

According to Krzysztof Obloj, joining the EU has created a host of changes in Poland, including an exodus of professionals and a collapse of the health system. Moreover, he argued that the mighty bureaucracy of the EU makes it nearly impossible for Poland to become a true member in terms of values and political discourse.

Trond Randøy on the other hand, showed that while Norway was much in fear in 1992 of its decision to remain an outsider, it created a process of re-thinking its industry strategy and government policy, thereby becoming a successful outsider country in the 21st century.

As argued by Torben Pedersen, at the time "project Europe 1992" was the response of European countries to a perceived threat from the US, which created the desire to unite and become a unified market. Fifteen years later, the EU finds itself in need of a strong and unified market again, however, this time in order to meet the Asian challenge from China and India. The question remains if the EU will be able to deal with this challenge or will find that the balance of power will shift to Asia which is able to provide a combination of cheap labor and high education.

Seev Hirsch from Israel wondered if membership in the EU is still relevant, especially for outsider SMOPECs, considering that nationality of MNCs matters less and their contribution to their home countries is less than it used to be. He presented examples of Nokia and Teva; two firms from SMOPECs that are growing considerably faster outside their home countries. However, Lars Oxelheim showed that membership in the EU has driven inward and outward FDI in Sweden.

Thus, while "project Europe 1992" was created to deal with certain international business issues, the European Union as well as insider and outsider countries find themselves in a different position than was imagined at the outset of Europe 1992. Still, the impact of the Danish Summer Research Institute at Gilleleje, fifteen years ago, seems to be lasting until today and seems to guide many researchers in their topics of interest also fifteen years later.