Enn Listra
EIBA President 2008

Dear Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to announce that the 34th EIBA Annual Conference will be hosted by the Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration of Tallinn University of Technology and by the Tartu University and will be held at conference center Olümpia in Tallinn, Estonia from the 11th to the 13th of December 2008.

The EIBA 2008 Annual Conference offers all participants an opportunity for presenting on-going research work on this year’s conference theme: “International Business and Catching up Economies: Challenges and Opportunities” with the aim to facilitate scientific discussion on a wide variety of changes that are taking place in the catching up economies and its consequences for the international business. In addition, all papers on main topics of IB are welcome.

Catching-up is not a new phenomenon: the rapid economic development of Asian, Latin American and some Western European countries (for instance, Ireland) has been attracting research attention for decades. In the 1990s, the research focus has also turned towards Central and Eastern Europe. Several of these economies have experienced rapid economic growth and fast structural changes. The catching up process is not only important for economists, but business people as well. It creates several new growth possibilities, but also challenges that international companies have not faced before. On the other hand, the catching up economies, also present many new business opportunities for companies from other regions. These opportunities can be fully captured only when they take the rapid changes and economic, political, cultural and social differences of these economies and international business environment into account.

The conference will pay attention to these issues from various perspectives. It invites to discuss the subject from the perspectives of economics and business as well as within different functional areas, including human resource management, marketing, knowledge management, finance and accounting. The conference offers an opportunity to discuss theoretical and methodological challenges in contemporary international business research.

During the first day of the conference we will have the doctoral tutorial and the plenary session where the main topics of the conference are discussed together with business people.

The most important discussions of the conference will be held during sessions under eleven track headings. We have received approximately 230 paper submissions. Very special thanks go to track leaders Matija Rojec (University of Ljubljana), Niina Nummela (Turku School of Economics), Torben Pedersen (Copenhagen Business School), Jorma Larimo (University of Vaasa), Heinz Hollenstein (Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)), Vesa Suutari (University of Vaasa), Arnold Schuh (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration), Lars Oxelheim (The Research Institute of Industrial Economics, IFN, Lund University), Rebecca Piekkari (Helsinki School of Economics), Christian Bellak (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration), and Rob van Tulder (RSM Erasmus University).

As in previous years we will host publishers who will exhibit international business books and journals. The conference will be held in Olümpia Conference Centre which is part of the main conference hotel Olümpia, which is within walking distance of the Old Town. For information about the conference, please visit the conference web page at http://eiba2008.ttu.ee/ .

I hope that you will find the EIBA 2008 Conference an intellectually stimulating and friendly experience. I am looking forward to seeing you in Tallinn on 11 December 2008.

Kindest regards,

Enn Listra
EIBA President 2008
Dean of the School of Economics and Business Administration
Tallinn Uninverstiy of Technology