Danny Van Den Bulcke
EIBA Chairman

The forty submissions for EIBA’s 21st Doctoral Tutorial show that it has become an increasingly international event, both in terms of the interested Ph.D students as to the subjects they have chosen to work on for their theses. Based on the location of the universities where they were preparing their dissertations, the students came from 15 different countries. The UK universities dominated this ranking with 12 students, compared to 6 from Germany, 4 from Finland and 3 from Italy. Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland sent each 2 doctoral students to the Catania Tutorial, compared to one each for Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Portugal and Sweden.

The students participating of the 2007 Doctoral Tutorial in Catania

This picture of the applicants for the Doctoral Tutorial looks quite different if one takes into account the nationality of the students, i.e. their country of origin instead of the country of study, because it increases the number of countries to 23. The British universities clearly remain a preferred destination for students from other countries, as 10 out of the 12 are Non-British. The German, Italian and Finnish institutions recruit mainly Ph.D students from the home country as they count 7 and the two latter countries 4 students each among the Catania applicants. No less than 19, i.e. practically half, come from other countries to carry out their research at European universities. Five students are EU nationals from 4 different countries (Slovakia, Romania, Poland, and Greece), while two are Russian. Nine students have their roots in Asia, i.e. 3 in China and one each in Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Australia. One student came respectively from Latin America (Uruguay) and Africa (Ghana).

The emerging countries also came to the fore in the topics studied by the students who applied for participation in the Tutorial. Seven studied inward and outward FDI of emerging economies, while another 7 focused on issues of technology transfer and spillovers, often from the point of view of emerging, transition or developing countries. Six students were intrigued by the cultural dimensions of international business, while 4 each had a preference for SMEs and internationalization and performance of foreign subsidiaries. Topics such as international joint ventures and alliances, R&D and service multinationals drew much less adherents than a few years ago, while newer themes like environmental and intellectual property protection have not yet found too many interested students, as in all these cases only one or two students was tackling these subjects.

While it is very much regretted that only between 10 and 12 Ph.D students are selected to participate in the Tutorial, this characteristic (or weakness) constitutes, at the same time the strength of EIBA’s Tutorial. To accept more students would not allow for such a thorough discussion of the projects by the Faculty. It is indeed the unanimous opinion of the students who went through the Tutorial that both the comments from the Faculty members and the possibility to attend the EIBA conference and exchange views with their fellow Ph.D students during three days is an enormously useful experience for their doctoral work and their future career.

The eleven students who were invited to come to Catania to present their thesis proposal studied at universities in seven different European universities (UK: 3, Germany and Italy: 2 and Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark each 1). With regard to the nationality of their home country 4 of the ‘chosen eleven’ came from outside of the European Union (Russia, Korea, China and Vietnam). And as indicated in the list of the awards the joint winners of the Best Doctoral Thesis Proposal studied in The Netherlands and the UK and had the Russian and Greek nationality.

To conclude this report on the Doctoral Tutorial 2007, it should be recalled that the Faculty consisted of John Cantwell (Rutgers University) and Udo Zander (Stockholm School of Economics) as co-chairs and Peter Buckley (Leeds University), Jean François Hennart (Tilburg University), Lucia Piscitello (Politecnico di Milano) and Francesca Sanna-Randaccio (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’) as other members. The administrative preparation of the Tutorial was handled perfectly by Nicole Coopman and Marion Hebbelynck from EIASM.

The Faculty of the Doctoral 2007 with 'founding father' Danny Van Den Bulcke

Sergey Filippov
Co-winner Best Thesis Proposal 2007
UNU-MERIT (United Nations University & University of Maastricht)

Catania, the gorgeous island of Sicily! When people hear the word “Sicily”, they think of different things. As for me, I think of the 21st EIBA Doctoral Tutorial, held on the 13th of December 2007. It was my great pleasure and honour to be there and to become a winner of the Award, so hereby I would like to share my personal impressions from participation in this event.

In fact, the Tutorial kicked off informally on my birthday, the 12th of December 2007. It was my privilege to celebrate this day in the company of all the members of the Tutorial Faculty, organisers of the Tutorial and PhD candidates at an informal dinner in a restaurant with a magnificent view on Etna volcano. It was an excellent commencement of the Tutorial since it allowed “to break the ice” before its formal opening.

Next day, the official opening followed. The Doctoral Tutorial was a tremendous opportunity to receive comments from distinguished scholars. It was noticeable that Faculty members were very serious about their task; they carefully read the papers and gave very detailed feedback. Not only did they give critical comments, but more importantly the discussants made suggestions how to improve the research projects. Moreover, apart from the formal Tutorial, a lunch break and coffee-breaks were a good occasion to discuss with the Faculty members various issues or elaborate more on their feedback (which wouldn’t have been always possible at the Tutorial due to natural limitations in time). I would like to take this opportunity to deeply thank my main discussants – Prof. Udo Zander and Prof. Francesca Sanna-Randaccio. I greatly appreciate comments and suggestions by the rest of the Tutorial Faculty – Professors Peter Buckley, John Cantwell, Jean-Francois Hennart and Lucia Piscitello.

Moreover, I was pleased to meet my colleagues, PhD candidates from renowned European universities. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of research topics and the degree of sophistication of the research proposals presented at the Tutorial. Although, formally speaking, we all were competitors for the Prize, in reality we became friends, and spent much time together at the Conference after the Tutorial.

The 33rd EIBA conference itself was a fantastic event too! Many interesting papers were presented and a lot of novel ideas were expressed. In fact, up to 11 sessions were running simultaneously, so I often had to make a difficult choice. It is gratifying to note that the conference was a gathering of young researchers (PhD candidates), senior scholars and the most eminent academics, such as Professor John H. Dunning (an entire plenary session was dedicated to his Magnum Opus), as well as senior managers of a business community and representatives of international organisations (UNCTAD), who provided practitioners’ view on academic topics.

The Gala Dinner on the last day of the Conference was an official closure, and several prizes were awarded at this ceremony, including the Award for the Best Doctoral Proposal. It was an amazing experience! After my name was announced, I stood up and proceeded to the scene. I was walking through the entire hall, and all the conference participants were clapping and cheering me up. I was feeling blessed beyond measure! I hope that this Award is “a proof of admittance” into a large community of European and international IB scholars.

The Award is not only an asset, it is also a liability. Rephrasing a popular saying, I would argue that “with a great prize also comes great responsibility”. Indeed, once the expectations for my doctoral thesis have been set so high, it is my moral obligation to complete it within the due time as outlined in the Proposal.

I am proud that for a second year in a row the Award goes to the Netherlands, which is a mark of quality of the Dutch research and education. Needless to say, this victory would not be possible without strong support back at home in Holland, particularly, from my academic supervisors Professor Geert Duysters and Dr. Ionara Costa and the Dean of the PhD programme Professor Robin Cowan.

My thesis is about multinational companies and the European integration. And it is not by chance. I strongly believe in Europe and its knowledge-based economy. In this respect, definitely, EIBA and EIASM are doing a great job to advance European academic research in international business. I am grateful to Professor Danny Van Den Bulcke and his colleagues from these organisations for their efforts to establish and organise the Doctoral Tutorials. I have no hesitation in encouraging PhD candidates from all across Europe conducting IB research to apply for the EIBA/EIASM Doctoral Tutorial in the coming years.