By Enn Listra, Conference Chair and Past President 2008

Conference theme and panel sessions

The 2008 conference theme was “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 international business. In addition, other papers on the main topics of IB were welcome.

The 34th EIBA Annual Conference was hosted by Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration of Tallinn University of Technology and by the Tartu University and was held at the conference center Olümpia in Tallinn, Estonia. Scientific support was provided by Jorma Larimo from Vaasa University, Finland.

The conference was organized from the 11th to the 13th of December 2006. The EIBA doctoral tutorial and board meeting were held the first day, 11th of December. The Opening Plenary Session, scheduled on December 11, addressed the main conference theme with the focus on Estonian developments. A presentation was given by Erkki Raasuke, CEO of the Swedbank Estonia.

The EIBA Fellows Plenary Session (Friday, December 12, 15.30-17.00) was held on „The Nation State & the Global Corporation” organised by Seev Hirsch with the participation of Eli Hurvitz, Andres Sutt, Francesca Sanna-Randaccio and Louis T. Wells.

Conference tracks

1. International Business in Catching Up Economies (Emerging Markets)
   Chair: Matija Rojec, University of Ljubljana
2. Internationalisation Process and International Entrepreneurship
   Chair: Niina Nummela, Turku School of Economics
3. Knowledge Management in International Business
   Chair: Torben Pedersen, Copenhagen Business School
4. Corporate Strategies in International Business
   Chair: Jorma Larimo, University of Vaasa
5. Technology Development and Innovation
   Chair: Heinz Hollenstein, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Zurich
6. Human Resources Management
   Chair: Vesa Suutari, University of Vaasa and Ingmar Björkman, Swedish School of Economics
7. International Marketing and Cross Cultural Issues in International Business
   Chair: Arnold Schuh, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
8. International Finance and Accounting
   Chair: Lars Oxelheim, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, IFN, Lund University
9. Contemporary Issues of International Business Theory and Methodology
   Chair: Rebecca Piekkari, Helsinki School of Economics
10. Foreign Investment, Trade and Policy Issues
    Chair: Christian Bellak, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
11. Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Issues
    Chair: Rob van Tulder, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

A total of 234 papers and panels were submitted divided in 11 tracks of which 224 were accepted after review. The most successful track was “International Business in Catching Up Economies (Emerging Markets)” (Track 1) with 34 papers, closely followed by the track on “Internationalisation Process and International Entrepreneurship” (Track 2) and “Corporate Strategies in International Business“ (Track 4) each with 33 submitted papers. Least popular was the track on “International finance and accounting” (6 submitted papers).
The submission and review process was facilitated by the electronic system used in earlier conferences. 226 colleagues signed up as reviewers. All of them used the electronic system.

Table 1: Distribution of the accepted papers

Tracks *	Nr Competitive	Nr Workshop	Total per track
Track 1	15	12	34
Track 2	15	14	33
Track 3	11	10	24
Track 4	17	12	33
Track 5	7	6	14
Track 6	6	8	17
Track 7	8	11	21
Track 8	4	2	6
Track 9	6	3	10
Track 10	9	4	17
Track 11	7	6	15
Total	105	88	224

*Including Poster and Panel Submissions. Twenty posters were included in the programme.

Participants
The total number of registered participants was 254. The geographical distribution of the participants is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Distribution of participants per country

Country	Nr registered participants	Country	Nr registered participants
Australia	3	Italy	4
Austria	9	Japan	1
Belgium	6	Lithuania	1
Brazil	9	Netherlands	6
Canada	4	New Zealand	4
Czech Republic	2	Norway	17
Cyprus	1	Poland	6
Denmark	9	Portugal	8
Estonia	10	Romania	1
Finland	39	Russia	1
France	9	Slovenia	3
Germany	21	Spain	11
Greece	3	Sweden	17
India	1	Switzerland	4
Iraq	1	Taiwan	1
Ireland	2	Turkey	1
Israel	3	United Kingdom	31
		United States	5
Nr countries represented			35
Total nr registered participants			254

Awards
Prizes were awarded during the Gala dinner on Saturday, December 13, i.e. Best Thesis Proposal Award, IMR Best International Marketing Paper Award, IJoEM Best Paper on Emerging Markets Award, IBR Best Paper of the Year Award, and the Distinguished EIBA Honorary Fellow of the Year Award.

Dissemination
The Conference was well covered by the media: articles on the conference were published in local newspapers and the University Bulletin and dispatches were sent to several press agencies. Also TV-interviews and a Radio interviews were given by the President, the Chairman and some other participants.

Conclusion
The overall cooperation between the two organising universities went smoothly. The biggest problem he had to cope with was the economic crisis. He lost quite a few sponsors after the crisis struck Estonia. Yet he still hoped to break even if Tallinn University would be willing to waive some invoices.
 

Special Panel organized on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the European Union
at the Tallinn Conference 2008

The European Union at Fifty:
Contrasting Insider and Outsider Perspectives about the European Union and Foreign Direct Investment

Co-chairs:
John Dunning, University of Reading (excused because of illness) and
Daniël Van Den Bulcke, University of Antwerp

Members:
Tamar Almor, College of Management of Israël
Gabriel Benito, BI Norwegian School of Management
Fabienne Fortanier, University of Amsterdam
Vitor Corado Simoes, ISEG, Technical University of Lisbon

The panel concentrated on the foreign direct investment (FDI) trends and the regulatory issues on Multinational Enterprises of the European Union (EU). While both inward and outward investment and disinvestment from the EU countries were dealt with, the developments during fifty years were analysed both from the inside and the outside, i.e. by panel members who represented the views from member countries and non-member countries.

John Dunning’s seminal book ‘American Investment in the British Manufacturing Industry’ which was published in the year that the EU got started, offered an opportunity to look back at the role of US Multinationals in Britain and the European Union and to find out to what extent the challenges, on the one hand for European and other enterprises and on the other hand for EU host and home countries changed compared to half a cenntury ago.

During its 50 years of existence the European Union has expanded from 6 to 27 countries. The widening of the EU occurred in six waves, of which the most important ones (Britain and Scandinavian countries, Southern Europe, East and Central Europe) had important consequences for both inward and outward investors.

The effects of those territorial extensions for inward FDI, disinvestment and outward investment were taken into consideration in presentations about both the newest member Countries, Southern Europe and the original founding nations. While the EU has attracted investment from outsiders such as the US, Japan and more recently from emerging countries such as China and India, the European Union, together with its member countries, tried to encourage and facilitate outward investment.

The panel discussed the EU’s investment policy and presence from different perspectives, i.e. from a member of the founding countries (The Netherlands) , from countries that joined later (UK and Portugal), from a country that decided not to join (Norway) or from outsiders, such as the Mediterranean countries (Israel) and the newly emerging economies (China). The panel also covered different generations as it is composed of members who experienced the start of the EU during their student years and those who were born during its existence.