By Danny Van Den Bulcke, EIBA Chairman

Marion Hebbelynck of EIASM, who takes care of the administrative side of EIBA’s Doctoral Turorial, received 39 applications for the 2008 Tallinn consortium. In fact there were 38 candidates as one applicant had already a Ph.D !! Evidently it did not make much sense to invite someone for a contest for the Best Doctoral Thesis Project when he had obtained the degree.

Students with 24 different nationalities had sent in their applications. Twenty one of the students were Europeans, while ten came from Asia, two from Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), and one each from South America and Africa. Within Europe, Western Europe was represented with nine doctoral students, compared to four for Northern Europe, and two each for Southern Europe and Great Britain. Interestingly two students came from the Baltic countries and one from the Balkan. The European batch was dominated by Germany with six students and Finland by four. The Asian group was quite diversified as there were candidates from China, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

A look at the country of study also results in a high number as 19 different countries were counted. Great Britain remains on top as a preferred country of destination for doctoral studies with eight students, ahead of Finland and Germany, which respectively hosted six and five doctoral students. In total twenty four students had opted for universities in continental Europe, of which Western Europe and Northern European institutions took in respectively ten and eight Ph.D students. Somewhat surprisingly nineteen of the students, that is almost half, prepared their thesis in their country of origin. This seems to be a higher proportion than in previous years and might indicate a decline in mobility of doctoral students.

The selected Ph.D students in Tallinn

Regretfully only about ten students could be invited to come to Tallinn to defend their thesis project before the Faculty co-chaired by Udo Zander and John Cantwell and as members, Ulf Andersson, Francesca Sanna Randacio, Jean-François Hennart and Lucia Piscitello. Two members of the Faculty could not attend the meeting in Tallinn, but had sent in their remarks beforehand to allow their colleagues to put them to the students.

The Faculty of the Tutorial in Tallinn

Of the ten selected students seven were Europeans, while the three others originated from Asia and Oceania. Within the European group two came from a Northern country, compared to two each for South and West Europe. With regard to the countries where they carried out their doctoral studies the distribution was only slightly different, i.e. Great Britain one, North Europe three, West Europe three, and South Europe one. One of the Non- Europeans studied in North America, while another one did so in Oceania.

That only one out of four applicants could be invited to come to the conference venue to introduce the thesis project is a problem the EIBA Board is well aware of. Yet, it has not been possible to open up the Tutorial to more students, while at the same time maintaining the existing system, which allows to give a lot of feedback to the participating students and is one of the strenghts of the EIBA Tutorial.

By Pooja Thakur, Ph.D Candidate Rutgers University

EIBA’s 23rd doctoral tutorial was held on 11th December 2008 in the beautiful city of Tallinn. This year the tutorial administration received thirty-nine applications of which ten students were invited to present their doctoral proposals. One of the participants could not make it to the conference and so in the end there were only nine participating Ph.D candidates.

Although the doctoral tutorial officially started on the eleventh, we had an informal dinner the night before which gave us an opportunity to meet the faculty and the other participants. I thought this was an excellent way to break the ice and made us more comfortable while presenting the next day. We started early the following day with the presentations that were interjected with breaks at regular intervals. Each of the doctoral students made presentations that lasted around twenty minutes and this was followed by feedback from the faculty that were also for twenty minutes.

We had five faculty members on the panel who are prolific researchers and well respected within the international business community. The faculty had thoroughly read our extended abstracts and gave us detailed and very useful feedback. The one thing that amazed me was that the quality of feedback given to the last student presenter was as good as that given to the first. Inspite of the highly productive yet long and tiring day, our faculty never lost focus or patience. One of the faculty members was unable to attend the doctoral tutorial due to poor weather conditions and even she emailed us her suggestions. We saw this as a commitment of the faculty and we all greatly appreciate their help.

Due to the high selective application process, all the proposals presented during the tutorial were of extremely high quality. All the participants were very well prepared and had some unique dissertation topics. We quickly became friends and even went out for a celebratory dinner after the doctoral tutorial. We also hung out together during the rest of the conference and even managed to sneak in some trips to the lovely Old Town.

The award for the Best Doctoral Thesis Proposal was announced at the Gala dinner and I can say that I was genuinely surprised when I was told that I had won. All the other participants had such good presentations that I was convinced that I was not going to win. It was a very close contest and I am thankful to the faculty panel for considering me and selecting me for this award. Thank you Prof. Danny Van Den Bulcke and EIBA for having lauched the doctoral tutorial more than twenty years ago and having made sure that it was organized for the twenty third time in Tallinn.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my advisor Prof. Farok Contractor and my dissertation committee members: Prof. John Cantwell, Prof. Michelle Gittelman and Dr. Mark Bach.

As I pen up I would like to thank everyone involved in this tutorial. I made some good friends and also learnt a lot from the leading scholars in our field. I would highly recommend this doctoral tutorial to all the doctoral students.