SYSBS 2015 International Symposium on Frontier Theories Successfully Held

On December 19, the SYSBS 2015 International Symposium on Frontier Theories in Management was held at the Sun Yat-sen Business School (SYSBS). The theme for this year's symposium was “Emerging Markets and International Strategy.” In attendance were more than 100 scholars and doctoral students in the fields of international business, cross-cultural management, global entrepreneurship and strategic management from China and beyond.

With an intention of providing an academic platform that nurtures research on business models and further leads the discourse on some fresh perspectives on designing and innovating business models for emerging market enterprises (EMEs) and multi-national enterprises (MNEs), the symposium was featured with keynote speeches by internationally recognized scholars in the area, including Oded Shenkar (Ohio State), Garry D. Bruton (Texas Christian), Jeff J. Reuer (Colorado), and Yadong Luo (U. of Miami). All of the above four scholars are honorary professors of Department of Business Administration of SYSBS. Another four professors from Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) were also invited to the symposium as keynote speakers, including Shige Makino, Gongming Qian, Daphne W. Yiu and Xufei Ma.

The keynote speeches covered a series of critical topics, such as entrepreneurship, foreign direct investment, information economics, international business research, international corporate governance, international financial management, international strategic alliances, management and business in emerging economies, all in the context of emerging markets.

Yadong Luo, Oded Shenkar, Garry D. Bruton, Jeffrey J. Reuer,

Shige Makino, Gongming Qian, Daphne W. Yiu, Xufei Ma

In the spirit of helping papers to be developed further along, four parallel paper sessions were organized after the keynote speeches. These paper development sessions were instructed by the keynote speakers who offered developmental suggestions to the authors from various countries such as the U.S., U.K., Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal and mainland China, among others. In each session, the keynote speakers offered thorough and constructive comments that are instrumental in guiding the authors to further improve their papers. The authors expressed gratitude to the keynote speakers/editors for benefiting tremendously from their insights, directions and suggestions.

Paper session

After the paper development, a session of “Meeting Editors and Keynote Speakers” was also held, inviting these keynote speakers who have served or being serving as editors in such journals as SMJ, JIBS, GSJ, MOR, JWB, and APJM. These editors provided a myriad of constructive and insightful suggestions and advices on publishing in such journals.

Meeting editors and keynote speakers

At the end of the symposium, Prof. Jing’an Tang from Sacred Heart University won the Best Paper Award with the paper titled ” A Network-based Theory of International Agglomeration and Foreign Entry Performance,” according to the review of the conference committee.

Prof. Jeff J. Reuer passing the certificate of Best Paper Award to the winner

The keynote speakers, the authors, and the audience also commended SYSBS for its excellent organizing and hosting of the symposium.

Group photo

Each summer and winter, SYSBS organizes a series of advanced research methods and frontier theories in international management, which bring strategy, management, and business scholars from China together with their global counterparts to co-learn and co-develop emerging management theories and winning strategies.



Please click here to download the conference materials