Management and Organization Review Second Research Frontiers: Conference III

The Coevolution of SMEs and Family Firms in Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern European Economies: Knowledge Creation, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth

We are excited to announce the third conference of the Management Organization Review (MOR) Second Research Frontiers Conference Series. Whereas the first two conferences focused on China and India, the Rotterdam conference shifts focus to Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern Europe. This interdisciplinary Research Frontiers Conference serves as a key MOR exploration dialectic for advancing and opening new research directions of phenomena in the social sciences underlying management and organizations, globalization, and economic growth through boundary-crossing dialog and discourse with a focus on all transforming economies.

The core theme of the conference explores the coevolution of SMEs and family firms in Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern European economies. Most scholars in strategy, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and international business study this question by considering environmental change as an exogenous variable. Moreover, they often employ a single theme for describing how and why organizations tend to become isomorphic with their (regional, national, and global) environments through processes of either adaptation or selection. Less frequently examined are questions of how organizations systematically influence their (regional, national, and global) environments and how global and national environments (comprised of other firms and new entrants) influence those organizations in turn. In this MOR Research Frontiers Conference we will discuss the complex, multi-level causal interactions in the context of Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern European countries and the firms residing in them, in particular how firms’ strategies, management practices, and their eco-systems affect and are affected by the factors shaping innovation, entrepreneurship and national competitiveness.

To investigate the multi-level causes and consequences of national competitiveness and to shed light especially on the firm-level causal linkages between national competitiveness and national economic outcomes, this MOR Research Frontiers Conference focuses on the question “How do firms’ strategies and management practices co-evolve with and drive national competitiveness?” Studying coevolution is particularly important for SMEs and family firms as they often need to compete again established firms with superior resource endowments. The understanding of co-evolutionary processes in the context of SMEs and family firms’ innovation in Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern European economies is surprisingly limited. This is a considerable blind-spot in our understanding because the emerging economies in this region provide an environment that is particularly fertile for innovation and economic growth as they are very dynamic, have high levels of entrepreneurship, and business ingenuity.

Please find the Conference Program below. The conference is organized around the discussion of latest academic research and practitioner experiences and allots significant time for social interactions between conference participants.

Paper Development Workshop
The Paper Development Workshop aims to help doctoral students and early-career academics develop their research papers on SMEs and family firms operating in Russia, Ex-Soviet Republics, and Eastern European Economies. Workshop participants will receive developmental feedback on their studies from Arie Y. Lewin (Duke University, Editor in Chief MOR), Henk Volberda (RSM Erasmus University, Consulting Editor MOR), Carl Fey (Aalto University & Chinese University of Hong Kong, Deputy Editor MOR), Igor B. Gurkov (Higher School of Economics), and Oli Mihalache (VU University Amsterdam, Associate Editor European Management Review).

If you would like to apply to participate in the workshop, please submit a one-page summary of your study to Dr. Oli Mihalache at r.o.mihalache@vu.nl before April 23^rd, 2017.

Conference Registration
The fee for conference participation is 295 Euro and doctoral students pay a reduced fee of 195 Euro. Those interested in attending the conference need to register before April 28^th , 2017. To register, please send an email to MOR2017@rsm.nl  with the following information: full name, university/institution, address, postal code and city, country, e-mail, phone number. You will then receive a personalized invoice and payment instructions.

If you have question, please contact Dr. Oli Mihalache at r.o.mihalache@vu.nl.

Program Committee:
Henk W. Volberda, RSM Erasmus University
Oli R. Mihalache, VU University Amsterdam
Igor B. Gurkov, Higher School of Economics
Arie Y. Lewin, Editor in Chief MOR, Duke University
Carl Fey, Aalto University & Chinese University of Hong Kong

CONFERENCE PROGRAM