ERIM’s PhD candidates organise international edition of PREBEM conference
On September 8, over 100 PhD candidates from various countries flocked to Rotterdam’s Hilton Hotel to attend the 12th PREBEM conference, “Market and Non-Market Forces: Threats and Opportunities”. The conference demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit and can-do mentality among ERIM’s PhD candidates, who had been challenged to organise this academic event within a year’s time, alongside their regular research projects and coursework.
International character
Since its inception in the early 1980s, the conference for PhD researchers in Business Economics and Management (PREBEM) has targeted PhD students from research schools in the Netherlands and Belgium. However, this year, the organising team, chaired by Ivana Naumovska, decided to do things differently.
“Building on PREBEM’s core mission – to be an arena for professional and social interaction among PhD students – we decided to give this year’s edition a truly international character by promoting the conference internationally,” explains Naumovska.
As a result, the 12th PREBEM Conference had over 100 participants from research schools in 11 different countries. Among them were participants from Harvard Business School, INSEAD, HEC Paris and IE Business School.
Keynote speakers: Professors Zajac & Balkenende
Keynote speeches were delivered by Professors Edward Zajac and Jan Peter Balkenende. “It was an honour to have them as speakers,” says Naumovska.
“Professor Zajac is a brilliant and inspiring researcher. His pioneering work on strategic alliances, corporate governance and strategic adaptation has had a big impact on the fields of Strategy and Organisational Theory.”
Professor Jan Peter Balkenende is well-known as the Dutch Prime Minister between 2002 and 2010, but he has a renowned academic career as well. From 1993 to 2002, he was Professor of Christian Social Thought on Society and Economics at VU University Amsterdam. Today, he is a Professor at Erasmus University, and a partner at Ernst & Young. Naumovska: “Professor Balkenende revealed himself as a thinker and as someone who cares deeply about sustainability issues.”
Organising Team
Many people have devoted time and effort into making the 2011 PREBEM conference a success. In particular, ERIM thanks the organising team for their hard work, which is the bedrock of this conference:
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The team is looking forward to PREBEM’s next edition, which will be organised by another member of the Netherlands Organisation for research in Business Economics and Management (NOBEM). “I think we have set an excellent example and have given a new international imprint to the PREBEM conference,” says Naumovska. “We hope that PREBEM will get even better and more international in the future.”
The conference was made possible by gracious funding on the part of NOBEM, support from ERIM members who acted as reviewers, session chairs, advisors and promoters, and the conference participants who presented their ideas.
