Source: Sun Yat-sen Business School
Written by: Sun Yat-sen Business School
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On December 19, the SYSBS 2015 International Symposium on Frontier Theories in Management was held at 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, 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), 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.

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.

After the paper development, a session of “Meeting Editors and Keynote Speakers” was also held, inviting these keynote speakers who have served or are 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 advice on publishing in such journals.

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.

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

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.