Global leaders in international strategy and research gathered in Miami for an important conference led by two Florida International University (FIU) College of Business Administration faculty members.
The Strategic Management Society’s (SMS) annual conference, held November 6-9, 2011, took on an international focus and a Miami flavor under the organizational leadership of Aya Chacar and Jose de la Torre, members of FIU’s Department of Management and International Business.
“We wanted to talk about the challenge of strategy in a multi-polar world,” de la Torre said of the event, which drew over 1,000 participants, a near-record.
The conference also focused on the role of institutions and other factors that can make or break a company’s strategy in the developing global marketplace.
“This is the first time that FIU has had a center-stage presence in the field of strategy,” Chacar said.
International strategic management is center stage.
Plenary sessions featured top experts in the fields of strategy research as well as leading executives from major international companies and the public sector from around the world. Among them were:
- Jay Barney, professor, Ohio State University, SMS president
- Omar Ishrak, chairman and CEO, Medtronic
- Monica Luechtefeld, executive vice president, Office Depot
- Gilberto Neves, president and CEO, Odebrecht USA
- Jackson Nickerson, professor, Washington University in St. Louis; director, Brookings Institute’s Executive Education
- Romano Prodi, former president, European Commission, former prime minister, Italy
- Jerry Rao, executive chairman, Value and Budget Housing Corporation, India
- Srilata Zaheer, interim dean, Carlson School of Management
- Enrique Zambrano, CEO, Proeza, S.A. de C.V., Mexico
“We were engaged and excited, and the organizers put together interesting plenary sessions on important topics, such as the internationalization of firms from emerging markets,” said Ruth V. Aguilera, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Satellite sessions enabled attendees to connect and hold dialogues in a more intimate forum. FIU faculty members Sumit Kundu and William Newburry helped Chacar facilitate one at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus. PhD students in FIU’s strategic management program worked at the conference and participated in sessions, gaining valuable exposure to top scholars.
[set_id=72157628814045409]
