CityU’s Office for Chinese Management Development hosted the “2004 EAMSA Annual Conference – Harmony v Conflict: Euro-Asian Management in a Turbulent Era”, 3-6 November. Over 60 scholars and practitioners from 18 countries came together to address how a harmonious business environment can be created and managed successfully in an increasingly turbulent business environment. The annual conferences of Euro-Asian Management Studies Association (EAMSA) are a unique forum in which academicians and professionals concerned about development of international business can come together and forge ties.

 

The conference was kicked off by CityU’s Chair of Marketing, Professor Oliver Yau, and EAMSA Chairman Professor Yoshiaki Takahashi. Keynote speaker Mr Mike Wong, Chairman of HK4As and Managing Director of McCann Erickson GuangMing Ltd,  spoke on the topic “Blindness and Insight – the Global Search for a Common Denominator”. The rest of the session was filled with lively interaction among industry practitioners and academics.

 

The highlight of this year’s forum was the China Trip. The participants went to Shenzhen on 5 November to visit Huawei Telecom Co. Ltd., a fast growing global telecommunications network solutions provider and one of China’s largest private enterprises. The company visit provided the opportunity for the participants to understand the logistics of the leading company in China. They also had a chance to talk with Mr Water Su, the Vice President and Mr Hu Yanping, Corporate Senior Vice President (Business Transformation and Information Technology) of the company.

 

Papers delivered at the conference represented the most advanced research conducted in the marketing, management and international business fields. Topics include Chinese cultural value, entry strategy, marketing impact of SARS, corporate governance, intra-firm and intercultural technology transfer, trust and ethics, bilateral trade intensities and entrepreneurship.   

 

Two awards were presented to recognize outstanding performance of the participants. The Palgrave Macmillan-EAMSA best paper awards went to a paper presented by CityU’s Professor Oliver Yau, Dr Fanny Cheung, Miss Cheris Chow and Dr Leung Wing Fai, of Hong Kong College of Technology; and a paper written by Dr Axele Giroud and Professor Hafiz Mirza from Bradford University, UK. The outstanding competitive paper went to Professor Su Che-jen and Mr Wang Cheng-chien from Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan. The outstanding workshop paper went to Mr Demir Robert and Professor Soderman Sten from the Stockholm University, Sweden.