At the EIBA Fellows meeting at Rio de Janeiro, the idea of developing a project about the History of EIBA was presented, and immediately accepted. A committee comprised of John Cantwell, Philippe Gugler and Vítor Corado Simões was mandated to carry out this project. The motivation of the team members was to serve as leaders of a collective drive to collect and analyse information about the history of the Academy. As stated in the project submitted to the EIBA Board and to the EIBA Fellows in 2016, the project was intended to “contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of our professional scholarly community, as well as drawing an evolutionary perspective on the key themes that have marked out our research agenda”.
Later, the members of the initial committee approached Tilo Halaszovitch, EIBA Communication Officer, to join the team, to take charge of designing, preparing and managing the EIBA History website.
Here are the EIBA-orientated biographical notes of the four leaders of the team.
JOHN CANTWELL
John Cantwell is Distinguished Professor of International Business in Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA) since 2002. He was previously Professor of International Economics at the University of Reading in the UK, and he has also been a Visiting Professor at various other European universities. His early work helped to launch a new literature on multinational companies and international networks for technology creation, beyond merely international technology transfer. His published research spans the fields of International Business and Management, Economics, Economic History, Economic Geography, Philosophy, and Innovation Studies. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) from 2011-16. In 2019 he received the PWC Strategy & Eminent Scholar Award from the International Management Division of the Academy of Management for life-time achievement in international business research. Professor Cantwell joined the EIBA Board as the UK representative at the Rotterdam conference in 1984, and has served there for ten years. He was President of EIBA in 1992 and organized the annual conference in Reading in December 1992. He was one of the four Founding EIBA Fellows elected in Paris in 2001, and I became the first Secretary Treasurer of the EIBA Fellows from 2002-07. He was the elected Dean of the EIBA Fellows from 2015-18. Timed to coincide with the EIBA Conference, in December 2021 he is due to receive an honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from Complutense University, Madrid, in recognition of his scholarly contributions.
PHILIPPE GUGLER
Philippe Gugler is full Professor of Economic and Social Policy at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) since 2002. He is former dean of the Faculty of Management and Economics at the University of Fribourg and current President of the Department of Economics. He is Director of the Center for Competitiveness of the University of Fribourg and MOC affiliate member at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness led by Prof. Michael Porter at the Harvard Business School. He published research in the fields of emerging countries MNEs, MNEs’ strategies, FDI policy and competitiveness of regions and nations. He his Editor in Chief of the Competitiveness Review published by Emerald since 2014. Philippe Gugler was elected as the first Swiss representative on the EIBA Board in 2002 and took this position until 2012. He was President of EIBA in 2006 and organized the annual conference in Fribourg in December 2006. He was Vice-Chairman of the Board from 2010 to 2012 and served as Chairman of the Board from 2012 to 2018. Since 2014 he is Fellow of EIBA.
VITOR CORADO SIMÕES
Vítor Corado Simões has served for many years as professor at ISEG – Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (University of Lisbon), until his retirement in April 2020. He worked also for the Foreign Investment Institute of Portugal, between 1978 and 1989, as vice-director of Research and director of the Marketing department. He has engaged into international consultancy, namely to the OECD, the UNIDO, and the European Commission. Professor Simões has been visiting professor at several Universities in Europe and in Brazil. He has published in Portuguese and international journals in the fields of international management, born globals, platform companies, and innovation management. Professor Simões has served as the representative of Portugal to the EIBA Board between 1988 and 2005. He was President of EIBA in 1993 and led the organisation of its annual conference in Lisbon. In 2005 he was elected EIBA Fellow, serving as Secretary Treasurer of the Fellows in 2008-2010.
TILO HALASZOVICH
Tilo Halaszovich is Professor of Global Markets & Firms at Jacobs University Bremen (Germany). He is the chair of the study programs of International Business Administration and Global Economics & Management as well as the head of J-CUB | The StartUp Option. In 2014, at the EIBA Conference in Uppsala, Tilo Halaszovich founded the EIBA Early Career Network (EIBA-ECN) and chaired the network and its annual workshops until 2019. Since 2016, he serves as Communication Officer on the EIBA board.