Council of the International Federation of Scholarly Academies of Management

Minutes of the meeting held on

4 September 2001, Cardiff City Hall, Wales, UK

Present: Greg Bamber (in the Chair), Yvon Presqueux, Andre Petit, Dave Whetten, Anne Huff, Wolfgang Weber, Pieter Terlouw, Elizabeth Chell, Yoshiaki Takahashi, Ian Palmer, Jean Pasquero, Rolf Lundin, Koji Okubayashi, Mary Barrett.

Apologies: Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson, Eric Simon, Zhang Chen.

1 Welcome and introductions: The Chairperson welcomed all members to the meeting. All members introduced themselves.

2 Death of Janice Beyer : One minute’s silence was observed in memory of Janice Beyer who had passed away.

3 Agenda order: Item 5, President’s report, was renumbered 5a. A new item 5b, the Past President’s report, was inserted. This included two sub-items: Nominating Committee and Report on 2000 Congress in Montreal.

4 Confirmation of minutes of 2000 meeting held in Montreal: These minutes had been previously circulated in draft form as well as in final form on two occasions, so opportunities for corrections had been available. With the one correction noted below, the minutes were confirmed as a correct record of the meeting. (Proposed Andre Petit, Seconded Yvon Pesqueux)

5 Correction to the minutes of 2000 meeting: item 7 p 12. The dates should be 2001 and 2002, not 2000 and 2001.

6 President’s report

A set of notes, attached to these minutes, had been circulated. Discussion of individual items in the President’s report has been noted elsewhere in these minutes. It was agreed that towards the end of the day, members should discuss the value of IFSAM to its member academies, especially ideas for meeting the interests of members. This process would be repeated more formally next year at the Gold Coast meeting.

7 Nominating committee

The Immediate Past President (currently Andre Petit) convenes this committee to recommend new officers for the two years following the Congress. Andre Petit was on the committee ex officio as Immediate Past President, but needs two more nominations. Since Andre Petit is from North America, nominations from other parts of the world would be welcome.

A President-Elect for 2004 is needed. This person does not need to be running the next Congress, although this is a pattern which has been used on some occasions in the past. Nominations were also sought for the positions of Treasurer and Secretary. Yvon Pesqueux and Koji Okubayashi respectively hold these positions, which are renewable.

Greg Bamber nominated Yvon Pesqueux for the Chairmanship of the Nominating Committee, seconded Andre Petit.

Dave Whetten nominated Greg Bamber, seconded Andre Petit.

The Nominating Committee would be happy to receive comments on the procedure to be followed. The Nominating Committee intends to be consultative. Voting may be needed if more than one person is nominated for a particular position, as noted in article 5 of the IFSAM statutes. The statues are available on IFSAM website.

8 Report on the Montreal Congress.

Jean Pasquero reported that, prior to helping organise the Montreal Congress, he had been persuaded to come back onto the IFSAM Council. He had felt it would be workable to represent ASAC (the Canadian national academy) together with IFSAM at a joint Congress. This was a new pattern, but despite this and different styles of the two organisations, a truly joint conference had resulted. Further points included the following:

It was agreed that the Secretary would write formally to thank the organisers. (Action Koji Okubayashi/Mary Barrett).

9 Marketing the Congress to corporate sponsors

Ian Palmer asked for advice on selling congress to corporate sponsors. Jean Pasquero made the following points:

Corporate sponsors are typically not interested in general conferencess because they put their money where a specific trend is. Thus a conference in information technology is easier to find sponsorship for than an interdisciplinary, international conference such as IFSAM. The key is to ask sponsors well in advance, since corporations close off sponsorships a year in advance. In addition they need to be approached in a very professional way, with an indication of how many people are expected to turn up, though this is difficult to estimate. For the IFSAM Congress, requests were sent to an outside screening company, since companies say no most of the time. Most success was achieved with government and publishers. In Canada, it was possible to play one government against the others to get twice the money requested.

Lyn Purdy pointed out that ASAC had been relatively successful with corporate sponsors for the Montreal Congress. Organisers had looked within the business school for faculty who had good connections with senior business executives.

10 Treasurer’s Report

Copies of the accounts for the past year had been previously circulated; a copy of the Treasurer’s reports for the past year are attached to these minutes. The Treasurer, Yvon Pesqueux, advised that the accounts had been audited for free, thanks to Claude Simon. Under French law, two accounts were needed: one in US and one in FF or Euros. Please see the attached reports for details. Bank charges explain some discrepancies.

The 2001 budget is also attached. Members noted that the transfer of funds from IFSAM 2000 had been converted from Euros to US dollars. There had been more movement of funds this year, so bank charges are higher than in previous years. In answer to a query about bank charges, the Treasurer points out that they were currently inflated by the sum of $10,000 which had been paid to Griffith University and not yet reimbursed. The amount should be US$833.00. Even so, some of bank charges are being attempted to be retrieved.

A surplus was expected this year and IFSAM was holding the same amount of cash as in previous years, ie US$100,000.

10.1 Member organisations’ payments:

A cheart of member organisations which have paid their dues was tabled. The following points were noted:

It was resolved that the financial statements be approved: (Moved Andre Petit, seconded PieterTerlouw)

10.2 Member countries’ subscriptions

It was not proposed to change member countries’ subscriptions given the current healthy financial position. Members discussed a recommendation that countries’ subscriptions be set at US$1000 is received by IFSAM after bank charges, not before. Yvon Pesqueux, the Treasurer, advised that this would be difficult or impossible to implement.

11 Membership committee report

The Chairman reported that IFSAM officers were having discussions with academies around the world including the Hungarian Academy of Management, the Ibero Academy and the Irish Academy of Management. The latter would be meeting in the next few days. An Indian association of business school deans and directors may be interested in joining. It was important to be cautious to ensure the right organisation joined – Russia was a case in point - and to be vigilant in maintaining membership. The President asked all members to use their networks and contacts in other countries and let the executive know if there were organisations the Executive should contact to suggest they join IFSAM. IFSAM should aim to be the “United Nations” of academies of management.

Associate membership is a category suitable for potential members, eg for organisations such as Ibero which do not charge membership fees.

It would be useful to research the development of associations of business school academics around the world, especially in third world countries. This could constitute a possible project to explore contours of professional associations around the world, and would be consistent with IFSAM’s mission.

Wolfgang Weber mentioned that he had contacts in Korea and Poland. Korea is active in the Asian Academy of Management, and Wolfgang Weber would explore his contacts further. Polish academies and schools were developing well, but Wolfgang Weber believed there was no formal association yet. (Action: Wolfgang Weber)

Dr Takahashi had contacts in Korea also where there are large numbers of postgraduate business schools. He would introduce IFSAM to them at forthcoming meetings, but there were difficulties because the Chairman is elected each year. essor Yakahashi would propose the establishment of a Korean association and would work with Okubayashi to do this. (Action: Takahashi and Okubayashi)

In relation to developing the knowledge of possible members, Dave Whetten would explore the linkages of the Academy of Management (AOM) with its members. The AOM has a database of 12,000 members. 80% are from North America but the rest are from elsewhere. It would be useful to identify people from countries not represented in IFSAM currently and write to them suggesting/inquiring about presence of national association there, and use that as entrée to an association there. There is currently a lack of information about this, especially in countries such as Poland and others in Eastern Europe. This could be basis of a mini-project that members could join in with to map out the extent of mgt scholars around the world. A report could be made at the Gold Coast congress.

12 Research Committee

Horst Albach was not present but had submitted a report (see attached). Yvon Pesqueux proposed (seconded Andre Petit) to close the two previously approved lines of research, one on the management of universities and the other on the management of museums, on two grounds: a) we are now in 2001, which was adequate time for the research to have been concluded; b) the difficulty of managing these lines. He had had to refuse several times to pay personal invoices by private processes. A total of US$510 had been paid against original invoices after much difficulty. Nothing had been heard about the other project and no monies had been paid towards it. It was agreed that IFSAM’s role was not based in research, and its resources would be better devoted to helping member organisations via projects such as the one above. The motion to close the two projects was approved unanimously.

One member proposed that IFSAM formally rule out research projects; others felt this would “tie IFSAM’s hands” unnecessarily in respect of commissioning specific projects to develop membership possibilities. It was agreed that IFSAM should not sponsor individual research projects.

13 Journal committee

Journal ideas have been around for a long time. The minutes of the 2000 meeting showed two broad views: first, that IFSAM promote a “journal of journals” consisting of articles published elsewhere, translated. An approach had been made to a German publisher. The other was that IFSAM should establish a journal to publish new articles to encourage scholars in countries where it is harder get published in English. The two ideas had been perceived by some members as complementary, and by others as mutually exclusive. This had created an impasse and was the reason the idea had not progressed.

Andre Petit noted that the Ibero Academy of Management had been very effective in getting three different journals launched.

After general discussion it was agreed that there was no strong champion to establish a journal and that the matter should be left in abeyance for the present.

14 IFSAM website

Eric Simon had sent apologies. IT was noted that Eric Simon had taken over the website after it had been housed at other institutions. He had renewed the it, and more than 1200 hits had been received so far. His mandate would be over at the end of this year. He would be willing to keep maintaining the website if a) he had a formal position on the executive and b) had a means of coordinating with national delegates to get information in English about their associations.

The Executive formally thanked Eric Simon for rejuvenating the website. He had reregistered the address, so IFSAM now owns the URL ‘IFSAM.org’. The URL should be corrected in the IFSAM statutes (Action: Koji Okubayashi, Mary Barrett)

Simon’s requests were discussed, including the constitutional and financial implications of his having a position on the committee. It was pointed out that Simon could attend meetings but need not have voting rights. In addition, it was understood that ES was not concerned with funding, e.g. to attend council meetings. Members noted that they could supply hotlinks, additional information and so on to Eric Simon at e.simon@essca.asso.fr (Action: all representatives)

It was resolved that IFSAM appoint a webperson and that for the time being Eric Simon be appointed to the position. It was also resolved that Eric Simon be invited to attend Executive and Council meetings of IFSAM. Approved unanimously. (Action: Koji Okubayashi, Mary Barrett)

15 Sixth IFSAM World Congress – Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, July 10-13, 2002

Greg Bamber reported that posters for the Congress had been distributed and more were available. A document was circulated for inclusion in member organisations’ newsletters; it was also available electronically. Members should insert the name of their National Program Chair. (Action: all members)

Australia was sometimes perceived as being a long way away. But winter was not a deterrent and the Gold Coast was a very attractive area. A similar approach to sponsorship was being taken as in Canada, with sponsorship from universities as well as corporate bodies encouraged. These do not have to be from the regional area.

Andre Petit had contacts for additional National Program Chairs. The paper review process was summarised in Greg Bamber’s notes (see attached, paragraph 4). Tracks were planned in French, English and Chinese and Spanish, if papers were received, but English is the working language of the conference. The deadline for submissions to National Program Chairs is 1 December, 2001.

Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, has agreed to be a keynote speaker. Others including prominent practitioners as well as scholars were expected. Dave Whetten would be there from the Academy of Management.

By show of hands, all members except Jean Pasquero indicated they were likely to be available to attend the Gold Coast congress.

16 Seventh World Congress – Sweden, 2004

Rolf Lundin reported that Sweden would not be running the local and IFSAM congresses at the same time. A PhD symposium would be held. The ‘Management in the New Economy’ theme might need to be reconsidered. A group of Swedish delegates will act as observers at the Gold Coast in July 2002. 1000 delegates were hoped for, but the Congress would be smaller than Montreal since it would not be a joint conference.

17 Location of Council meeting in 2003

Colleagues from Brazil had expressed interest in hosting the conference, but they were not present at the meeting and had not put the offer in writing. Andre Petit said there might be a financial problem preventing their getting to this meeting, but he believed they were still interested in hosting the 2003 conference. Jean Pasquero promoted the Montreal Congress vigorously in Brazil, but had been more successful in other Latin American countries.

It was agreed that, in the absence of another proposal, the Brazilian representative should be contacted and invited to host the Council meeting, is possible in conjunction with their national conference, although this was not absolutely necessary. A response should be sought before mid December 2001 If the meeting could not be held in Brazil, a location should be sought somewhere in North America. (Action: Andre Petit and Jean Pasquero)

18 Future of IFSAM

This issue was discussed at length. The Chairman had had discussions with Dave Whetten and circulated a discussion paper (attached) on the future of IFSAM which suggested the establishment of a self-assessment task force. The following points were made:

Dave Whetten: In 2000 in Montreal, discussions had taken place regarding the role of IFSAM. There were no good models for what such an association should look like. Associations of associations are rare and it is unusual that they work well. Dave Whetten was concerned with the organisational obstacles to IFSAM’s goals: eg if the President is also National Program Chair, this is problematic. It was important to find out what organisations would like to gain from their membership.

Dave Whetten said he had been “converted” to IFSAM a year ago after a conversation with Jean Pasquero at Montreal and after seeing the winners of competition announced who would represent their organisation at the international congress. This had brought home the importance of role of IFSAM. It could be even more important in the minds of people in Brazil, India etc where research was less developed.

Large organisations such as the Academy of Management and IFSAM should adopt a social responsibility perspectve. Perhaps IFSAM could approach a foundation such as Carnegie with view to getting them to sponsor profssional development. IFSAM would act as a network to link junior academics with more senior colleagues to provide mentoring experience. Department Chairs and Deans could serve in a similar mentoring relationship as could former officers of professional associations. This could incubate new professional organisations. IFSAM could also consider making use of an international network of agencies which would provide office support to professional organisations with back office support.

Finally this idea of social responsibility would broaden the outlook of the individual member organisations beyond getting their US$1000 value from IFSAM. It would also broaden the number of academics around the world who were receiving professional development. Currently, members at this meeting mainly included representatives of OECD (rich) countries. Absentee countries are in a less fortunate position. There needed to be two parts to any discussion of IFSAM’s role: developing the role and recognition of management academics in other countries, and adding value for members in countries which already belonged to IFSAM.

Ann Huff: The “stewardship” view needs to be balanced with a diversity of perspective in our own organisations. AOM and IFSAM need to maintain focus on diversity, eg by considering Maori management in the New Zealand context. The Ibero meeting was notable for the energy that was generated via a paper track presented in the local language and informed by local perceptions.

Rolf Lundin: There is not just one added value. Social responsibility is one value, a multicultural perspective is another. IFSAM has the biannual conference as its main benefit and this is likely to remain as such. The multicultural aspect of the IFSAM conference is its main attraction. Africa, India and other third world countries do not yet have national academies. IFSAM does not need to be as big as the Academy of Management, but it needs to expand into other cultures.

Jean Pasquero: IFSAM should direct its energies to those who are seeking to become professional academics, but lack role models. Developing countries had used the Montreal Congress to organise a meeting of their own professors and IFSAM could facilitate such networking in future. A problem is criteria for acceptance of papers. It would be necessary to accept papers that would perhaps not meet the acceptance criteria in the host country.

Elizabeth Chell: The issue would be better framed in terms of introducing different intellectual traditions into IFSAM, rather than social responsibility, since this would avoid perceptions of paternalism. However people would not want to come to a conference as a representative of a particular intellectual tradition if there were only two-three people from that tradition at the congress.

Dave Whetten: IFSAM and particularly its conference may have a role in facilitating this idea, since delegates sponsored by their national association (as in Japan) could report on what other associations are doing and how their ideas could be useful to the home organisation. A similar role is fulfilled by the meeting of ANZAM institutional members in Australia.

Jean Pasquero: There were issues around the perceived stature of conferences eg ASAC vs the Academy of Management. IFSAM is not seen as a major research outlet at the moment. However the involvement of the Academy of Management legitimises IFSAM and other national conferences as high calibre events.

Greg Bamber: Many other organisations run an annual conference, so IFSAM should consider doing more than this, using other media.

Ian Palmer: IFSAM seems to be an organisation looking for a purpose or redeveloping its current purpose. We might usefully consider three Ls:

Koji Okubayashi: Koji Okubayashi had been a founding member of IFSAM. IFSAM’s Statutes reflect its history as well as its main mission. In 1990s there had been no official management associations in Japan. Now there were many professional organisations in developing countries. Therefore the next step is to encourage these organisations to join IFSAM. In addition, IFSAM’s Council is going entering a new stage after 10 years of development, so its new mission should be to increase membership from developing countreis and increase knowledge of other organsations and other disciplines.

Wolfgang Weber: While IFSAM could promote the typical style of congress in developing countries, this would not be successful in countries such as Russian where university governance did not work in similar ways to countries elsewhere. A journal with information about member organisations in other parts of the world, research developments, and the development of a “meta” position on thse issues could be useful. A meeting of Deans could facilitate this. A workshop of journal reviewers at IFSAM congresses would also help in understanding how people in different pars of the world are handling this kind of problem.

Pieter Terlouw: Various ideas have been circulating about the possible purposes of IFSAM. But a “selfish” one is missing: how do you measure education given to young PhD students? Making use of other media has been mentioned, but how should the network be operationalised?

Further points were made concerning the reasons for the British Academy of Management’s withdrawal from IFSAM and later return, ways to promote respect for other intellectual traditions (European and developing countries’ traditions as well as those of the U.S.), and other ways of “adding value” to IFSAM, and possible implications of this such as reviewing the IFSAM statutes.

At this point Wolfgang Weber had to leave the meeting, but he expressed his enthusiasm for the directions of IFSAM being formulated.

Detailed discussion continued concerning strategies to implement the various aims outlined above. It was resolved:

All position papers should report in terms of specifics rather than generalities. Reports should be sent to Mary Barrett at mary.barrett@mailbox.gu.edu.au by March, 2002.

It was further resolved that:

19 Permanent secretariat

It was agreed to reconsider this issue at the next Council meeting. In the meantime, the taskforces could make use of the resources available via the administrative assistance already available within member institutions.

20 Research

It was agreed to make no formal resolution concerning the research remit of IFSAM at the moment.

21 Ideas of member academies

As agreed at the outset of the meeting, members shared some creative ideas from their respective national organisations.

Australia: The Institutional members meeting is an interesting and useful feature of ANZAM, which is composed not just of individuals but of universities, who are represented by Deans. Services provided by ANZAM include guest speakers of interest to these people. There are two to three institutional members’ meetings a year, and the meetings have been going six to seven years. A few years ago, this group undertook successful collective action against government datagathering processes unless certain conditions were met a ANZAM also organised funding and productivity surveys and promotional literature that was useful to institutional members. ANZAM is also considering creating ‘doctoral faculty’ – experts in PhD supervision - whoat are formally recognised as part of pre-conference doctoral workshop.

Canada ASAC: ASAC has resolved to organise joint conferences as much as possible in the future. It will reduce rather than multiply conferences to allow as many people as possible to attend and reduce logistical burdens. Discussions followed concerning the extent to which this principle could be adopted in other countries, and possible conference combinations, eg IFSAM with Malaysia, and IFSAM/Ibero conferences.

The British Academy of Management had the following aims:

Mary Barrett, 30 Ocotober 2001