Minutes of the IFSAM 2004 Council Meeting,

(held on 3^rd and 4^th July 2004 at the Agrenska Villan in Gothenburg, Sweden)

Present Joan van Aken, Greg Bamber, Jean Bartunek, Sue Bruning, Susan Cartwright, Elisabeth Chell, Zhicheng Chen, Ray Cooksey, Esteban García-Canal , Ursula Hansen, Sten Jönsson, Shinshi Kataoka, Rolf Lundin, Klaus Macharzina, Gael McDonald, Albert Mills, Jone Pearce, Yvon Pesqueux, Eric Simon, Su Dongshui, Yoshiaki Takahashi, Pieter Terlouw, Wolfgang Weber, Zhang Yang, Hèla Molijn (notes)

Apologies, Ana-Isabel Fernandéz

Welcome to all participants by Rolf Lundin, President of IFSAM.

Professor Ana-Isabel Fernandez apologises for her absence due to other tasks.

The Chinese representatives are certainly expected (Profs. Chen, Su and Zhang
arrived somewhat later in the morning).

Besides this it is very good possible that representatives from South Africa and Russia

will join the meeting later. If they do, they will be able to give a short presentation of their organisations, like all other representatives will.

This meeting will work towards a change in the main goal of IFSAM: IFSAM should no longer "only" be a conference organiser but should also carry a larger moral obligation amongst its members. During last years' meeting the comparison with the United Nations was made, and it looked "less" then, but turns out to be even better this year.

The need for the change in obligation is shown from the low number of participants that registered for this years' conference, it turns out to be (even?) lower than the ANZAM-conference in 2002. (from SAM < 100, from IFSAM > 150)

Various reasons can be suggested, main reason however is the different summer planning of the Nordic countries in comparison to the rest of the world and for example the interest shown by doctoral students.

No new items are added to the agenda; new (possible) members will be mentioned at item no. 10, where the IFSAM action plan will be discussed.

With a small change on page five, line 1, "he" will be changed in "she", the minutes are approved.

No other matters are mentioned.

Sten Jönsson to report. About 300 participants registered for the conference, less then 100 from SAM (caused by the period that was chosen for the conference, in the Nordic countries the summer vacation just started) and over 150 from the other IFSAM members. The current number of participants guarantees a safe budget.

Due to the planning of the EGOS-Conference, the doctoral colloquium will take place after the congress.

All further information is mentioned in the report that was sent along with the set of meeting documents.

First of all the council compliments the organisational committee with the excellent work they delivered, the conference seems to be scheduled very efficiently and has been worked out perfectly.

Concerning the role of the national chairs in the reviewing process a question rises that concerns the importance of the opinion of the national chair, in comparison with the opinion of the organisational committee. The council would like to know which opinion is of higher importance, that of the national chair or that of the organisational committee?

In this conference the opinion of the national chair comes first, as he/she is the one that is in a better position to judge the paper (familiarity with the national standards).

To be in a better position in these matters it is suggested to move in future to reviewing with full papers only in order to retrieve a full review.

In addition to this it is mentioned that streams are also very important, but only in connection to the national chair.

In contrary to this it could also be very good to receive feedback from another perspective, which would lead to some cultural advertising with it.

In China experts execute the review (these experts are paid by the national chairs) and the national chair makes the decision. Concerning the call for papers the organisations request to not only put the call for papers on the website, as that is not a good way to communicate the call to all members. They are very much in favour of distributing them by post so they can also hand them out to possible participants.

Another difference is mentioned from Japan, where only official members of the Japanese organisation are allowed to submit papers. This problem can be solved by asking for this information at subscription, the Japanese representatives suggest to arrange this in future.

A large Chinese problem concerns visa. The Chinese need visa to go to various countries, and in order to make the request for visa credible, these visits to conferences are always lengthened (connected to a further visit to the country where conference takes place and it is common use to visit colleagues in the same country).

Therefore it is asked to lengthen the term that is mentioned in the invitational letter that is sent to the participant, so they have the opportunity to travel more efficiently.

Regarding visa it is remarked that a message arrived from the Swedish Embassy in Uganda: apparently a false application came in there, so the checks that are made there are necessary. Embassies only do their jobs.

Finally, concerning the planning of the next conferences, it is decided that the host of the conference decides on the timing of the period into which the conference will take place, as the national audience will be the bigger part of the complete number of participants and should therefore be given priority.

Klaus Macharzina reports: Theme of the conference will be "Enhancing Managerial Responsiveness to Global Challenges". At this moment the dates are set for 28-30

September 2006. The Council is asked to confirm this timing.

The United Kingdom and Japan have problems with this planning, as the dates are immediately before the start of their academic year. Several suggestions are made by the various members, the organizational committee will do their utmost to serve all wishes in planning the definitive date of the conference. On short term the definitive date will be communicated to all member organizations.

Approximately 400 copies of brochures will be distributed, all tracks that have been set so far are mentioned in the presentation that is attached to these minutes. (Appendix 2)

For the council meeting only 1 day is planned, the council is asked to inform the organizational committee if that will be sufficient.

Ursula Hansen will present a special project that will be connected to the 8^th Congress, the presentation will take place after lunch.

The central theme of all tracks is "global". The organizational committee has chosen this general theme to make the conference easier accessible to a bigger audience. This way it is expected that more interested participants can be attracted to the conference.

An international panel will review the papers. Different tracks will be handled in different countries, and they will be combined mutually. National chairs will be used as well, they will be nominated before December 1, 2004.

The council suggests to using successful tracks from this years' congress as well as various management disciplinary tracks. It is also advised to focus on globalization and expand in this theme to a broadest range possible.

It is strongly suggested to send out the call for papers as soon as possible via the member organizations, to ensure the broadest distribution amongst their members.

After a short coffee break the meeting is continued with item no 7., President's report.

7. President's report

First of all Rolf Lundin reports that as of the year 2003 SAIMS (Southern Africa Institute for Management Scientists) has become member of IFSAM. In order to settle this membership Rolf Lundin joined a meeting at Potchefstroom where he met the dean of SAIMS, Prof. Ronél Rensburg.

Due to other obligations she is not able to join this meeting personally but will probably be represented by one of the South African participants to the congress.

A second possible new member of IFSAM could be RABE (The Russian Association of Business Education), although they did not formally apply yet. First contact already has been made and further discussion will follow in the next few days as RABE participates in the conference.

Next issue for IFSAM will be the planning of the location of the 2005 Council Meeting. At this time the location is open, although South Africa (SAIMS) could be an option. Later in the meeting it is mentionedthat the Eastern Academy of Management will have its annual meeting round 25^th June 2005 in South Africa, so it might be an option to plan the IFSAM Council Meeting round that same time.

Because of the resemblance to the UN that was made last year during the IFSAM Council Meeting, for this years conference Kofi Anan was contacted, with a request to act as keynote speaker,. Unfortunately Kofi Anan could not come, but referred in his answering letter that "The world is in need of better management: Management of schools, health care, infrastructure, business life and there is also a need to develop human capital", which statement perfectly fits to the extra goals of IFSAM: value, strategy and membership.

Further on this years' conference a date conflict appeared with EGOS and EURAM, it should be attempted to avoid this conflict for the next congresses.

As of 2003 the IFSAM Office started with its intermediary function, and works well. It can be contacted for all IFSAM matters; all members are advised to make use of it.

As a last issue Rolf Lundin mentions that the travel expenses as budgeted for the President of IFSAM were not used, and they will be returned to IFSAM.

8. Secretary's report

Pieter Terlouw reports that all jobs that were discussed during the past meetings are executed, of course including the normal tasks. In this meeting a list with data of all representatives will circulate with the request to all members to check their data.

To help increase the number of members Gael McDonald from ANZAM offers to have one of her research assistants to investigate the Internet on professional management associations. This offer is accepted; the assistant will start investigating on short term.

The secretary furthermore refers to the remark Rolf Lundin made during the welcoming part of the meeting; the moral obligation IFSAM members share. Looking at the way the working time of the IFSAM office is divided there is only a clear peak round the annual Council Meeting and of course the bi-annual Congress. In between these events there's a big depth concerning jobs to do for the IFSAM members.

This movement perfectly reflects the way "IFSAM" lives amongst its members.

In the quiet period assistance can be given to the members and research can be done, but should be asked for, therefore the secretary suggests to look for motivation of memberships. During the presentations of the various academies it will become clear how the member organisations think about this subject.

9. Treasurer's report

While showing the sheets that are part of the set meeting documents Eric Simon explains that according to French law IFSAM has two bank accounts; one in Euros and the other one in Dollars. He suggests to keep into close account who pays what, in order to keep the transfer costs as low as possible. This will be dealt with by sending specified invoices to Dollar paying members and Euro paying members.

The budget over 2003 shows a loss of $ 680,91. The solution to decrease the loss will be to recruit more new members. This way the income will become higher.

Lunch break

6. Continuance first report 8^th World Congress

Ursula Hansen reports that in the German Academy of Management an idea has risen to start a research project round the organisation of the conference. The results of the project will of course be presented at the conference. It is intended to make use of the complete IFSAM network for this project and is meant to be used as an advertisement for IFSAM.

Subject of the project is to investigate the research culture amongst the various countries in the world, which should result in an overview that compares the different cultures in the various countries. The sheets of her presentation will be attached to these minutes as well (Appendix 3)

The idea of this project is received full of enthusiasm by the Council. Several suggestions are being made to attract a public as large as possible: for example it is suggested to go beyond the IFSAM membership to attract more participants.

Furthermore the council suggests to start with comparison amongst 6 or 7 countries and increase this number later in the years.

The Japanese association mentions that their management culture differs a lot from other countries. Researchers in companies do not all have the same skills and authorities; for example only managers are authorised to answer questions from outside, this should be taken into account.

They also think that it is better to focus on smaller topics in corporate responsibilities in order to establish more clear results.

The council suggests to build a small international team to work out the idea, considering all suggestions that were mentioned earlier. This committee can be built as soon as the idea has been worked out and the direction of the project will be set.

10. IFSAM actions plan 2003/2004

India: India is a very large country that has many schools of management and so called organisations that vary a lot. One of the organisations that attracted the attention of Joan van Aken is AIMS (the Association of Indian Management Schools). Some information from its website has been handed over to the secretariat in order to establish contact.

Poland: The Polish Academy of Management is divided into 58 sections, Management is one of the sections. Rolf Lundin will talk to Professor Andrzej Kozmienski, dean of the Leon Kozmienski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management in Warsaw about possible membership of IFSAM.

(Prof. Kozmienski is one of the key notes of the SAM Conference).

Russia: The Russian Academy in Business Education (RABE); further discussion concerning the IFSAM membership will continue during the congress.

Portugal: Professor Juan José Durán earlier offered to contact Portugal, and will be in touch about his attempt.

Korea: The Japanese Association made a first contact and invited the Korean association to the congress. No positive reactions followed. The relation that exists between both organisations is close, but appears to be difficult and it is suggested to attracht the young professors after contact has been made.

Taiwan: Taiwan is a sensitive subject concerning the two Chinese members of IFSAM. Besides this Taiwan is not considered to be suitable to become an IFSAM member according to Zhang Yang.

Italy: AIDEA is the current Italian member. Membership fee is paid, but no representatives are sent to council meeting, nor are participants sent to the congresses, although representatives were mentioned to the secretariat.

Greece: Wolfgang Weber is in contact with Greek colleagues in the field of Management, he expects to be in closer contact via the 2006 congress.

ANPAD: In last years' meeting it was suggested that contact could perhaps be made via Jone Pearce of AoM. Further information on this will follow after the meeting. Jone will have to check with AOM first. Information on IFSAM that could be sent to ANPAD and other organisations like ACACIA and Ibero will be sent to her.

Mexico is also a possibility and could perhaps be contacted via AOM as well?

CLADEA: ACEDE has no connection/contact to this organisation, and a few years ago CLADEA dropped out of IFSAM. A new attempt will be made.

In this point of view it is also suggested to encourage cross-national organisations to become IFSAM member too. The maximum number of countries participating in those organisations could be set on 3.

Also in this aspect the matter concerning EURAM rises: main reason for co-operation is the additional value IFSAM has to offer EURAM. Working together would raise a stronger "force" against the dominant Academy of Management.

Key selling points and strategy will follow later in the meeting, with item 13/16, where the future function of IFSAM will be discussed.

The present value of IFSAM seems to be covered by other issues; it might be wise to mention them again:

Last year the Council has decided upon a list of criteria that new academies should meet in order to be able to become an IFSAM member. It was also decided that the organisation should meet some of the mentioned criteria, as they are only guide lines, and no rules. Furthermore separate application should be done in order to decided on acceptance/rejection, as it is always the Council that decides whether an organisation is allowed to become a member or not.

It is suggested by the council to adapt the criteria in such a way that they become more friendly guidelines, in stead of rules. (action secretariat) The new version of the criteria will be spread amongst the council members by mail, with the request to sending in reactions on short term afterwards.

An other point of view concerning new and existing members is the kind of membership. At this moment IFSAM has two members sharing one membership, which causes a very unclear situation for both parties involved.

According to the statutes only full memberships are allowed. The council decides that as of the year 2004 only full memberships are allowed. This implies as well that both Chinese members are full members as of the year 2004.

Following to this decision the council should decide as well on the maximum number of organisations in one country that can become member of IFSAM. In China there are now 2 member organisations, the council suggests to decide on 3 as a maximum number of organisations. Logically this means that maximum 6 member votes appear for this kind of country. (If the same country also delivers a member of the Executive, the number of votes will be become even more).

11. Decision of the location and date of the IFSAM council meeting in 2005

The decision that has to be made on this item is connected to the points 12 and 14, therefore it is suggested to decide on these three items together. It seems wise to discuss them today, and then decide on them tomorrow. The Council agrees, item 12 follows.

12. Decision of location of the 8^th world congress to be held in 2008.

In the council meeting in Amsterdam in 2003 the two Chinese member organisations were requested to send in a new proposal for this congress that should refer to 4 points. The Chinese organisations didn't follow the request, so two other organisations were asked to send in a bid, and they did.

Following to this the idea came up to have the Chinese members host the 2005 Council Meeting, this should be kept in mind continuing the meeting with item no. 14.

14. Elections of executive members of the IFSAM Council

Up till today it has been IFSAM tradition to have the president-elect coincide with the conference, as the president-elect is fully responsible for the conference and has the function of Program chair.

Therefore as last president elect so far Ursula Hansen and later for her Wolfgang Weber was elected, keeping the 7^th Congress in mind, which will take place in Berlin. This years' conference however appears to be the one where this tradition can be broken; program chair concerning this conference is Sten Jönsson, while Rolf Lundin is President-elect.

The council agrees to this, and decides to have a look on further developments.

A new President-elect will have to be elected, therefore a call for nominations was sent out and two nominations were received: one for Sue Bruning from ASAC (Canada), and the other one for Yvon Pesqueux from Fnégé, (France). The nominations are not complete according to the statutes; therefore it is firstly suggested to do a (formal) postal ballot after the meeting.

Yvon Pesqueux decides to withdraw his nomination in favour of Sue Bruning, stating that he feels that competitiveness is not necessary and that he is happy to support her nomination for president elect.

Sue Bruning explains that it has been rather difficult to communicate with her in the past few weeks as she has been travelling since the beginning of June, and her e-mail broke down which left no possibility to get into contact with her.

Further on to the location of the 2008 conference: the question rises if it is possible to postpone this decision. Concerning this request Professor Su from China asks permission to say a few words to make it easier for IFSAM to decide in favour of China.

He mentions that he is very glad to be at the meeting and is grateful to have been given so many opportunities to send in the proposal for the 2008 conference.

He is certain that the problem on the location of the conference can be solved.

Professor Su has been one of the first members of IFSAM, since 1992, and has built a large experience concerning the IFSAM Conferences.

He explains that some main plus points of keeping the conference in China are:

Concerning co-operation with Prof. Chen, Prof. Su mentions that Prof. Chen has been a former dean of Prof. Su's School of Management and is a very important member of the economic association of Prof. Su. They will be very good able to join efforts in organising the conference.

Besides this Prof. Su mentions that the conference was held in China once before and that he is very grateful to be able to organise it for the second time. He is aware of the worry that arose concerning the organisation in cooperation of the two Chinese organisations and would like to erase that worry. Therefore he would like to be given the chance to prove that this concern is not necessary.

In China the process to prepare a congress takes a long time, which is also due to governmental approval, a statement that is confirmed by Prof. Chen.

Both organisations have been working together on the preparation of a proposal that has been sent to the Government (The Ministry of Science & Technology). Some correspondence is handed over to the council members.

This ministry will have to approve with the proposal after which further preparations can be made. The ministry asked for the decision on the City, also because the 2008 Olympics will take place in Beijing (the ministry is involved in that event as well of course). Another point is the guarantee of safety of the participants with regards to what happened on September 11, 2002. This is a very important issue for the Chinese Government.

Prof. Chen suggests that he and Prof. Su continue their co-operation, and come up with a new, complete proposal before the end of this month so the Council can decide on it. The governmental approval is expected, although nothing can be said on the term onto which it will be given.

Afterwards Prof. Chen will report the IFSAM decision to the Ministry and the Chinese organisations will come with a decent, joint proposal, within 2 months.

The Council agrees in giving both members some extra time to send in a new, complete proposal and considers accepting a new term for sending in the complete proposal before 31 December 2004, so that the Council can decide on it in its 2005 Council Meeting.

This term should give the Chinese sufficient time to prepare it. The Chinese however should keep into account that this will be the fourth and last opportunity given to them.

A small discussion follows concerning the other bid that was sent in for the 2008 conference, as Halifax should know on short term what they have to deal with: "only" an annual ASAC conference or a combination with the IFSAM conference. They are facing many participants, and need a decision on short term.

A further point could be if China will be able to arrange the congress in the time that is left after a possible decision in the 2005 Council Meeting.

The Council is partly pressured to make a decision; the conference was organised by ASAC already a rather short time ago. Furthermore it should be considered that South Africa didn't show up at this meeting and that the Chinese are always represented.

The council decides to make a decision on the location of the 8^th Congress on Sunday, 4^th July, to give all council members some time to consider the suggestions that were made.

Returning to the agenda (Item no. 14, elections) Rolf Lundin thanks Greg Bamber for his work in his function of president (elect, current and past) of IFSAM and closes the meeting for today. He receives a small gift as a way to underline IFSAMs' gratitude.

All council members are invited for the drink and IFSAM Council Dinner later in the evening. The meeting will be continued tomorrow.

Continuance of the meeting on Sunday, 4^th July 2004

14. Elections of executive members of the IFSAM Council

Rolf Lundin briefly mentions the matters that were suggested and discussed yesterday: Yvon Pesqueux withdrew his nomination in favour of the Canadian nomination. Sue Bruning will make a statement if desired, a formal statement of support is handed over to the president by Albert Mills.

Rolf Lundin proposes to settle the elections this meeting to avoid postponement and suggests to accept the nomination, discuss it in absence of Sue and vote on it.

Sue Bruning is given the opportunity to say a few words in order to explain her intentions with IFSAM. She shortly points at the financial status of IFSAM, looking at the current surplus. Furthermore she refers to the goals of IFSAM that can be increased and mentions that she feels that IFSAM could do more in supporting developing academies in regions where they are underdeveloped.

Rolf Lundin states that Sue Bruning has time available in her portfolio. This is of course a very important issue for a president of an organisation.

Furthermore Sue Bruning is asked for her opinion regarding the location of the 2008 conference. Sue answers that she is aware of the IFSAM experience with Canada, but that doesn't have her priority. A good conference is her main concern.

In absence of Sue Bruning Albert Mills suggests that he feels that because the nomination and further procedure were not completely according to the IFSAM statutes, the voting procedure should follow the statutes. He states that the procedure that is followed now, is appropriate and according to the statutes. Therefore no written ballot will be needed. Furthermore he thanks Yvon for his long time of work for IFSAM and the withdrawal of his nomination.

The result of the formal vote is: All for, no-one against. Sue returns into the room, therefore Sue Bruning is elected as President elect of IFSAM.

The same procedure is followed as it comes to the (re-)election of the Secretary and the Treasurer. Both Pieter Terlouw and Eric Simon are formally voted for, with all votes in favour, no votes against.

12. Decision of location of the 8^th World Congress to be held in 2008

During and after dinner there has been some time to informally discuss the situation that arose in the past months.

China can organise the conference but should address to the 4 given criteria as mentioned in the appendix of the 2003 Council Meeting minutes that are quoted below:

"Furthermore it is decided that the Chinese member organisations are given a new possibility to send a co-operative bid to the Secretariat, into which the following criteria should be considered:

After a formal vote the following decision is made:

The IFSAM Council has decided to give the Chinese organisations a last chance in

sending in a new proposal to the IFSAM Secretariat before October 1, 2004. This proposal has to meet the 4 above mentioned criteria, but should also follow the next 4 extra criteria:

A draft proposal can be sent to Rolf Lundin, Wolfgang Weber and the IFSAM Secretariat for a first evaluation by 1^st September 2004 .

If the proposal does not follow the mentioned criteria, the conference will be hosted by the Canadian IFSAM member, ASAC.

Prof. Su is very grateful to the council concerning this decision, his organisation will discuss in detail how to host the conference and he already has the strong support from Fudan University. Prof. Su guarantees that this conference will be the most successful conference of IFSAM. Prof. Chen also agrees to the decision and the conditions and will most certainly cooperate in hosting the 2008 conference.

Especially with the support of the scientific committee the organisational committee can succeed in organising a perfect conference. If needed even the Central Chinese Government will help out.

Some questions rise amongst the Council members. One of them considers a possible language problem, a second one deals with the selection of papers.

To solve a possible language problem bi-langual sessions will be organised; main language will be English. Chinese sessions will simultaneously be translated with help of interpretors.

The selection of papers will be taken care of with support of the scientific committee.

Further matters like visa problems will be avoided where possible, in specific cases longer terms will be given to deal with visa application.

Item 11. Decision of location and date of the IFSAM Council meeting in 2005

Rolf Lundin suggests to postpone the formal decision on this to October 1, 2004.

SAIMS already invited the council and it would of course be very good for the commitment of the South African Organisation. It will be attempted to connect the meeting to the meeting of the Eastern Academy of Management which will take place from 26—30 June, 2005. If South Africa however rejects the chance, ASAC can host the 2005 Council Meeting. The Council agrees to this suggestion.

Item 13. Renewal of the IFSAM Website

Item 16. Strategic directions and specific initiatives for IFSAM

Eric Simon reports.

During the past half year the website has been renewed, using the few suggestions that were made on request of Pieter Terlouw and Eric Simon.

The new website will be put online, waiting for suggestions of all members and their organisations. (action all IFSAM members)

Concerning strategic directions it is mentioned that there are two options: IFSAM can either stay a general conference organising organisation or IFSAM can include a niche (for example education) to evoke more feeling for IFSAM. Sten Jönsson already mentioned this in his report concerning the conference.

A major issue however is the contribution IFSAM can give to its member organisations. As everybody knows on top of the list there's the conference, because that has been the main goal of IFSAM so far. Secondly management of national organisations can be put on the list.

For further issues it is suggested to maintain the meeting with the presentations of the member organisations in order to get information on the way they were all built, why every organisation joined IFSAM and what they expect from IFSAM.

FNÉGÉ (France)

This academic umbrella organisation is specialised in management science. Its representation changes every 3 year (if needed).

FNEGE attempts to increase the French participation in worldwide congresses as so far Fnégé members hardly visit worldwide congresses and thinks that IFSAM necessarily should rise above "only organising worldwide conferences" but has no suggestion for this point.

VHB (German speaking countries)

Has been established since 1921, growing more and more into a scientific society. Main tasks of VHB are to organize scientific contacts in the different fields of management, to organize an annual conference, to develop special information services and to offer younger researchers support with for example travel expenses so that they are able to visit world congresses etc. Besides that VHB has a great experience in Internet Communication that is useful for the young researchers.

Main reason for VHB to join IFSAM is the ability to make use of the network and the congress, perhaps internet communication could be expanded. A further suggestion is to give more attention to the doctoral colloquium.

BAM (UK)

BAM has around 700 individual members, and was established in 1980. BAM uses the same model as the Academy of Management.

Main role of BAM is to lobby research councils and referees for proposals. The annual conference attracts about 700/800 participants, that are all BAM members.

An other goal of BAM is to develop new academics, especially younger researchers are needed, due to the average age of the current members. This need might even lead in the near future to some kind of doctoral prize.

BAM is an IFSAM member because of the international network and it might be an outcome for BAM via a different fee for IFSAM members.

New goals for IFSAM could be the organisation of a joint research project Ursula Hansen suggested. A second suggestions for IFSAM is to make use of the way scholars look up to key notes in conferences. Third could perhaps be cooperation and help for researchers in getting their results published.

ASAC (Canada)

ASAC was established round 1950 and is a bilingual organisation. 1/3 of the members are francophone, which is a fairly stable situation. The ASAC journal is bilingual as well and contains abstracts of both languages. Furthermore there is an electronic newsletter and of course a website: www.asac.ca.

Due to very strong conferences ASACs growing stage is very strong. This can be accredited to the very strong tracking system. For example ASAC now has 18 divisions.

ASACs reasons for being an IFSAM member: primarily because of the support to international development in management practice and research and the possibility to share experts and facilities.

ACEDE (Spain)

ACEDE focuses on business administration, its mission is to promote business administration in education and research. ACEDE has about 600, mainly Spain members. Two meetings are organised; one open for all members, and one only open for PhD students into which sessions take place that offer guidance and techniques. ACEDE has become an IFSAM member in order to get help in achieving its own goals and to support in making and working out new ideas and perspective and in helping new members in organising their organisation.

NOBEM (Netherlands)

Nobem is established in 2001. Its goals are to promote research business fields. Nobem has no individual members but only institutional members.

Main goal of Nobem is to organise courses, workshops and a conference for PhD Students. The workshops are meant for senior researchers as well.

Nobem has no journal and organises no senior meeting.

The IFSAM membership offers an international scope to Nobem. The added value for Nobem members is potential but could be more exploited, there is a big learning aspect. Nobem sees the conference as the major IFSAM product and is very much in favour of the idea Ursula Hansen projected.

AOM (USA)

AOM has 14.500 individual members and organises a meeting every year. It focusses on serving its members by handing over equipment.

IFSAM has is part of the learning experience though communication could be improved by meeting more often and by early distribution of important data and information.

ANZAM (Australia and New Zealand)

Established in 1986, with professional and institutional members.

Every year a conference is organised that is planned 5 years ahead. Twice a year a journal is published. ANZAM fosters the development of management education.

Important goals for IFSAM concerning ANZAM are the international scope, the network IFSAM offers as well as the conference that is organised bi annually.

ANZAM suggests IFSAM to create a newsletter. Another idea could be to include research networks in the conference to add value to the conference.

Furthermore it might be wise to reduce the rates of the conference, which can result in a higher number of participants.

CNEMA (P.R. China)

CNEMA has been established in 1982 with 18 universities, which number remained stable during the first period. Now CNEMA has 8000 individual members.

In 1980 a book was published. 3.000.000 copies were printed and now this book is obliged literature for Management. In the months May or October an annual conference is organised, every year in different locations in China.

CNEMA has become an IFSAM member for the conference and stimulates participation by its members so their papers get published.

CAMS (P.R. China)

CAMS was established out of 25 institutions and now has 1800 individual members.

CAMS suggests to expand IFSAM goals with joint expertise on request on:

For example the IFSAM conference is used for expansion of expertise in management in China.

JSBA (Japan)

The Japanese member organisation was founded in 1926 and has 2200 individual members. All members are management scholars. In 1937 a new organisation was built which was divided into two groups in 1945: Commerce and Accounting.

This related into an organisation in 1956 that was built out of various associations with all different no.'s of member, varying from 200 – 800. All associations come from one of the 6 parts that Japan is divided into.

As for the new goals of IFSAM it is mentioned that JSBA is especially looking for new young scholars to participate in conferences. To attract young scholars JSBA thinks that the workshops in conference are very important.

SAM (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland)

SAM was established in the 90's and has institutional and individual members with a total amount of 400.

Before the establishment of the foundation the business schools met every 4 year, now an annual conference is organised that usually attracts about 600 participants.

The academy has a journal.

SAIMS (South Africa) and AIDEA (Italy) are not represented at this meeting.

As for more IFSAM goals SAM thinks that the stability of IFSAM could help somewhat unstable organisations like SAM in stabilizing.

Furthermore it the doctoral colloquium at the conferences turn out to be very popular, perhaps that could improve IFSAM's position.

Conclusion:

Following the suggestions of all member oganisations, IFSAM should work on

To be able to work out all suggestions that were made by the member organisations, a committee has been nominated. In the committee will take place the President, the President-elect, the secretary and 1 council member (Wolfgang Weber, Sue Bruning, Pieter Terlouw and Joan van Aken). They will come up in early Spring 2005 with a brief paper concerning the new, expanded mission statement of IFSAM.

Furthermore the request is made to Klaus to write a short paper (max. ½ A4), explaining the reasons for founding IFSAM in 1990.

15. The statutes of IFSAM

The council suggests to form a small group that will judge the statutes and adapt them to the recent "state" of IFSAM.

By official vote all members are in favour of deciding on the new statutes by e-mail vote, according to communication in modern times.

18. Closing of the meeting

Rolf Lundin is thanked for his presidency and his experience during his term as president.

After this short remark Rolf Lundin refers to the reception of the conference later that day, closes the meeting and invites all present members to join lunch.

APPENDIX 1.

IFSAM Council –> Decision-list

Council Meeting of 3-4 July 2004 at the Agrenska Villan

Gothenburg, Sweden

the host decide on the timing of the period into which the conference will take

place, as the national audience will be the bigger part of the complete number of

participants and should therefore be given priority.

In IFSAMs' 2003 Council Meeting the following decision was made:
"Furthermore it is decided that the Chinese member organisations are given a new possibility to send a co-operative bid to the Secretariat, into which the following criteria should be considered: