Call for paperS

SIEM Meeting March 2010, 1st International Symposium on
Management Geography

at Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto/Biwako Kusatsu Campus)

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SIEM (Spaces of International Economy and Management) is an innovative, international and multidisciplinary research group created in 2007. Meetings have been conducted at the Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG) to understand new spaces of global business in the knowledge society and to build a community representing a wide spectrum of perspectives regarding management geography. With the purpose of organizing the first SIEM symposium we are calling for speakers from the science of geography as management to present their fresh ideas and research results in the spirit of building cross-disciplinary co-operation and to promote a breakthrough by displaying all contributions to the discipline of Management Geography.

The concept of management geography is little known, although in the past management scientists and recent leaders in economic geography have presented significant work in this field and provided potential leads to a new avenue of geographic studies. Among them, Henry Yeung, Andrew Jones, Patrik Ström and Tim Reiffenstein will attend the symposium as guest speakers. Their work focuses on international managers and entrepreneurs. In the post war era the global market has come into its own as managers have begun conducting business internationally. Entrepreneurs and managers took advantage of the remarkable progress in communication and transport systems for their international business activities. As a result, their centers of activity accumulated profits and power. The places and spaces that belong to their multi-national network are related to this growth process but are affected by the way business is conducted. Our ambition is to make this clearly important subject more accessible to an international audience of interdisciplinary scientists by providing theoretical foundations, methodological tools and empirical evidence. Studies to be presented at the SIEM symposium should include one or more of the following aspects:

a) Theorizing management practices in geographic space by approaches related to leadership, international human resource management (IHRM), corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and networking of entrepreneurs and managers.

b) Proposing new methodologies for investigating managerial practices and strategies, capability and capacities for decision making, manager appraisal of changing agents in private and governmental organizations molding international spaces.

c) Introducing studies with empirical evidence on the cross-border expansion of managerial practices that contribute to the formation of new emerging communities in metropolitan spaces. In particular, studies that investigate new career and location patterns in an increasingly globalizing world will be presented.

d) Providing applied decision making support for international managers in the global and local context.

e) Developing implications for local and regional government on building hybrid culture that enables cities to encourage international entrepreneurship and management talent.

The research group on Spaces of International Economy and Management (SIEM) will organize a international symposium at Ritsumeikan University Biwako Kusatsu Campus (BKC). The Symposium is scheduled from March 24th to 25th and a fact finding excursion on March 26, 2010, shortly before the spring meeting of the Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG) in Tokyo in order to enable the participants to join SIEM activities in both places. We are looking forward to receiving Henry Yeung (National University of Singapore) as our keynote speaker. Several researchers will present their research work on management issues from a geographical perspective and the symposium will be structured as follows:

1  Internationalization theory and management practices

2  New methodologies in management geography

3  Case studies on foreign management in Japan and other Asian countries

4  Case studies on Japanese management overseas

5  Implications for corporate and governmental management

SIEM 2010 brings you to the beautiful natural environment of Lake Biwa close to Kyoto as well as to the new CBD of Osaka, the workplace of numerous international managers. The conference language will be English. The program also offers excellent opportunities for networking with researchers and practitioners through lively discussion opportunities and evening events that will provide an inspiring atmosphere in which to share your conference and research experiences. You are encouraged to become a leading member of SIEM as it develops into a notable voice within the academic community investigating international business geography and management. SIEM wishes to encourage the academic conversation in international management from a geography perspective, and the publication of research results presented at the symposium will draw attention to the new research field of management geography. Various problems concerning corporate actors at international, national and local level can be uncovered and resolved in an increasingly synergetic way.

Important steps:

The deadline for registering your paper’s title and 300 word abstract is November 30th, 2009. The deadline for the full paper is January 30th, 2010. The submitted papers will be screened and, if necessary, the authors will be asked to revise their papers. The authors should re-submit their papers. The early bird registration for the SIEM symposium starts now. Please inform us about the title of your paper. We wish that you arrive at March 24th at the EPOCH Ritsumei 21 hotel on Ritsumeikan’s Biwako Kusatsu Campus for the registration, a keynote speech and a reception dinner. The conference will held from March 24th to 25th and completed with an excursion to the World Trade Center, the new waterfront development at Nakanoshima and the emerging CBD in front of JR Osaka Station on March 26th. The Osaka visit will include a meeting with international managers to discuss global and local management issues in the global city Osaka. The cost for the conference, reception dinner, banquet dinner, two overnights with breakfast and the excursion to Osaka is 20,000 Yen (payment details upon request). The number of participants is limited to 40.

We plan to publish research results on our homepage and as a book entitled “Management Geography – Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Approaches” by the end of year 2010. The conference is organized by the team members listed below. Please use the following e-mail address for further correspondence and your submission. We will reply to you ASAP.

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Local organizer team

Atsushi Taira (Kagawa University, Faculty of Education)

Masato Ikuta (Ritsumeikan University, Department of Geography)

Nathaniel Agola (Ritsumeikan University, Faculty of Business Administration)

Rolf D. Schlunze (Ritsumeikan University, Dept. of International Management)

William Baber (Kyoto University, Graduate School of Management)

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