CYGNA @EIBA Madrid 2021
Report and pictures by members of the CYGNA network at the EIBA conference
Ciara O’Higgins, Inés Escobar, Madeleine Raupp, Elena Poliakova and Paula Erthal
After two years of online conferences, it was a great opportunity to meet colleagues again at the 47th Edition of the EIBA Annual Conference, organised at the Universidad Complutense, in Madrid from the 10th to the 12th of December 2021.
Nevertheless, after such a long time, and with COVID contagion numbers rising all over Europe, the prospect of attending an in-person conference was a bit daunting. Some CYGNA members were attending EIBA for the first time, but even for those who are experienced conference-goers, entering a packed room alone can be quite intimidating. With this in mind, CYGNA sisters attending EIBA decided to connect beforehand, create a WhatsApp phone group to reach out and meet up as the conference progressed.
And so the conference unfolded…. On the first night, after the Plenary Opening Session, conference attendees gathered at the Welcome Cocktail (see picture above), and several CYGNA members who had never met before managed to meet up. It was great fun and ties were created for the rest of the weekend!
Pre-conference activities
CYGNA members were active in the pre-conference activities, both as panellists and attendees! First, the Danny Van den Bulcke Doctoral Symposium, where CYGNA member Jelena Cerar (in the middle in the picture below) was a huge hit, alongside senior scholars Rebecca Piekkari and Udo Zander, talking about different career options after the PhD!
CYGNA senior Axèle Giroud was organiser (with Roger Strange) of the International Business Review Professional Development Workshop (left). CYGNA member Natalia Fey participated in the EIASM John H. Dunning Doctoral Tutorial (right).
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Paper presentations
Various CYGNA sisters presented their work over the weekend, in competitive, interactive and poster sessions, and on a number of occasions other members attended to provide moral support and constructive feedback.
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Above: Left Inés Escobar, with co-author Rodrigo Mesa. Right, Elena Poliakova presenting her work. Below: Jelena Cerar presenting her poster (to Ciara O’Higgins).
Social occasions
But there was also plenty of time for the social events, with different CYGNA sisters catching up for coffee, meeting for dinner on Saturday or sitting together at the Gala Dinner on Sunday.
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Above: Margaret Fletcher, Natalia Fey, Inés Escobar and Monique Raupp with EIBA colleagues (left). Ciara O’Higgins & Natalia Fey enjoying the Madrid sun (right). Below: GLOMO Project collaborators Inés Escobar & Monique Raupp (left) and Elena Poliakova and Natalia Fey (right)
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In sum...
The initiative to create a smaller network of CYGNA sisters within the context of the conference was useful to many of us, as well as great fun. Each of us had our own timetable of sessions and meetings, but we knew that at the drop of a WhatsApp message, other CYGNA members were around to meet up and disperse the all too familiar feelings of isolation within a crowd! We hope the success of the initiative will encourage others to do the same in future conferences!!
Related blogposts
- AIB 2020 Online - my first virtual conference
- AoM 2020 online - my second virtual conference
- AIB 2019 panel: Untwisting tongues: Language research in International Management
- EIBA Leeds 2019: IB in a Confused World Order
- AIB Copenhagen 2019: JIBS silver medal and AIB Fellowship
- EURAM 2017: Famous scholars in expatriate studies
- WAIB Panel 2018: Academic career strategies for women in the UK
- GEM&L conference 2019: Translation in International Business & Management
- My first European Academy of Management conference (2016)
Copyright © 2022 Ciara O’Higgins. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Fri 16 Sep 2022 16:51
Ciara O’Higgins is a lecturer in strategy and international business at Deusto Business School in the Basque Country, Spain. Her (qualitative) research focusses on the international professional service firms (PSFs) and in particular the role of knowledge in their internationalisation. Prior to working at the University of Deusto, she worked for close to 20 years in international business, promoting the internationalisation of firms (in particular service and tech-based firms) and collaborating in international and economic development projects with multilateral funding (EuropeAid, InterAmerican Development Bank etc.). Having lived and worked in a number of countries, she is curious about all things multicultural and multilingual and seeks to continue applying and expanding her experience in this field to a variety of academic, social and corporate projects.
