EIBA @50 - And a CYGNA panel on academic career transitions
Brief write-up of our CYGNA 10 year anniversary panel at the 50th EIBA meeting
In December 2024 six of our wonderful CYGNA members - Carole Culioli Couper, Dan Ha Le, Joanna Karmowska, Ciara O'Higgins, Dorota Piaskowska and Natalie Wilmott - joined forces to organise the CYGNA 10th Anniversary Panel: Leveraging Insights from Academic Career Transitions to Rethink IB Scholarship, coinciding with EIBA's 50th anniversary. As I was unable to join the conference, I created a short video, which you can watch above. The full text is below.
Looking back and looking forward
I am really sorry that I am not able to be with you here in person today. EIBA has been a huge part of my academic life. It was the first proper conference I went to in 1994, now exactly 30 years ago. Since then, it became my academic home, one where I was able to meet the academics I had always admired, and more importantly one where I made many friends. I attended every year until moving to Australia.
I have truly treasured the relationships I have built up with IB scholars over these years, often facilitated by the wonderful pre-conference social events that EIBA always organised. Many of these relationships have lasted till today. If you are a junior academic, I hope the same will happen for you and you will think of EIBA as your academic home. If you are an EIBA veteran, sorry I can’t be there with you to reminisce and celebrate EIBA’s fiftieth anniversary.
Allow me to briefly indulgence in nostalgia; I have a picture of the doctoral symposium I attended in 1994 that I would like to share with you. Many of you will recognise Danny van den Bulcke, Jean Francois Hennart, Stephen Young, and John Dunning. I am the one in the pale orange jacket, partly obscuring John Dunning’s face.
I can’t imagine that was 30 years ago, it seems like only yesterday to me. I don’t feel much different from that doctoral student in her late twenties, struggling in a country – the Netherlands – in which female professors were still a rarity.
But a lot has happened since. Academics are now a lot more diverse demographically, and academic careers have changed beyond recognition. Female academics in particular often have far less linear careers now than I ever had. They are daring to craft a career that suits their own values and unique competencies (see also:CYGNA: One size doesn't fit all - Diversity of academic career paths). And I think our IB scholarship has benefitted tremendously from this larger variety.
So, without further ado, let’s move on to today’s panel. I’ll be there with you in spirit and look forward to hearing the stories about how this panel has inspired you to craft your own career.
More pictures
And just for nostalgia’s sake here are a few more pictures, courtesy of Danny van den Bulcke and the EIBA History project.
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Copyright © 2025 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 4 Jun 2025 08:02
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
