CYGNA: Our 6th end-of-year meeting

Reports on our 68th CYGNA meeting - two hours filled with reflections and fun

Anne-Wil Harzing - Wed 14 Jan 2026 17:46 (updated Sat 6 Dec 2025 09:04)

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we introduced a Christmas meeting for our CYGNA network to cheer up our members during a time when we were all starved of positive interactions.

It was so well-received that it has become a regular fixture in our CYGNA meeting year. So we ran it for the 6th time in December 2025. Links to our five prior meetings are below.

We try to have a different group hosting the celebration each year, but with a bit of cross-over; this ensures both consistency and fresh ideas. This year we had another stellar team composed of Dan Ha Le (University of Turku, Finland), Carole Couper (University of Birmingham, UK), and Seonyoung Hwang (Royal Holloway University, UK).

Due to schedule clashes we had to change the session plan three times. Thank you so much for your flexibility team! You all did a great job, and I think I spoke for all when I closed the meeting by saying that we felt much more positive after the meeting than before.

Tradition sharing

In the first part of the meeting we broke up into five break-out rooms to get to know each other better and share our end-of-year traditions. We had 32 CYGNA members joining us for this festive meeting, representing a very wide range of countries and end-of-year traditions. Many of us were also part of cross-cultural families where different traditions created a unique mixture.

So there were lots of great contributions, but the one I liked best was the Finnish concept of pikkujoulu (Little Christmas) which means celebrating with friends and colleagues before the "Big Christmas". Even the word itself is lovely, it rolls of the tongue so nicely. And it is very much what we were doing in the CYGNA meeting, so maybe we should call it pikkujoulu next year :-).

There was one thing we all agreed upon though: it is a good time to step back and reflect on both the past and the coming year. So this is what we did in the second hour.

Looking back and ahead: CYGNA Lead Team

The Cygna Lead Team reflected our many new and sustained initiatives for 2025:

The first meeting outside London: CYGNA: Getting creative with qualitative research methods. We have had CYGNA North meetings in Leeds, Manchester, Durham, and Newcastle, but our "Southern" meetings were always in the London area. Our Oxford meeting was well attended and we enjoyed exploring Oxford on a lovely sunny day. Thank you Sylwia Ciuk and Joanna Karmowska for the organization and the delicious lunch.
The first full year of Cygna Writes, initiated by Lead Team member Christa Sathish in November 2024. It now runs twice a week, once in the evening and once during the day, and has helped many CYGNA members to carve out time for their writing.
The first full year of Senior CYG, initiated by Lead Team member Ciara O'Higgins (see CYG: Career stage CYGs) in December 2024. We meet every month for informal discussions about the challenges and joys of being a senior academic. Our group's discussions inspired me to write a white paper on career identity: You finally made it to full professor, now what?, and a sub-group of Senior CYG is co-authoring a journal article on approaches to leadership.
A new closed LinkedIn group supplementing our CYGNA LinkedIn page. This LinkedIn group is intended for the more interactive type of discussions that are not easy or appropriate on a mailing list. All CYGNA members are invited to participate.
The introduction of a slightly different type of meetings: "panel meetings". We had two on editorial work (CYGNA: The good, the bad and the ugly of editorial and reviewing responsibilities) and leadership and service (CYGNA: The many shapes and forms of service & leadership) this year. They include 9-10 CYGNA members providing a lightning introduction of the issues, followed by Q&A and sharing of experiences. This more interactive format reduces preparation time for the presenters and leads to more engaging meetings.
A second year of our first CYG: Teaching & Scholarship Research, with research seminars and networking meetings. Our TSR CYG will be organising a plenary session in March 2026 with a topic of interest to us all: generational differences in expectations from education, and ways to create an engaged classroom.

For 2026 we are hoping to build on our current momentum to create deeper interactions and building closer connections in smaller groups, rather than maintaining our earlier emphasis on big plenary meetings. We have plenty of exciting ideas for this, which include active participation in our closed LinkedIn group and "a day in the life" podcasts.

Looking back: What brought CYGNA members most joy?

Seon is a whizz with interactive word-cloud generators, so we collectively reflected on what gave us joy in 2025. For me personally it was having more time (see Why did I take early retirement & farewell messages) to do the things I really enjoy, such as CYGNA, Positive Academia, and writing blogposts (see Harzing.com blog 9 years old!) and white papers.

The other contributions generally fell in two categories: professional achievements such as getting funding, publications, a new book, or a new job, and the joy linked to connections and relationships: colleagues, students, family, service, mentoring, and CYGNA!

I also liked the "nothing bad happened", which is something to be very grateful for these days. AoM (Academy of Management) was both a professional and a relational "joy factor" as we had a big CYGNA community (55+ members) there.

Looking ahead: What habits/practices would CYGNA members like to build?

Not surprisingly, many of us wanted to find more time to write, and more generally to do research and to manage our workload bettter. Getting on the mailing list for Cygna Writes can really help you carve out dedicated time for writing twice a week. So do consider this for 2026. Christa and Ina would be happy to welcome you.

Many other habits were related to more healthy living, exercise, and self-care, but also to gratitude, appreciating the little things in life, and being grateful for what we do have, rather than focusing on what we don't have. It is not always easy to do so, but it does make a big difference.

Learning to say no, and less self-doubt/more belief in yourself, were also prominently present. Remember that all of us suffer from an imposter syndrome from time to time. Interacting in the safe CYGNA setting can definitely help to build a more positive self-image. We look forward to seeing many of you back in 2026.

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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.

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