GBSN member school, Zhejiang University School of Management, summarizes program highlights and key takeaways from the 2017 CEEMAN Annual Conference, Rethinking Entrepreneurship: Challenges for Management Education in Rising Economics.
The 25th CEEMAN Annual Conference was co-organized and hosted by Zhejiang University School of Management in Hangzhou, China September 20-22, 2017. More than 130 participants from over 30 countries joined the event, including deans and directors from business schools and universities, representatives of international management development associations, business leaders and entrepreneurs, political leaders and change makers, and international publishers.
The conference themed, Rethinking Entrepreneurship: Challenges for Management Education in Rising Economics featured interactive discussions and experience sharing on latest trends, insights, key issues, opportunities and challenges in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability. Sessions explored how business education can better support these processes to foster more effective entrepreneurship development around the world.
On Wednesday, September 20 participants had a chance to visit one of three Chinese giants, Alibaba, Geely, or Wensli, and met with local entrepreneurs. Hangzhou is known as the birthplace of many successful Chinese startups. The company visits gave a unique opportunity to experience Chinese entrepreneurial spirit and innovation.
The 25th CEEMAN Annual Conference officially kicked-off on September21, with a warm welcome by the conference chairman WU Xiaobo, Professor and Former Dean of School of Management, Zhejiang University. On behalf of the organizing institutions, Prof. WEI Jiang, Dean of School of Management, Zhejiang University, and Prof. Danica Purg, CEEMAN President also greeted all participants.
Dipak C. Jain, Former Director of Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, delivered the first Keynote on the evolution of management education, touching on key issues intuitions are facing and how business schools will need to evolve in the future.
Then Mr. SONG Juntao, CEO Assistant of Alibaba Group, China, presented Alibaba’s mission – developing conditions in which making business easy and related initiatives encouraging and enabling the SMEs to grow global.
The panel session on Entrepreneurship Development in China Ð issues and opportunities was moderated by CHEN Ling, Professor for Family Business History from Zhejiang University School of Management. The panel featured six Deans from various Chinese business schools. The panel on Entrepreneurship Development Around the World was moderated by Vladimir Nanut, Dean of MIB Trieste School of Management and President of ASFOR.
On Friday, September 22, the second day of the conference opened with a panel session of Entrepreneurship Development Seen from the Entrepreneur’s Side, moderated by Derek Abell, Professor Emeritus at ESMT-European School of Management and Technology, CEEMAN IQA Accreditation Committee President, Germany, with entrepreneurs and deans from different continents.
Two keynotes were delivered on Perspectives on Entrepreneurship by Multinational Companies. The first speaker was Iztok Seljak, President of Hidria, Slovenia, and the other was Ms. TU Hongyan, Chairman of the Board of Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co., Ltd.
The last session of the Conference started with a video address by Peter McKiernan, Professor of Management from University of Strathclyde, UK, who presented views on Vision of Responsible Research in Business and Management in which he illustrated the gap between hoping for relevance but rewarding productivity.
The conclusion of the conference was drawn by ZHOU Weihua, Associate Dean of Zhejiang University School of Management, who summed up key insights and takeaways that emerged from discussions at the 25th CEEMAN Annual Conference.
The CEEMAN Annual Conference officially came to an end with the CEEMAN Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, where certificates were delivered to new CEEMAN members, schools that have acquired the IQA Accreditation, and to the winners of the 23rd CEEMAN Case Writing Competition, organized in cooperation with Emerald Group Publishing and 2017 CEEMAN Champion Awards recipients.
CEEMAN Annual Conference is the most important annual event of CEEMAN. In the past years, CEEMAN has been strengthening its links with China. And organizing CEEMAN Annual Conference for the first time in China is an important step to facilitate cooperation within Belt and Road Initiative.
