The interplay of economics and politics has shaped our modern world for as long as we know it. Historically, international business has gone through many nationalization and liberalization cycles. Lately, in the face of recent global political changes such as Brexit and conservative governments around the world, debate around international business and policy matters has been initiated again. This is one of the few examples where Nordic Research School of International Business (#NORD-IB) comes into play.
NORD-IB is different in the sense that it not only focuses on academic learning but emphases social networking among participants. It is done so where same participants meet every three months for 6 times in total around a particular learning theme. Each module is spanned over three days where days are full with academic learning and evenings are filled with social activities. At the end of the program, many of us participants are able to find future collaborations and long lasting friendships. It is a self-initiated, self-managed and voluntarily-run by professors and Alumni of NORD-IB. Before I go on, let’s take a step back and let me explain what the program is all about.
NORD-IB started in 1999 as a collaboration among Nordic universities focusing on research in IB. However, due to the scope and what it has to offer, the program grew quickly and therefore, in present day, don’t let the name fool you (in a positive sense), the program is one of prominent platforms for IB researchers and doctoral students in Europe. As Nord-IB webpage says,
“The NORD-IB program is a joint initiative among seven business schools in the Northern European countries, including Aalto University (Finland), BI Norwegian Business School (Norway), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), Leeds University (UK), University of Gothenburg (Sweden), University of Manchester (UK), and Uppsala University (Sweden). To date, more than a hundred PhD students have participated in the program, including several Academy of Management (AOM), Academy of International Business (AIB), European International Business Academy (EIBA), and European Doctoral programs Association in Management & Business Administration (EDAMBA) Dissertation Prize winners.”
I was part of NORD-IB in 2016-17 session and it has been a wonderful learning experience at many levels. The diversity of the participants was the first striking feature for me. My colleagues came from all around the world including South America, South Asia, Africa and Europe from countries as diverse as Pakistan, South Korea, France, Italy, Sri Lanka, Russia and Bangladesh.
It just does not end there, personal experiences of my colleagues embedded in the richness of their areas of research reflects how far we have come in terms of IB community in general and NORD-IBers in particular. Researchers covering all areas as diverse as digitalization and as traditional as human resource issues brought new perspectives for many of us to widen our research perspectives around these issues. In my opinion, participating in NORD-IB has been one of the ways to develop wider perspective of my own research interests as well as a better understanding of the field of International Business. It is such a diverse platform that it had all the resources available to address our individual research issues.
A personal advantage for me has been the opportunity to discuss my own research with different professors and have an outside perspective to what I have been doing. It helped me to overcome problems right in time for my research and smoothen the process of research. It has been an amazing experience to learn from the icons whose names we as students just see in publications such as Udo Zander, Kristiina Mäkelä, Elizabeth Rose, Ulf Andersson and Peter Buckley.
All of these learning experiences and they don’t even come near to the close friends we find in the group. The social ties go as far as people collaborating for future research. Almost everyone found fast friends and research collaborators. These collaborations just don’t stop there, you get to hang out with NORD-IBers in conferences like AIB and EIBA and all of us are looking forward to these conferences. The evenings are full of fun with beers, dinners and drinks. Personally, I believe that is the place where most of the learning comes from i.e. outside the traditional lecture hall. It is such a vast experience that it is difficult to share it in one blog post and therefore why not experience it yourself? The application period is open for 2018-19 batch of Nord-IB. See the following link for the call for applications: http://nord-ib.fek.uu.se/.
Majid Aleem,
Doctoral Candidate
Interesting courses for IB doctoral students are also organized by KATAJA and UTUGS.
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