28th CEEMAN Online Annual Conference concluded with great success!

The conference started on Wednesday, 23 September with PRME Session “Responsible Management Education – Focus on Relevance” and two parallel poster sessions. The PRME Session was moderated by Mette Morsing, Head of PRME, USA with participation of Danica Purg, President of CEEMAN and IEDC-Bled School of Management, Slovenia; Norman de Paula Arruda Filho, President of Instituto Superior de Administraçao e Economia – ISAE, Brazil; Andrew Jack, Global Education Editor, the Financial Times, UK and Mikolaj Pindelski, Current Head of PRME CEE Chapter Steering Committee and Vice-Dean for Master Studies, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland.

In the poster sessions, faculty and researchers presented their latest work and experience in two streams: one focusing on best practices and teaching tools, and the other on research and new trends. The fast-paced sessions, showcasing 12 excellent submissions overall, were facilitated by Claudio Rivera, Deputy Director of Riga Business School, Latvia and Drikus Kriek, Dean of IEDC-Bled School of Management, Slovenia.

Thursday, 24 September started with two insightful webinars by the conference exhibitors. Axel Borschbach of Academ/RimaOne shared useful tools and suggestions on effective data management, while Franc Dolenc of MiTeam presented more in-depth the communication, collaboration and e-learning possibilities of MiTeam platform.

In the afternoon, all of us were treated to the long-awaited “Ideas and Inspirations for Management Development from Fields Beyond Management” with the four keynote speakers. The session was gracefully facilitated by Vanina Farber of IMD Lausanne and Nicola Kleyn of RSM Rotterdam School of Management.

neuroscience and biology, talked about how biology is driving major changes in business models, product development, people management, as well as CSR and ethics models – issues that each CEO and manager has to understand and manage.

Jan Hagen, Associate Professor at ESMT, Germany brought lessons from error management in the airplane industry. High-reliability organizations like nuclear power plants, hospitals or airlines are domains, which are not immediately associated with innovation and open leadership culture - but the principles they apply can provide inspiration for management in unexpected ways.

Haris Pašović, an award-winning film and theater director from Bosnia and Herzegovina, demonstrated how art can be an inspirational source for leaders to operate with great vision, finest concepts, imagination, and sharpening their perceptions and intuition. These skills are becoming more important than ever in our age of globalization, big data, AI, and increasing uncertainty and complexity.

Miha Pogačnik took us on a journey of explaining crucial aspects of leadership and management through a Bach masterpiece, showing how music and art could help heal corporate souls through active listening, authentic interest, and empathy.

The day concluded with the CEEMAN Awards Ceremony which celebrated new CEEMAN members, IQA accredited schools, as well as winners of the CEEMAN/Emerald Case Writing Competition and the CEEMAN Champion Awards.

On Friday morning, September 25 we started with an in-depth discussion focusing on relevance - through the prism of CEEMAN IQA-International Quality Accreditation. CEEMAN IQA Committee President Derek Abell explained the principles of IQA and what differentiates it from other international accreditation schemes, while leaders of several IQA-accredited schools shared their first-hand experience with CEEMAN accreditation and its impact on institutional development: Grzegorz Mazurek, Kozminski University, Poland; Irina Tykhomyrova, MIM-Kyiv, Ukraine; and Irina Sennikova, RISEBA University, Latvia.

The IQA session was followed by the CEEMAN Annual Meeting where President Danica Purg shared latest update on past and upcoming CEEMAN activities, followed by a discussion and inputs from CEEMAN members.

participants could choose among three parallel sessions:

-          New business models for management education, moderated by Denis Konanchuk (Moscow School of Management Skolkovo) with inputs by Meelis Kitsing (Estonian Business School), Yerbol Suleimenov (Almaty Management University, Kazakhstan), and Anna Kuperschmidt (Skillbox Online University, Russia)

-          Research development, facilitated by Jim Walsh (University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, USA, former President of AOM) with inputs by Irina Skorobogatykh (Plekhanov Russian University of Economics), Suddha Chakravartti (EU Business School, Switzerland) and Larry Zhou (School of Management, Zhejiang University, China)

-          Teaching and learning, facilitated by Andrzej Popadiuk (Gdansk Foundation for Management Development, Poland) and inputs by Johannes Siebert (MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Austria), Valeria Zabolotna (Academy DTEK, Ukraine), and Yaroslav Pavlov (IMISP, Russia)

At the end of the Conference, Danica Purg also hosted a session with leaders of Alliance of Management Development Associations in Dynamic Societies, a new strategic initiative for the benefit of our respective member schools.

Although we had a lot of content to cover, we did not forget to have some fun and bring nice emotions and experiences to the event. Participants had a chance to speed network with the help of Meet Roulette, participate in the CEEMAN Cookies competition, or post a short video of their prior experience or story related to CEEMAN in #myCEEMANstory section.

Staying true to our tradition, the CEEMAN Annual Conference could not be without music and dancing. We invited Teo Collori and Momento Cigano to deliver an exclusive live concert for our participants, which was also streamed on YouTube. It really provided for great vibes and many positive messages and cheers from all around the world!

Participants say... 

"Thank you very much for an inspiring conference and a wonderful example what can be achieved on-line for knowledge sharing and connecting with other people form the same field"

"The sessions were compelling and inspiring and the atmosphere you’ve created was “virtually comfy&cozy”. And the fantastic concert at the end! Thank you so much!"

"[Congratulations] for the excellent organization of this CEEMAN Annual conference. The technology worked very well, the quality of the speeches was very high and the organization is enlarging all over the world, including African and Latin American institutions."

"You have certainly set a truly new world standard of online events. The value of the content, quality of the presentations, conference platform, art performances, and – your super-professional Conference leadership have made the Conference an unforgettable event."

 The conference platform will continue to be open for participants for four more weeks to enable access to session recordings and networking.

The 29^th CEEMAN Annual Conference will take place in the cosmopolitan city of Trieste, Italy on the Adriatic coast, in collaboration with MIB Trieste School of Management. We will discuss the topic “Science and Management: An Alliance to Solve Global Challenges”. Reserve 22-24 September 2021 to join us!