Researchers take renowned seminar to Shanghai
For just the second time, the Royal Bank International Research Seminar will be held outside of Montreal. Organized by Concordia’s Michel Laroche, it will take place between June 7 and 10 at the Antai College of Economics and Management (ACEM) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
The event brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines, interested in advancing knowledge on the influence of culture and culture change in the development of marketing strategies.
As professor in the Department of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) and a Concordia Research Fellow Laroche explains, “For JMSB, it is a unique opportunity to get exposure worldwide since there will be participants from many countries.”
Laroche, whose main research interests are in the areas of communication, consumer behaviour modelling, culture, retail, and Internet and services marketing, holds the Royal Bank Distinguished Professorship in Marketing, which was established in 2000 by a generous donation of the Royal Bank of Canada to intensify research and scholarly activities in the area of marketing. He was selected based on his outstanding record of scholarly activities and his tremendous national and international reputation.
This will be the eighth seminar organized by Laroche through the professorship. “There have been six domestic seminars,” he explains. “All of them were extremely successful, attracting numerous world-renowned researchers.” They were so successful in fact, that the Journal of Business Research dedicated a special issue to chronicle the proceedings of each seminar.
The international reputation of the seminar led to invitations to have foreign-hosted editions of the event. In 2010, at the request of the Korean Academy of Marketing Scholars, Laroche took the show on the road and organized a seminar in Tokyo as part of the World Marketing Conference. The seminar attracted a record number of paper submissions.
This year, co-sponsored by ACEM and the Journal of Business Research, the seminar called Globalization and Marketing Strategy will focus on the role of culture in the consumer decision-making process, especially in emerging economies. The event explores new developments, theories and knowledge in light of the trend toward global consumer markets, the rise of online services and the rapid growth of new products around the world.
Considered by many in the field to be the best boutique seminar in the world, Laroche says that international venues have played an important role in bringing a wider visibility to the event. “We are consistently attracting top researchers from around the world. Many participants have returned numerous times, and several attended every single one.”
One top researcher who will be representing JMSB in Shanghai is Gad Saad, professor in the Department of Marketing. One of his co-authors, Mark Cleveland, a JMSB graduate student, will be presenting their paper, the working title of which is “Individualism-Collectivism and the Quantity versus Quality Dimensions of Individual and Group Creative Performance.” Another JMSB student, Louis Ho, is the third co-author.
Their paper investigates how performance in brainstorming tasks is affected by whether one hails from an individualist society (like Canada) or a collectivist one (like Taiwan, for example). “Canadians generated a greater number of ideas albeit the quality of the ideas were higher for the Taiwanese,” says Saad. “Furthermore, the Canadians displayed greater confidence in their brainstorming abilities and were more willing to verbalize disagreements with other members of their brainstorming group.”
“The seminar is a wonderful forum for demonstrating the myriad of important ways by which culture affects business practices in general and consumer behaviour in particular,” adds Saad.
Related links:
• John Molson School of Business Research Chairs and Professorships
• Journal of Business Research