I would like to remind you of the opening of the Call for Papers for the 12th Annual EURAM Conference "Social Innovation for Competitiveness, Organisational Performance and Human Excellence". The conference will be hosted at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, from June 5th to June 8th in 2012, located nearby the largest commercial port in Europe: the Port of Rotterdam.
Ports are of major economic and strategic importance for regions and countries. Although underexplored in strategic management literature, ports provide an interesting research context in terms of a dynamic international business environment in which technological, regulatory and market forces interact and influence the management and strategy of port authorities and firms. These firms are often interdependent; connectivity between firms within and between ports and the strategic interconnectedness of ports play a prominent role in the competitive advantage of ports and are of great strategic value for their countries. Economies of scale, globalization and international competition between ports are major driving forces of a strong focus on efficiency and technological innovation in ports.
In order to increase port competitiveness, also social innovation merits scholarly and practitioners' attention. Social innovation enables ports to become more innovative by leveraging the existing technological knowledge base and its performance in terms of successful innovation, productivity, competitiveness and overall organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, as social innovation is more difficult to copy compared to technological innovation, it contributes to a more distinctive and better defendable international competitive positioning of ports. Moreover, social innovation contributes to the adaptiveness of ports to cope with dynamic competition, changing regulations and rising demands of clients and other stakeholders.
To enlarge our understanding of how to increase (social) innovation in ports, the Department of Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship of the Rotterdam School of Management, in cooperation with the University of Antwerp, will organize the EURAM 2012 Track "Strategies to Increase Innovation in Ports" (Special Interest Group Strategic Management). The deadline for the submission of papers is 17 January 2012 2:00 p.m. Brussels time. See the EURAM 2012 website for guidelines, formatting instructions and further details.
Best regards,
Henk Volberda, EURAM'12 Conference Chair