AIB-Oceania Annual Research Symposium and PDW

Research Methods Workshops

22 November 2023

Workshops and Instructors

Workshop 1: Idea to Ink: Developing a Paper for Academic Publication (morning, 10 am-12 noon)

This workshop highlights the common blind spots when developing an academic journal article for publication. The session breaks down the writing process into stages, identifies pitfalls at each stage, and recommends practical ways to avoid these pitfalls. The aim is to help ensure that scholars come closer to the goal of publishing their work for the academic audience. Participants are encouraged to bring along draft papers (at any stage of writing) to use as workshop material.

Instructor biography: Sandra Alday is a Senior Lecturer in International Business, teaching units in international risk management, and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Management Education (JME). Prior to embarking on an academic career, Sandra was a consultant to a wide range of medium- to large-scale companies, specialising in international business development and organisation development. In the area of international business development, her consulting engagements were mainly aimed at informing clients’ strategic business expansion efforts in Southeast Asia, and included risk assessments, market attractiveness studies, competitive analyses and business feasibility analyses. In the area of organisation development, Sandra’s consulting engagements focused on helping companies design their organisation structure and processes, and put in place human resource management systems aimed at supporting the delivery of overall corporate strategies.

Building on her consulting expertise, Sandra’s current academic research focuses on the nature and impact of international trade and international investment networks on risk in economically integrated regions, and on exploring the nature and impact of diverse and resilient international business organisations on performance. Committed to innovation in higher education, Sandra is a recipient of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for the design of integrative assessment systems.

Sandra is an Executive Member of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC) at the University of Sydney, and a Guest Editor of the Journal of Risk Research (JRR). She is also the President of the Society for Risk Analysis Australia and New Zealand (SRA ANZ), and a member of the Standards Australia committee on risk management, tasked with reviewing the ISO31000 international standard on risk management.

Workshop 2: Introduction to Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) (afternoon, 12:45 – 2:45 pm)

This workshop is designed to help participants understand the theoretical basis and practical application of structural equation modelling. More specifically, we will address the following issues:
1. What is structural equation modelling and what types of research questions can it help answer?
2. Theoretical understanding of measurement models and structural models.
3. Mediation and moderation in SEM.
4. Survey data, measurement errors, and SEM.
5. Reading SEM output and providing guidelines for reporting SEM results.
6. Advanced modelling and Q&A in relation to use in IB research.

Instructor biography: Bo Nielsen is Professor of Business Strategy at University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Professor Nielsen holds a PhD in International Strategic Management from Copenhagen Business School and an MBA(TIM) from Pacific Lutheran University (USA). His research is at the intersection of strategy, international business, and economic geography with a specific focus on multilevel issues pertaining to strategic collaboration, firm internationalization, and strategic decision-making across borders. He serves as Consulting Editor, JIBS and is the co-founder and current President of the Research Methods SIG (RM-SIG) under the auspices of the AIB.

Professor Nielsen has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Regional Studies, among others. His recent edited book “Research Methods in International Business” is available at Palgrave Macmillan https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030221126. Professor Nielsen has also published a number of teaching cases at Ivey including the award-wining “Ecco A/S - Global Value-Chain Management”.

In 2020, Professor Nielsen was ranked among the top 16 leading researcher in business, economics and management in Australia based on highest number of citations from papers published in the last five years in the 20 top journals in their field.

Workshop 3: Conducting systematic and critical literature reviews (afternoon, 3 - 5 pm)

Literature reviews are essential for much of the research we conduct, be that conceptual, theoretical, or empirical. They also constitute a separate genre of academic work. Over the last decade, the wave of publishing literature reviews has intensified considerably. Journals that have long refused to publish them are now actively pursuing them. Management journals exclusively devoted to publishing literature reviews have consistently had a high impact factor.

This workshop will focus on two distinct types of literature reviews – systematic and critical. They serve different purposes, are conducted differently, and have different objectives. Yet, the two often get confused, or every type of literature review is assumed to be critical. The workshop will delineate these and related issues.

Instructor biography: Snejina Michailova (PhD from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark) is a Professor of International Business at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She researches people- and knowledge-related issues in organisations, especially multinationals. She has published more than 100 articles, with her work appearing in the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Academy of Management Learning & Education, British Journal of Management, California Management Review, Global Strategy Journal, International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization Studies, and others.

Snejina has published six literature reviews as stand-alone articles, four of them appearing in International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of World Business.

She has co-authored Talent Management in Small Advanced Economies (2019) and has co-edited A Guide to Key Theories for Human Resource Management (2024), The Routledge Companion on Cross-Cultural Management (2015), Research Handbook on Women in International Management (2014), Knowledge Governance (2010), Human Resource Management in Central and Eastern Europe (2008) and Research Methodologies in Non-Western Contexts (2005).

Snejina has served as Editor Europe, Journal of World Business and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Critical Perspectives on International Business. She is currently a Consulting Editor for the Journal of International Management. She has received numerous international research awards. In 2022, she became a Fellow of the Australia New Zealand International Business Academy (ANZIBA). She serves as the ANZIBA President, a role she assumed in 2023.