Academy of International Business Teaching & Education Shared Interest Group (AIB T&E SIG) is celebrating its first leadership transition and therefore would like to reflect on its past achievements and set some directions for the future.

The AIB T&E SIG was started three years ago as the initiative of a very diverse and enthusiastic team of global educators.

Founding leadership team 2019-2022:

  • Chair: Daria Panina, Texas A&M University, USA
  • Vice Chair, Communications: Aušrinė Šilenskytė, University of Vaasa, Finland (2020-2022)
  • Vice Chair, Membership: Marleen Dieleman, National University of Singapore, Singapore
  • Vice Chair, Resources: Miguel Ignacio Cordova, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Peru
  • Co-Vice Chair, Main Conference Events: Karen Lynden, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA
  • Co-Vice Chair, Main Conference Events: Cyntia Vilasboas Calixto, University of Leeds, UK
  • Vice Chair, Finances: Margaret Fletcher, University of Glasgow, UK.

SIGs coordinators: Yuxue Luo; Ilke Kardes; Elizabeth Yi Wang; Marina Schmitz; Mary Leung; Karla María Nava Aguirre, Alka Maurya.

Over the first few years, AIB T&E SIG has established several far-reaching projects and created grounds for interaction with the AIB chapters and other units. The AIB T&E SIG has designed and implemented several formats of the conference events, such as Pre-Conference Professional Development Workshops (meant to develop pedagogical skills in international business (IB) and share the knowledge) and Teaching Cafes (meant to initiate discussion among the diverse educators and share best practices in an informal environment). AIB T&E SIG has also taken the leadership of the Teaching and Education track in the annual AIB main conference since the last two meetings; also encouraged the Teaching and Education track and event development in the AIB chapter conferences.

Several teaching resource projects, such as IB-mini cases and Video capsules, have been conceptualized and received several contributions from educators located in different parts of the World. Coordinator Ilke Kardes has led the Digital Platform Database project comprising various free online resources that IB educators could use to enhance their teaching.

The Inaugural Teaching Innovation Award was launched in 2021, setting the pathway for IB educators’ innovations to be recognized and gain an impact globally.

Coordinator and project manager Elizabeth Yi Wang has led a series of the impactful co-education initiative, MIIB, that allowed IB educators to enhance their teaching practices, make their classrooms more international, and present the most recent research to students. Coordinator Marina Schmitz has created strong collaboration ties between the T&E and Sustainability SIGs.

The Newsletter and blog with Insights on IB education have been launched, featuring tips on IB education from diverse contributors. These outlets aimed at providing practical, hands-on tools and tips that could be applied in the IB classroom. Additionally, they deliver mentoring-type advice provided by passionate educators and cherish various collaborations and achievements of AIB T&E SIG and their associates. Several special issues have been created as well. For example, coordinator Yuxue Luo explored the success recipes behind the award-winning Ph.D. dissertations, sharing best practices in doctoral education.

A number of webinars have been conducted in collaboration with the fantastic partner – Georgia State University CIBER. The webinars attracted a broad audience globally and contributed to the exchange of the most needed knowledge at the time, such as teaching online, education on sustainability, team-based learning, and developing various educational programs.

Celebrating wonderful achievements, AIB T&E SIG is only starting its way forward. We are glad that our team has substantially expanded, and we are starting the new SIG’s period with a very diverse and dedicated team of IB educators:

Leadership team in 2022-2025:

  • Chair: Aušrinė Šilenskytė, University of Vaasa, Finland
  • Vice Chair, Teaching Innovations: Marleen Dieleman, National University of Singapore, Singapore
  • Vice Chair, Resources: Miguel Ignacio Cordova, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Peru
  • Vice Chair, AIB Chapter Events: Cyntia Vilasboas Calixto, University of Leeds, UK
  • Co-Vice Chair, Main Conference Events: Karen Lynden, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA
  • Co-Vice Chair, Main Conference Events: Daria Panina, Texas A&M University, USA
  • Vice Chair, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Marina Schmitz, IEDC-Bled School of Management, Bled, Slovenia
  • Vice-Chair Communications: Ilke Kardes, Valdosta State University, USA
  • Vice Chair, Digital Communication for Asia Pacific, South Asia, Oceania, and MENA regions: Matevž (Matt) Rašković
  • Vice Chair, Digital Communication for Americas, Europe, Africa regions: Amanda Budde-Sung, United States Air Force Academy, USA

Our team of coordinators: Elizabeth Yi Wang; J. Betty Feng; Karla María Nava Aguirre; Mary Leung; Yuxue (Yolanda) Luong, Alka Maurya.

What do we hope to achieve over the next term?

AIB T&E SIG activities will be very much aligned with the goals presented by the President Maria Tereza Fleury. In the T&E SIG, we look forward to strengthening our collaboration with the AIB chapters, other AIB units, and the AIB community residing in all the regions of the world.

More specifically, for the AIB T&E SIG’s context, we are looking forward to supporting the adoption of teaching and education focused events in all the AIB chapters and continuing their development in the main AIB annual meetings. The SIG also intends to support the development of teaching and learning oriented conference tracks in the AIB chapters. Through education, IB scholars make one of the most significant impacts; therefore, upskilling and sharing best practices are central to maintaining the vitality of the AIB community.

Earlier, AIB T&E SIG collaborated with the Sustainability SIG in some events. Likewise, we aim to expand the initiatives with Research Methods, Emerging Markets, and WAIB SIGs. The MIIB project will continue to develop the events and establish new cross-university collaborations.

DEI team together with the entire SIG will be seeking to promote inclusion within the SIG (by enhancing the process of member integration) and outside the SIG – by uplifting DEI-related topics in the discussions among the AIB educators.

The resource team will focus on institutionalizing the three main resource-related projects: the mini cases, video capsules, and the digital platform database. The goal is to bring these resources to the next level, strengthening their scope and receiving even more diverse contributions by engaging IB educators from different geographical regions, and creating resources in diverse languages.

The significantly expanded communication team will focus on serving and delivering the content across the time zones, bringing to the AIB community even more interesting and tailored webinars, newsletters, and insights. The social media platforms that SIG has recently launched (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) will help engage with the AIB educators residing in any geographical region.

The teaching innovations are uplifted to be among the core stream of the SIG’s activities. Already on the way are a special issue featuring AIB educators’ innovations, webinars, and the next call for the Teaching Innovation award, in which educators are invited to present their innovations and compete for the award.

The collaboration with GSU CIBER is shifting to the next level. AIB in partnership with GSU CIBER and several other strategic partners will be launching the first round of the global doctoral academy – the venue for receiving world-class IB scholarly training and network.

Last but not least, AIB T&E SIG will be working on creating multiple opportunities to support AIB educators in popularizing their teaching practices, innovations, and pedagogical insights through various publishing opportunities.

We hope that the AIB community will benefit from this work and join the SIG in co-creating all these projects.