Invitation to The Third AFF Conference on International Management and Leadership

As part of its commitment to providing arenas for executive learning and development AFF is arranging its Third Conference on International Management and Leadership.
Building Integrated Multinational Enterprises is the title for this years conference.

Building Integrated Multinational Enterprises

Solstrand Hotel and Spa

October 6^th and 7^th, 2010

The NHH-group including AFF was recently ranked by the Financial Times as the Nordic area’s foremost provider of executive education. As part of its commitment to providing arenas for executive learning and development AFF is arranging its Third Conference on International Management and Leadership.

The conference will focus on the building of integrated multinational enterprises (MNEs).  

Of critical importance for MNEs that have expanded on the basis of mergers and acquisitions is their ability to successfully implement organisational structures and common management practises across the enterprise.  However, this has to be balanced against the need for local autonomy in regard to adjusting to local business needs and the need to respect local cultural sensibilities.  

Balancing integration and local responsiveness in MNEs has been one of the focus areas of the GOLD (Global Organizational and Leadership Development) research project at NHH. In this project AFF consultants have joined forces with NHH researchers to study how Norwegian MNEs approach the integration challenges linked to their foreign acquisitions.  A particular emphasis of GOLD has been on identifying those tools and techniques that promote knowledge sharing in MNEs in the context of cultural as well as geographical distance.  GOLD commenced in the autumn of 2007 and will be concluded in the autumn of 2010.

As keynote speakers, the conference has invited top management representatives from four Norwegian MNEs to present and discuss how they perceive and act on their companies’ integration challenges. All four companies are highly international but are facing different challenges based on industry, history and were they operate. The speakers are:

Per-Ingmar Persson, Executive Vice President and Country Manager Sweden, Veidekke,

Håkan Hallen, Chief Human Resource Officer, Yara

Frank Mohn, Director Supply Chain, Rieber & Søn

Bjarte Bogsnes, Vice President Performance Management, Statoil,

PhD candidate Christina Roe Steen, NHH will present findings from a survey concerning International HR practices in Scandinavian MNEs (Norway & Denmark).

Findings from the GOLD research project will be presented by members of the GOLD team including its director Professor Paul Gooderham, Associate professor Inger Stensaker and Dr Rune Rønning.

Managing Director Mai Vik, AFF will close the conference reflecting on the implications for Management Consultants and Business School of the challenges facing MNEs

The conference is aimed at managers working with MNE integration, knowledge management and more general governance issues not only in the context of Norwegian MNEs, but also foreign-owned MNEs operating in Norway.