A middle-of-the-night pitch helped secure Otago's Department of Management as host of a major international conference in 2023.
The Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management's biennial international conference will be held at Otago Business School in January 2023, and is expected to attract about 200 academics from around the world.
Dr Paula O'Kane
Conference chair Dr Paula O'Kane, of the Department of Management, led the bid with support from Tourism New Zealand and the Dunedin City Council (DCC).
“We were selected as one of the two finalists from the strongest field of proposals to date,” she says.
“I then presented at 3:15am on Saturday morning, and found out when I woke up again that we had been successful.”
Securing the conference is as “coup” for the University and city, she says.
“This puts us on the world stage for HR research and will attract some of the biggest names in HR to come to the conference in Dunedin. We will also be able to provide access to these people for our PhD and DBA students and networking for our local HR academic community.
“For Dunedin it will bring over 200 people at a time when the city is traditionally quiet. Tourism New Zealand and the DCC have been heavily involved in supporting the event and see this as a good news story for the tourism and conference industry.”
The theme of the conference is Common Good HRM. This puts emphasis on HR strategy and practice to contribute to ecological and social progress in the world around us. Common good HRM urges us to work towards the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and therein taking care of social wellbeing and development.
