The 5th edition of ATHENAEUM, International conference on Management Research, was held on 12th and 13th February. Conducted by the Centre for Contemporary Management Research (CECMAR), the theme of the conference was “Towards Managerial Excellence: Challenges and Choices”.
The inauguration of this two day conference was held on 12th February 2011 between 09:00 am and 10:30 am. Shri. A. V. Krishnan, Executive Director, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Tiruchirappalli, India, was the Special Guest and had inaugurated the function. He released the proceedings of the conference and also the edited book titled “Towards managerial Excellence: Challenges and Choices”.
Mr.A.V.Krishnan (centre) releasing the conference proceedings CD
There were several streams under which research papers were presented viz. Marketing, Finance, Human Resource, Operation, Systems and General Management. Apart from this, the participants were further divided into two different categories – PhD scholars and General. The papers were judged by eminent experts and two best papers in each category were awarded a cash prize and a certificate of merit. The event had seen large scale participation from both within and outside India. This year, a total of 120 papers were presented, of which 20 were from foreign authors and the rest from India. The foreign delegates who had contributed research papers and had participated in the conference were from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, France, Sultanate of Oman, Iran, Mexico, Belgium, Israel and Indonesia.
A special lecture on the topic “Risks in Quantitative Research”, was delivered by Dr. M. S. Narasimhan, Professor (Finance and Control Area) Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on 12th February 2011 and “Trends in Entrepreneurial Research” was delivered by Dr. Manoj Mishra, Centre Director – Micro Enterprises & Country Director (UNIDO New Enterprise Creation), Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad on 13th February 2011.
The valedictory function of the conference was held on Sunday, 13th February 2011 at 04:00 pm. Shri. P. R. Somasundaram, MD & CEO, Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Tamilnadu was the special guest for the same. He appreciated the apt theme of the conference that has emerged from the research arm of the institute and he said, Excellence in Management can be achieved through challenge, openness, cross pollination of ideas and framing the right questions.
Mr.Somasundaram (left) addressing the audience
The lead sponsors for the event were Lakshmi Vilas Bank, BHEL, Karur Vysya Bank, Cethar Vessels Limited, State Bank of India, Cengage and City Union Bank.
The event intended to showcase scholarly work from academia and industry on the same platform, providing a professional forum of idea interchange. All the papers registered for the conference were released in the form of proceedings in a compact disc (CD) and few select papers were released as conference publication in the form of a book. The book and the CD have unique International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), for reference and indexing.
The CECMAR team won the praise of Dr.Jawahar for their exemplary effort in making the event a grand success.
Bharathidasan Institute of Management 