Story of EBRF

The first EBRF was organized by Tampere University of Technology and University of Tampere in 2001. In 2007 University of Jyväskylä and in 2010 Aalto University joined as co-organizers. In 2011, Abo Akademi University, Lappeenranta University of Technology and University of Oulu are among the co-organizers, as members of GVL Finland. During the years EBRF has attracted some 200 participants every year, produced more than 460 peer-reviewed publications, and established itself as the oldest annual international business research conference in Finland.

EBRF 2010

"Co-Creation as a Way Forward"

The 10th annual EBRF conference was held on September 15-17, 2010, Spa Hotel Rantasipi Eden, Nokia, Finland. This year's conference paid special attention to global opportunities and the radical mindset renewal needed to enable Co-Creation of Great Global Enterprises. The participants were motivated with the following statement:

"We need to mobilize every resource, take risk, and create value together within and across organizations and value chains. In every sector, there is a need to involve users and customers in constant service and product development - and a related call for daring "Living Lab" experiments. For the decade ahead, co-creation is a way forward."

Keynote Speakers in 2010:
Mauri Pekkarinen, Minister of Economic Affairs of Finland
CV Ravi, Serial Entrepreneur
Tuula Teeri, Founding President of Aalto University.
Jennifer Walske, Managing Director of Myriad Investments LCC
Asko Kapanen, Managing Director, Partner of Knowledge Investor Comset
Marko Seppä, Conference Chair
Sujay Santra, Founder & CEO of Ikure Techsoft (P) Ltd

Conference website

EBRF 2009

"Emergent drivers of shared business models in globalizing ecosystems"

The EBRF conference of 2009, held on September 23 - 25 in Jyväskylä, Finland, focused on the multiple facets of doing business in global ecosystems. This calls for fitting methods, values, codes of conducts, systems, best practices and entrepreneurial spirit to meet the rapidly evolving requirements of customers as well as all other stakeholders. We specifically asked the writers not only to suggest new solutions, but also to connect the ideas to the past 10 years of development in the fields of eBusiness and eServices to understand the fundamental drivers of the present and future phenomena.

Keynote speakers in 2009:
Benoit Montreuil, Professor, Laval University, Canada
Janne Rajalahti, Audit Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Oy
Pasi Nieminen, Managing Director, Nomovok Oy
Saumen Chakraborty, CEO, Intellisys Co, India
Dhrubes Biswas, Professor, IIT Kharagpur, India
Jyrki Koskinen, IBM
Anne-Mari Järvelin, Senior Consultant, Advansis Oy, Finland
Marko Filenius, Arena Interactive Oy

Conference website

EBRF 2008

"Change and Changeability in the Knowledge-Intensive World"

EBRF 2008 took place on September 22-24 as a conference cruise on board Viking Line cruise ship sailing between Helsinki and Stockholm.

We received a total of 95 submitted abstracts, and 56 research presentations were held at the conference. In addition, five invited keynote speeches from distinguished experts in business management and research were heard. The conference cruise also offered interesting social program, like a sightseeing tour in Stockholm city, and the entire event was attended by 122 participants from altogether 16 countries. For the first time ever in the history of EBRF conferences, this year we also had a Doctoral Consortium introducing the contemporary theme of Growth Venturing. The DC was hosted by Professor Marko Seppä.

Keynote speakers in 2008:
Elizabeth O'Halloran, Managing Director and Director of Intellectual Capital Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, USA
Dhrubes Biswas, Professor of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Professor-in-Charge of Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Managing Director of Science and Technology Entrepreneurs' Park and Adjunct Professor of Vinod Gupta School of Management of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Giovanni Schiuma, Professor, Scientific Director of Centre for Value Management - LIEG - at the Università della Basilicata, Italy, Visiting Research Fellow with the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield School of Management
Commodore Georgij Alafuzoff, Chief of military intelligence, Finnish Defence Forces.

Conference website

In 2011, for the 11th time, EBRF is calling for change. And change-makers!