During his recent visit to Switzerland, Professor Mohamed Amine ISSAMI was actively reaching out to institutes that matched with his research profile. Yet, visiting the department of Management, Technology, and Economics at ETH Zurich and IMD Lausanne has shown that there is actually a great and engaged community dealing with topics like Finance, Entrepreneurship and Business Economics. In fact, participating in events and panels dealing with several themes and topics has provided Professor ISSAMI with many useful and valuable connections – not only in academia but also in practice.
Working collaboratively with colleagues can provide a wide variety of opportunities for research and cross-disciplinary fields. It also provides the opportunity to reflect upon common accepted norms as these will vary between disciplines, institutions and countries.
It is important for researchers to understand that such differences exist and to consider these issues ahead of time; ideally reaching an agreement before the research commences. This allows for a clear agreement between the research team and helps to avoid potential disagreements or misunderstandings.
Visiting a research institute abroad provides us with the opportunity to getting to know many interesting scholars and practitioners. Some of these opinions and experiences might be quite different to what we are used to. However, at the same time, this might give us useful insights and a new perspective on different research projects.