American University of Nigeria

A lecturer in the school of Business & Entrepreneurship, Ms. Jelena Zivkovic, attended an International Conference on Business and Management which was held in Izmir, Turkey, between 27th and 29th of April.

Holder of a Master’s degree in Management, Ms. Zivkovic has been with AUN since 2009, teaching management and entrepreneurship-related subjects and she facilitates the blended learning program with Mr. Martin Burt, a visiting professor.

The annual conference was the second such interdisciplinary international forum.   The focus is on papers in fields of organization, business, and management/governance. It is aimed at bringing together a wide audience of academicians, policy makers and practitioners around certain topics to engage them in a fruitful debate while facilitating mutual understanding.

The last one provided an opportunity where academicians and professionals having inter-disciplinary/multi-disciplinary interests that relate organization, business, and management/governance to meet and interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines.

Ms. Zivkovic presented three of her research papers, including “Critical Literature Review: Women Entrepreneurs and the Struggle in the U.A.E.,” “Market Barriers: Obstacles to Entrepreneurial Activity for Northern Nigeria Women,” and “Factors Hindering Business in Obtaining Funds from Micro finance Banks of Nigeria.” The latter two were co-authored with Ms. Fatima Ademoh, an AUN alumna who studied Business Finance and graduated in the December 2010 class, went for National Youth Service Corps, and is now employed with SBE.

Ms. Zivkovic noted that it was a truly international conference as many of the participants came from all parts of Europe, namely Hungary, Poland, Italy, Germany, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

She also noted that it was a great networking experience, meeting people from other schools and of similar research interests.

“The conference was relatively small, intimate, but bustling with ideas and dialogue. I was delighted by the invitations I received to make a similar presentation in other settings such as Mananapalle Institute of Technology & Science, India.”

“I met  the conference Co-Chairs: Can Aktan from Dokuz Eylul University and the Social Sciences Research Society of Turkey, as well as H. Semih Yildirim from York University, Canada.

One of the delegates that she met was Dariusz Lizak from the University of Economics in Katowice, Poland, who spoke on “Social Capital Versus Competitive Advantage in Polish Package Sector”.

Another was Zijada Rahimic from the School of Economics and Business, Sarejevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, who presented a paper entitled “Education and Career Development as Motivational factors in Companies in Bosnia & Herzegovina”.

She said all three of her research papers have been accepted for conference publication, while they are pending journal publication.

This was the third international conference she has participated in. The previous two conferences were in conjunction with colleagues, students, graduates and a “corper” as co-authors within the AUN community.

The first was the 6th International Technology, Education and Development Conference – Valencia (Spain) and the other was an internet conference, International Conference in New Orleans – Allied Academies.

She added that with the upgrade of AUN’s internet network facility, participating in online conference is now a wonderful alternative to attending in person.