42nd European Marketing Academy Conference in İstanbul

LET’S MEET WHERE THE CONTINENTS MEET

İstanbul Technical University, Management Engineering Department is happy to welcome you in İstanbul for the 42nd EMAC Conference in 4-7 June 2013.

In every era, İstanbul has been the intersection point of Eastern and Western civilizations. This is owed not only to the strategic significance of its geographical position, but also to the city’s identity as a centre of experience, accumulation in culture, arts, sciences and technology. With a settlement history of more than thousands of years, this rooted city presents an absolute harmony of culture and civilization. Being the largest city of Turkey, İstanbul was the most crowded city of the world in 1502, then London took this title in 1840. İstanbul metropolitan province has 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population which makes it the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and Moscow.

İstanbul, has a number of major attractions derived from its huge historical status as the capitals of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. These include the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapı Palace, the Basilica Cistern, the Galata Tower, and the Grand Bazaar.

Inspired by İstanbul’s location and cultural heritage that embrace east and west, the theme of the 42nd EMAC is; LOST IN TRANSLATION: Marketing in an Interconnected World.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Marketing in an Interconnected World

The east we know is not the same east; the west we know is not the same west anymore. Economies are interconnected and as in the butterfly effect there is a sensitive dependence on contextual factors. Companies are not monogamous, they transact within enmeshed relationships that are collaboratively built with their counterparts, suppliers, distributors, consultants, associations, governments etc. Transition from the Real World to the virtual world facilitates empowerment of consumers who constantly engage in countless exchanges. In such an environment, organizations and individuals are subject to a range of influences and open to inter-dependencies. While those changes occur, having a static, preconceived world view would be a major blunder for corporations when investing in global markets.

Interactions among and across consumers and businesses are dialogical transactions inextricably bound to interconnectedness between micro and macro contexts in which both parties exist and evolve. Through interactions, clients and firms move towards understanding each other and even learn about their own selves. However, such a learning process could be overwhelming due to too much information flux and availability that instead of detailed analysis, proximities could be used to reach conclusion for reducing risk. Such contextual dynamism may lead message and offering interflow to be illusive and may increase the need for better marketing strategies to recover any losses in translation of marketing practices into customer gain and retention.

In order to eliminate the risk of mistranslation of the observed to actions, the use of marketing research to accumulate market intelligence should revise its conventional divide of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Rather, for building mechanisms to elicit interim feedback, both worlds should be reconciled towards breeding a collaborative expertise as to support cumulative learning.

İSTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, Management Engineering Department

At the heart of İstanbul, being the oldest engineering school of Turkey, historical roots of İstanbul Technical University (İTU) date back to the Ottoman Empire, when the Royal School of Naval Engineering was established in 1773. As being a part of this higher education legacy, Management Engineering Department, proudly hosts the 42nd EMAC.

Our department aims to provide an education to engineering students that will enable them to undertake managerial and leadership responsibilities in the rapidly developing Turkish industrial enterprises and world-wide organizations. Still being the only Management Engineering department in Turkey, it embodies a curriculum that blends general engineering foundation with management functions and processes. In 2010, Management Engineering Undergraduate Program is very proud to be fully accredited by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, USA) as a high quality engineering degree.

The EMAC 2013 organization committee looks forward to hosting you in İstanbul in June 2013! You could find details regarding the conference, university and the city at the following websites:

http://www.emac2013.org
http://www.itu.edu.tr
http://www.isl.itu.edu.tr/eng/indexEN.html
http://www.timeout.com/istanbul

Important Dates and Deadlines:

Submission of papers: December 4, 2012 (midnight CET)
Submission of proposals for SIG Track: December 4, 2012 (midnight CET)
Notification to the authors: March 8, 2013
Start of Registration: December, 2012
Earlybird online registration: April 9, 2013
Latest online registration: May 10, 2013
Doctoral Colloquium: June 2-4, 2013
Conference Dates: June 4-7, 2013

Elif Karaosmanoğlu – Conference - Programme Chair
A. Banu Elmadağ Baş – Conference- Programme Co-Chair