Brief history

CIBS was constituted in 1995, when professor Hans Janson with a research background from Uppsala and Lund University was installed as the inaugural holder of the special chair in international business, sponsored during the next six years by Handelsbanken, one of the major Swedish commercial banks, and a senior partner to the School. Dr. Hans-Fredrik Samuelsson from Uppsala University and with a professional career at the Institute of Industrial Research and the United Nations, was in the same year affiliated to the Centre as an adjunct professor.

In 2001, Hans Janson was succeeded as the director by professor Jan-Erik Vahlne formerly at Uppsala University and Stockholm School of Economics. After professor Vahlne's retirement in 2009, CIBS has been chaired by Dr. Claes Göran Alvstam, professor of international economic geography at the School.

CIBS hosts as present two guest professors at a part time basis, sponsored by the Visiting Professor's Programme at the School, professor Bent Petersen, Copenhagen Business School and professor Sang-Chul Park, Korea Polytechnic University. Furthermore a guest professor, sponsored by Ragnar and Torsten Söderberg research foundation, professor Harald Dolles, Heilbronn Business School, Germany, has been affiliated to CIBS since 2009.