Office History
Almost a half-decade ago (1964) Schuyler F. Otteson and L.L. Waters of Indiana University and Charles Saunders and Sidney Feldman of the University of Kansas, gathered, as they later wrote, “on the occasion of the American Economic Association meeting” and planned our inaugural meeting in 1965.
MBAA INTERNATIONAL has become successful beyond even the great dreams of our founders. They established a culture of coordination and cooperation that still thrives.
Nearly 50 years later, MBAA International is still going strong. We’ve built on the innovative, interdisciplinary vision of these great leaders to become AMERICA’S BEST CONFERENCE VALUE!
The MBAA INTERNATIONAL experience is the inviting feeling of the familiar and the excitement of the new. It is collegiality and fellowship, renewing friendships and making new ones. It is initiating and continuing dialogues about teaching and research and is the rich mixture of attendees from colleges – large and small, public and private, governmental agencies, non-profit institutions, and the business community.
And last but not the least, the experience is Chicago — an incredible city with entertaining events, great food, and around-the-clock action.
While some other organizations have adopted our “multidisciplinary experience” approach, MBAA INTERNATIONAL remains America’s long-term leader in low-cost, high-value integrative professional development. Nobody has been doing it longer and many believe, nobody does it better!
Currently, there are twelve formal organizations that make up MBAA INTERNATIONAL:
- Academy of Business Economics
- Academy of Finance
- Academy of International Business Midwest Region
- Business and Health Administration Association
- Business, Society, and Government
- Marketing Management Association
- Midwest Academy of Legal Studies in Business
- North American Accounting Society
- North American Management Society
- Operations Management and Entrepreneurship Association
- Society for Case Research
- Society for the Advancement of Information Systems
The leaders of the formal organizations are listed in the Leadership section of our site, as are members of the MBAA INTERNATIONAL Advisory Council, Past Presidents, Past Executive Directors, and the Executive Board.
Primary registrations for the various MBAA INTERNATIONAL organizations at the 2010 through 2017 annual meetings are shown in the following table:
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 824 | 766 | 686 | 755 | 728 | 804 | 750 | 721 |
| Accounting | 73 | 71 | 60 | 75 | 89 | 67 | 77 | 65 |
| Business, Society, and Government | 22 | 19 | 17 | 25 | 18 | 17 | 23 | 30 |
| Case Research | 61 | 69 | 56 | 76 | 73 | 77 | 69 | 67 |
| Economics | 41 | 39 | 30 | 40 | 30 | 44 | 25 | 24 |
| Finance | 121 | 95 | 81 | 86 | 70 | 78 | 77 | 83 |
| Health Administration | 66 | 75 | 70 | 75 | 73 | 97 | 98 | 103 |
| Information Systems | 36 | 30 | 24 | 19 | 22 | 29 | 23 | 14 |
| International Business | 34 | 59 | 55 | 54 | 52 | 70 | 68 | 38 |
| Legal Studies | 64 | 44 | 53 | 53 | 64 | 65 | 63 | 52 |
| Management | 89 | 88 | 68 | 76 | 67 | 87 | 83 | 80 |
| Marketing | 169 | 136 | 120 | 131 | 115 | 112 | 109 | 125 |
| Operations Mgmt. & Entrepreneurship | 33 | 16 | 28 | 30 | 26 | 18 | 24 | 21 |
| MBAA International | 15 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 43 | 21 | 11 | 17 |
These registrations tell only part of the story, as some participants support more than one organization through one or more secondary registrations. In 2011, there were 136 secondary registrations; in 2012, 119; in 2013, 100; in 2014, 108, in 2015, 83, in 2016, 106; and in 2017, 100; and in 2018, 160.
Useful programming, collegial networking, and exciting entertainment – all in a great city – and all at an incredibly great price – make MBAA INTERNATIONAL AMERICA’S BEST CONFERENCE VALUE!
