Patrice Cailleba : The conference was called “International Business and Economics Research.” It was held in the United States but it has taken place in different cities across the world since the 1990’s.
Herbert Casteran : The IBER conference is a recurring event and it’s important to the research made in this subject area. Two major themes are approached: Research in Management and the teaching of this subject. The number of presented papers is very high but each contribution is subject to a “blind review” by two evaluators. Only contributions considered worthy can be presented at the conference.

Who attends the conference?

Patrice Cailleba : It is attended by researchers and professionals in the fields of the economy and international affairs who wish to discuss the results of their research and their own ideas with foreign colleagues, principally Americans.
Herbert Casteran : This conference concerns the exchange of ideas between professionals and academics. It is open to all contributors, no matter where they come from. From Pakistan to Romania, the conference has seen exchanges from everywhere. It is easy to imagine the richness and originality of the presentations but Americans are the most numerous because of their links with the organization of the conference itself.

You received the Best Paper award; what was it about?
Patrice Cailleba: The presentations of the articles take place in public and in front of the other researchers who choose the most interesting, most original and most innovating presentations. Our study related to the purchases of fair trade coffee in France over a two years period (2005-2007). We studied more than 110,000 transactions in order to understand the fair trade coffee consumer in France.
Herbert Casteran: We gained Best paper award for our paper on fair trade coffee. This award is decided by a secret vote involving the other contributers. It is therefore our peers who determine the best contribution. I believe that, as well as the quality of the data at our disposal, our paper was noticed because it called into question a certain number of traditional representations around consumption of fair trade products.

What are the topics of your next research projects?
Patrice Cailleba: To continue the analysis of our data on the fair trade coffee by concentrating on loyalty of the “fair trade” customers compared to the “non fair trade” customer. Do they behave differently? Is this simply an ostentatious consumption, etc?
Herbert Casteran: After having studied the behavior of consumption related to fair trade coffee, we will look at the impact of the fair trade “characteristics” on the loyalty of customers or the rates of repeat purchase.