Forty-nine papers were presented at the cross-strait conference 2003 on management sciences and decision making, held from 3 to 10 September by Tamkang University and co-hosted by Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China. President Chang Horng-jinh of Tamkang University, together with Vice President for Academic Affairs Feng Chao-kang, professors of Colleges of Business and Management, and representatives from several other universities, went to China for the conference.

TKU’s cross-strait conference is in its fourth year. Each year a different university in China is invited to co-host the event. This year’s conference was organized by TKU’s Department of Decision Making and Graduate Institute of Management Sciences, College of Management, and co-hosted by SWUFE. The forty-strong delegation from Taiwan included President Chen Miao-sheng of Nanhua University, President Lin Jin-tsai of Yuanpei College of Science and Technology, Prof. Huang Shu-nan, Dean of Mingchuan College of Management, Vice-president Lin Jin-tu of Hwatai Company, Vice-president Lin Shu-yuan of President Securities Corp., and professors from TKU, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, and National Dong Hwa University. Participants from China included over fifty professors from SWUFE, Beijing University, Beijing Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotung University, Fudan University, and Xian Jiaotung University.

On 3 September President Chang Horng-jinh, Vice-president for Academic Affairs Feng Chao-kang, Dean of College of Business Hsiau Fung-shyung, and Dean of College of Management Chen Ting-ko discussed intercollegiate exchange with President Wang Yu-kuo of SWUFE, Vice-president Liu Tsan, and Dean of College of Industrial and Business Management Li Yi-ming. Professor Lii Peir-chyi, Chair of Department of Decision Making, TKU, points out that the co-host SWUFE is one of the key universities in China. The talk will further academic cooperation and experience sharing between TKU and SWUFE in curriculum development, student training, and staff exchange.

The conference covered five subjects: latest development in management sciences and decision making; corporate executives' ethics; impact of environmental allocation of hi-tech industry on ecology; latest developments in human resources training and cultivation; current trends of marketing and consumer behavior. The conference has enabled scholars from both sides of the Taiwan Strait to exchange ideas and seek further opportunities of cooperation in research and teaching.