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The Atlas-AFMI 2020 Prize for Best Case Study awarded to two iaelyon researchers

Evènement | May 25, 2020

Noémie Dominguez, Associate Professor, and Tristan Salvadori, associate researcher, both from iaelyon, have been awarded the prize for Best Case Study for their creation entitled “DWYT: the time for internationalisation” during the 10th Atlas/AFMI Conference, organised virtually by IAE Poitiers from the 18th to the 20th of May 2020.

Conférence Atlas-AFMI 2020 : le Prix du meilleur cas pédagogique pour deux chercheurs de l’iaelyon
This award recognises the collaboration undertaken by Noémie Dominguez and Tristan Salvadori with Alexandre Humbert and Damien Mercier, co-founders and executives of the Lyon start-up DWYT (DoWasteYourTime). Located in the renowned Village des Créateurs, DWYT is the first French brand of ecofriendly and customizable wooden watches for men and women.

The watches are designed, manually assembled and sold in France. They are sold both at the Lyon-based showroom of the start-up (the “Watch Bar”) as well as via a network of resellers, mainly French jewelers.
Consumer’s enthusiasm for ecofriendly products, the reputation of Made in France in the fashion world and the positive feedback from foreign customers that have gone to the Watch Bar have led the entrepreneurs to wonder about the international potential of DWYT. What markets do they need to aim for? What are the strategies to adopt? How do you go about getting known on a local level? These are just some of the questions that any company asks themselves before internationalizing their brand.

A collaboration was then born from the participation of DWYT in one of the business case studies organised by Noémie Dominguez and Tristan Salvadori in the context of the tutorials of the “International Development of Businesses” class, taught to students of the Master of International Management (International Business).

After a first session where the business, its offer and its international vision were presented, the students worked on the project for three weeks before presenting their results and recommendations to the business. This approach has essentially a win-win logic : the business acquires new ideas and data, and the students can turn the theory they have learnt in class into practice as well as benefit from the company’s feedback on the pertinence of the recommendations.


About the authors

Noémie Dominguez is a Associate Professor in management at iaelyon and a researcher in the Magellan Research Center (International Management team, Strategy group). Her work essentially focus on the internationalization of SMEs and has been presented in several books and articles in scientific journals such as the International Business Review (IBR),  International Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management International, M@n@gement, the Revue de l’Entrepreneuriat, RIPME, etc. She is also the program director for the first year program of the Master of International Business Realities as well as the Chair for Internationalisation of SMEs. She teaches courses in international management in both French and English at iaelyon as well as in its offshore programs (Budapest, Tehran).

Tristan Salvadori isa  Temporary Lecturer and Research Assistant (Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche, or ATER) at iaelyon and a researcher at the Magellan Research Center (International Management team, Strategy group). His work focuses on the international development of start-ups. He also teaches intercultural management, international entrepreneurship as well as innovation management.