Tag: international business

JIBS Special Issue “Beyond History Matters”

Steph

A Happy New Year everyone!

Just a reminder – if you have any questions about our forthcoming #specialissue in Journal of #InternationalBusiness Studies, take a look at this #video with some of the guest editors below.

We answer questions such as:
– What do you mean by Moving beyond “#history matters”?
– What kind of #research are you looking for in this special issue?
– What would a great contribution to the SI look like?
– What are the next steps?

Guest editors for this special issue:
Stephanie Decker – Klaus Meyer – Geoffrey Jones – Catherine Welch – rebecca piekkari

You can find the #callforpapers here: https://lnkd.in/ek3zgDmP
#bizhis

Want to listen to academic articles in a podcast format?

Steph

We are running this as a trial to see if having academic articles available as podcast (where the text is just being read out by an automatically generated voice) is a helpful format. Maybe when you are stuck in traffic, or on a really crowded train/bus, or training for a marathon, or your eyes just hurt too much to read another academic article – who knows! Maybe you are more audial then visual in your learning style? Whatever the reason, we’d love some feedback from you if this a good format for OHN, and if so, what kind of content we should make available as podcasts. You can post comments below this blog.

Audio version of the Journal of World Business article:

Introducing the eventful temporality of historical research into international business

By Stephanie Decker

Abstract

Historical research represents an alternative understanding of temporality that can contribute to greater methodological and theoretical plurality in international business (IB) research. Historians focus on the importance of events within their historical context and structure their accounts through periodisation, assume that the temporal distance between the past and present determines the temporal positionality of researchers, and seek to reconstruct past events through historical sources, which require critical interpretation. Historical research provides an alternative methodological approach to temporality, context, and distance with relevance to a range of IB theories.

Keywords:

History – Temporality – Event – Temporal distance – Interpretation

Note:

The whole article is available as a podcast. Check out our new podcast channel, also named Organizational History Network, on Anchor, Spotify and Apple Podcast, for some different types of content:

https://anchor.fm/orgh

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/organizational-history-network/id1652219372

CfP for JIBS SI on Historical Approaches in IB

Featured Steph1 Comment

Great news! A new call for papers for a history-oriented special issue in the Journal of International Business Studies.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of the Journal of International Business Studies

INTEGRATING HISTORICAL APPROACHES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: MOVING BEYOND “HISTORY MATTERS”

Special Issue Editors:

Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2023

Introduction

International business in all its forms, whether cross-border activities by multinational companies or non-equity forms of investment, and the international environment it operates in is shaped by the historical legacies of countries and their international relations. The analysis of historical data played an important role in early stages of the development of international business (IB) as a field of research (Dunning 1958; Vernon, 1971). Yet, in recent years historical research on international phenomena that engage with business and management theories is more commonly published outside of IB journals (Gao, Zuzul, Jones, & Khanna, 2017; Lubinski, 2018). Once IB became academically established, interest in historical research waned, despite occasional calls for its revival (e.g., Jones & Khanna, 2006). Even rarer are historical studies in IB that are directly based on archival sources (Bucheli, Salvaj, & Kim, 2019; Minefee & Bucheli, 2021). This special issue seeks to bring together IB scholars interested in exploring how historical approaches can enrich and expand theory development on international business phenomena.

In recent years, IB journals have not seen the same development of historically-informed theorizing as related fields (Decker, Hassard, & Rowlinson, 2021; Maclean, Harvey, & Clegg, 2016; Rowlinson, Hassard, & Decker, 2014). For example, the editors of the Academy of Management Journal have, in an editorial, remarked upon “the value of these analyses in making us see the social, cultural, and institutional construction of organizational and managerial phenomena in historical context” (Bansal, Smith, & Vaara, 2018, p. 4). This appreciation is reflected in the substantial number of special issues over the last few years that have integrated historical approaches into key debates in strategy (Argyres, De Massis, Foss, Frattini, Jones, & Silverman, 2020), entrepreneurship (Wadhwani, Kirsch, Welter, Gartner, & Jones, 2020), organization studies (Wadhwani, Suddaby, Mordhorst, & Popp, 2018), and management theory (Godfrey, Hassard, O’Connor, Rowlinson, & Ruef, 2016), and further special issues currently in progress in family business (Suddaby, Silverman, Massis, Jaskiewicz, & Micelotta, 2021), the history of business schools (McLaren et al., 2021) and occupations and professions (Coraiola, Maclean, Suddaby, & Muzio, 2022). This special issue seeks to open up a similar dialogue between IB scholars and historical researchers.

How history matters for IB research

At its inception, the field of IB paid close attention to the evolution of firms’ international activities in their historical context (Vernon, 1971; Wilkins, 1974). Subsequently, however, IB and international business history have often addressed different questions and employed different methods: archival, mostly qualitative, research in the case of business historians, and a variety of mostly quantitative, though increasingly also qualitative, methodological approaches in IB in their historical context. This distinction is increasingly challenged (Buckley, 2016; Burgelman, 2011), but history also matters beyond its potential methodological contribution to IB. Greater attention to history would enable IB scholars to ask questions about change over time and develop theories addressing how and why some of these patterns have become dominant at certain points of time, and why they might be changing. Such theories may include, but are not limited to, institutional theory, organizational learning, knowledge-based view, organizational memory and forgetting, power, and dynamic capabilities.

Engagement with history and historical methods can help IB scholars respond to recent calls for more process-based approaches, qualitative research and an engagement with scholarly work beyond IB (Buckley, 2009; Nielsen et al., 2020; Shenkar, 2004; Welch & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2014). It would also help develop scholarship towards a deeper understanding of phenomena (Doh, 2015) and their context (Meyer, 2015; Tsui, 2004). For example, in their decade award-winning article in this journal, Welch et al. (2011) promoted more contextualized approaches to IB research through a focus on the case method, and in their recent retrospective (Welch et al., 2021) they explicitly highlight historical research as one of four approaches that engage context in their research design.

Aims and scope of the special issue

In the light of these developments in our field and beyond, the time has come to take stock and move beyond affirmations that “history matters” and flesh out the ways in which historical approaches matter to IB research in terms of theory, method, and novel perspectives. Here, we seek contributions that go beyond just analyzing data collected over time (such as survey data collection repeated after a certain number of years) in favour of studies that include the rich historical context into their analysis and theorizing. Historical approaches have the potential to offer new perspectives on the complex, multi-level, and contextually specific nature of multinational activities and the evolution of the global economy. We are particularly interested in contributions that can connect historical approaches with IB debates, and which draw on ongoing conversations in other disciplines and fields. We are interested in both quantitative and qualitative approaches, as well as methodological and conceptual/theoretical contributions. IB scholars who use historical approaches, as well as business and management historians who engage deeply with IB theories, are welcome to submit to the special issue.

Possible examples of research topics that would be suitable for inclusion in this Special Issue include (but are not limited to):

  1. Plurality of historical approaches. Other management disciplines such as Organization Studies, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship have expanded their use of historical research, as seen in a series of special issues and other contributions. The key theoretical contributions have outlined a spectrum of approaches from more social science-oriented contributions to more historically oriented narratives (Rowlinson et al., 2014; Maclean et al., 2016; Decker et al., 2021). Such work demonstrates that history provides new perspectives on advancing theory or challenging concepts and constructs and poses questions that are under-represented in IB research, such as how processes evolve over time (Gao et al, 2017). Historical approaches enable IB researchers to consider the past as an empirical setting to explore theoretical concerns, which are difficult to adequately study in the present, or which require a long-term perspective, such as global challenges or internationalisation. How can historical approaches benefit process and longitudinal research on IB topics? How can a dialogue between process researchers and historians form the basis for advances in IB theory?
  • Historical theories of IB.In recent years, historical research has become more theoretically oriented, driven by key contributions in organization theory, strategy (Argyres et al., 2020), and entrepreneurship (Wadhwani, Kirsch, Welter, Gartner, & Jones, 2020). Increasingly, such contributions are being extended to IB theory (da Silva Lopes, Casson, & Jones, 2019; Minefee & Bucheli, 2021) and this special issue seeks to expand on this interdisciplinary repertoire.
  • Long Run Change Processes. IB scholars have investigated environmental change mainly by exploring business responses to clearly identifiable disruptions. Yet, we know comparatively little of the historically embedded, contextually specific co-evolution of multinational organizations and their local, national, regional, and international environment. Emerging economies, in particular, have brought to the fore the importance of understanding the political, social, cultural and economic contexts of business activities (Meyer, 2015; Tsui, 2004). Multinationals often resolve key tensions by shifting the focus of their activities over time to stay aligned with the different trends and concerns in host and home societies. How do international actors and the global economy co-evolve? What factors influence such processes? What is the role of disruptive events (such as disasters, pandemics or wars) vs. slower, more long-term processes in changing international business strategies and practices?
  • Historical processes in IB and the role of time. Many key theories in IB, such as internationalisation theory, implicitly or explicitly theorise the passage of time as part of a process that becomes cumulative, experiential and changes organizations both in their structure, strategies and their practices (Verbeke & Kano, 2015; Welch & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2014). How does the historical evolution of organizations shape their operations, structure, and practises? How do international organizations deal with historical legacies, such as colonialism, past wrongdoing, war and conflict, and ideological disagreements?
  • History as a method for IB researchers. Historical research routinely covers long time periods in rich and detailed narratives based on archival records that can have a fly-on-the-wall immediacy unmatched by other types of public documents. These “eventful” accounts (Decker, 2022) offer new insights particularly for qualitative longitudinal research to scale up in terms of time periods covered. Frynas et al. (2017, p. 568) highlighted the potential contribution from historical evidence in studying the “long-term cooperative interactions and reciprocity by the actors involved.” Welch (2000, p. 198) considers archival data as an opportunity to add “empirical depth” and explain “processes of change and evolution”. Buckley (2016, 2020) has also explored the potential for historical methods to expand the types of questions IB researchers can ask. What methodological innovations are required to embed historical approaches into qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method IB scholarship?
  • Historical perspectives on the construction of national and cultural boundaries. A nation, in IB’s usual meaning, consists of a group of people living within a geographic area who are sovereignly governed by explicit laws and institutions which apply within a national government’s boundaries. Governments historically negotiated these boundaries with governments representing other similarly governed and bounded groups through warfare and treaties. IB scholars, however, are sometimes encouraged to take on the challenge of considering alternative societal boundaries besides nations (Hutzschenreuter, Matt, & Kleindienst, 2020; Peterson, Søndergaard, & Kara, 2018; Tung, 2008). Accepting that challenge suggests the importance of historical analysis for understanding how specific countries came to be legitimated, how countries continue to compete with sub-country and trans-country groups of people having shared political interests, and how alternative groupings support different business practices and transactions across not only country but other boundaries. This special issue supports analyses that make systematic use of a broad range of influential historical perspectives that have been taken to the geographic area they consider and to the construction of national, sub-national and trans-national groupings (Reckendrees, Gehlen, & Marx, 2022). Such submissions would need to show how these groupings, and the contests between them, have continuing implications for cross-border business.
  • Institutions in IB. IB scholars often turn to institutions to capture aspects of the external environment affecting businesses. Yet, their treatment of institutions has been criticised for being “hobbled by a thin account of institutions and their effect on business performance” (Doh, Lawton, & Rajwani, 2012, p. 27). Institutions are inherently historical in nature, as acknowledged for example in studies on IB in transition economies that emphasize the temporal nature of the institutional environment (Meyer & Peng, 2016). Nevertheless, institutional theory in its variants popular in management research favours ahistorical measurements and tends to ignore their historical evolution. More research is needed, not just on the interaction of different dimensions of institutions, but also on how they affect strategy both in terms of the firm’s home and host economies. How do institutions affecting IB change over time, and how do people and organizations purposefully or coincidentally change them? What new theoretical insights into IB topics can be gained from historical institutionalism, which to date has been little used by IB scholars?

Submission Process and Deadlines

Manuscripts must be submitted through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jibs between July 18, 2023, and August 1, 2023. All submissions will go through the JIBS regular double-blind review process and follow standard norms and processes. For more information about this call for papers, please contact the Special Issue Editors or the JIBS Managing Editor (managing-editor@jibs.net ).

Workshop and Symposium

We plan to organize a webinar early 2023 for authors interested in submitting to the special issue, which we will advertise widely on scholarly social media and on AIB-L. To help authors who receive an invitation to revise their submission further develop their papers, we intend to organize a paper development workshop in late 2023. We encourage multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural co-author teams.

REFERENCES

Argyres, N. S., De Massis, A., Foss, N. J., Frattini, F., Jones, G., & Silverman, B. S. 2020. History-informed strategy research: The promise of history and historical research methods in advancing strategy scholarship. Strategic Management Journal, 41(3), 343–368.

Bansal, P., Smith, W. K., & Vaara, E. 2018. From the Editors: New Ways of Seeing through Qualitative Research. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1–7.

Bucheli, M., Salvaj, E., & Kim, M. 2019. Better together: How multinationals come together with business groups in times of economic and political transitions. Global Strategy Journal, 9(2), 176–207.

Buckley, P. J. 2009. Business history and international business. Business History, 51(3), 307–333.

Buckley, P. J. 2016. Historical Research Approaches to the Analysis of Internationalisation. Management International Review, 56(6), 879–900.

Buckley, P. J. 2021. The Role of History in International Business: Evidence, Research Practices, Methods and Theory. British Journal of Management, 32(3), 797-811.

Burgelman, R. A. 2011. Bridging history and reductionism: A key role for longitudinal qualitative research. Journal of International Business Studies, 42(5), 591–601.

Coraiola, D. M., Maclean, M., Suddaby, R., & Muzio, D. 2022. Call for Papers for a Special Issue: Occupations and Memory in Organization Studies. Journal of Management Studies.

da Silva Lopes, T., Casson, M., & Jones, G. 2019. Organizational innovation in the multinational enterprise: Internalization theory and business history. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(8), 1338–1358.

Decker, S. 2022. Introducing the Eventful Temporality of Historical Research into International Business. Journal of World Business, 57(6), 101380.

Decker, S., Hassard, J., & Rowlinson, M. 2021. Rethinking history and memory in organization studies: The case for historiographical reflexivity. Human Relations, 74(8), 1123–1155.

Doh, J. P. 2015. From the editor: Why we need phenomenon-based research. Journal of World Business, 50(4), 609–611.

Doh, J. P., Lawton, T. C., & Rajwani, T. 2012. Advancing nonmarket strategy research: Institutional perspectives in a changing world. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(3), 22–39.

Dunning, J.H. 1958. American Investment in British Manufacturing Industry, London: Allen and Unwin.

Frynas, J. G., Child, J., & Tarba, S. Y. 2017. Non-market Social and Political Strategies – New Integrative Approaches and Interdisciplinary Borrowings. British Journal of Management, 28(4): 559–574.

Gao, C., Zuzul, T., Jones, G., & Khanna, T. 2017. Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long-Run Survival. Strategic Management Journal, 38(11), 2147–2167.

Godfrey, P. C., Hassard, J. S., O’Connor, E. S., Rowlinson, M., & Ruef, M. 2016. Introduction To Special Topic Forum What Is Organizational History? Toward a Creative Synthesis of History and Organization Studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 590–608.

Hutzschenreuter, T., Matt, T., & Kleindienst, I. 2020. Going subnational: A literature review and research agenda. Journal of World Business, 55(4): 101076.

Jones, G., & Khanna, T. 2006. Bringing history (back) into international business. Journal of International Business Studies, 37(4), 453–468.

Lubinski, C. 2018. From ‘History as Told’ to ‘History as Experienced’: Contextualizing the Uses of the Past. Organization Studies, 39(12), 1785–1809.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., & Clegg, S. R. 2016. Conceptualizing Historical Organization Studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 609–632.

McLaren, P. G., Spender, J., Cummings, S., O’Connor, E., Lubinski, C., Bridgman, T., & Durepos, G. 2021. New Histories of Business Schools and How They May Inspire New Futures. Academy of Management Learning and Education.

Meyer, K. E. 2015. Context in management research in emerging economies. Management and Organization Review, 11(3), 369–377.

Meyer, K. E., & Peng, M. W. 2016. Theoretical foundations of emerging economy business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 47(1), 3–22.

Minefee, I., & Bucheli, M. 2021. MNC responses to international NGO activist campaigns: Evidence from Royal Dutch / Shell in apartheid South Africa. Journal of International Business Studies.

Nielsen, B. B., Welch, C., Chidlow, A., Miller, S. R., Aguzzoli, R., Gardner, E., Karafyllia, M., Pegoraro, D. 2020. Fifty years of methodological trends in JIBS: Why future IB research needs more triangulation. Journal of International Business Studies, 51(9), 1478–1499.

Peterson, M. F., Søndergaard, M., & Kara, A. 2018. Traversing cultural boundaries in IB: The complex relationships between explicit country and implicit cultural group boundaries at multiple levels. Journal of International Business Studies, 49(8): 1081–1099.

Reckendrees, A., Gehlen, B., & Marx, C. 2022. International Business, Multinational Enterprises and Nationality of the Company: A Constructive Review of Literature. Business History, (forthcoming).

Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. 2014. Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue between Historical Theory and Organization Theory. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 205–274.

Shenkar, O. 2004. One more time: International business in a global economy. Journal of International Business Studies, 35(2), 161–171.

Suddaby, R., Silverman, B. S., Massis, A. De, Jaskiewicz, P., & Micelotta, E. R. 2021. Special Issue On: History-informed Family Business Research. Family Business Review.

Tsui, A. S. 2004. Contributing to global management knowledge: A case for high quality indigenous research. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 21(4), 491–513.

Tung, R. L. 2008. The cross-cultural research imperative: the need to balance cross-national and intra-national diversity. Journal of International Business Studies 2007 39:1, 39(1): 41–46.

Verbeke, A., & Kano, L. 2015. The New Internalization Theory and Multinational Enterprises from Emerging Economies: A Business History Perspective. Business History Review, 89(3), 415–445.

Vernon, R. 1971. Sovereignty at bay: the multinational spread of US enterprises. New York: Basic Books.

Wadhwani, R. D., Kirsch, D. A., Welter, F., Gartner, W. B., & Jones, G. G. 2020. Context, time, and change: Historical approaches to entrepreneurship research. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 14(1), 3–19.

Wadhwani, R. D., Suddaby, R., Mordhorst, M., & Popp, A. 2018. History as Organizing: Uses of the Past in Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 39(12), 1663–1683.

Welch, C. 2010. The archaeology of business networks: The use of archival records in case study research. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 8(2), 179–208.

Welch, C., & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, E. 2014. Putting Process (Back) In: Research on the Internationalization Process of the Firm. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(1), 2–23.

Welch, C., Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, E., Piekkari, R., Plakoyiannaki, E. 2022. Reconciling Theory and Context: How the Case Study Can Set a New Agenda for IB Research. Journal of International Business Studies, 53(1): 4–26.

Welch, C., Piekkari, R., Plakoyiannaki, E., & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, E. 2011. Theorising from case studies: Towards a pluralist future for international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 42(5), 740–762.

Wilkins, M. 1974. The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

About the Guest Editors

Stephanie Decker is Professor of Strategy at Birmingham Business School and Visiting Professor in African Business History at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her work focuses on historical approaches in Organisation Studies and Strategy, and she has published in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Organization, Business History Review, and Business History. She is co-editor-in-chief of Business History, on the editorial board of Organization Studies and Accounting History, and Co-Vice Chair for Research & Publications at the British Academy of Management.

Geoffrey Jones is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at the Harvard BusinessSchool in the United States. He researches the history, impact and ecological and social responsibility of business. He is a Fellow of Academy of International Business (AIB), a Fellow of the Japan Academy of International Business Studies, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Multinational and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century (OUP 2005), Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship (OUP 2017) and Deeply Responsible Business. A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership (Harvard University Press, 2023). He has published in Journal of International Business Studies and Strategic Management Journal.

Klaus Meyer is a Professor of International Business and William G. Davis Chair in International Trade at Ivey Business School, London, Ontario, Canada.  He is a leading scholar in international business, focusing on the strategies and operations of multinational enterprises in and from emerging economies. His research emphasizes the role of context on many aspects of management, and the contextual boundaries of theories of management. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB), and in 2015 he received the Decade award of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). He has served as Vice President of the AIB, and as an area editor of JIBS and is currently serving on the Executive Committee of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management. He has published over 90 articles in leading scholarly journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Management Studies, and he published nine books.

Catherine Welch is Chair of Strategic Management at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Aalto University, Finland. Her research has concentrated on two areas: qualitative research methodology and process approaches to studying firm internationalization. Her work has appeared in leading journals in international business and management. She was the first author on a paper which won the 2021 Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) Decade Award. Catherine is the current Book Review Editor of JIBS and a member of the journal’s Research Methods Advisory Committee. She is an Associate Editor of Organizational Research Methods. She is a Vice-President and co-founder of the Academy of International Business (AIB) Research Methods Shared Interest Group (RM-SIG). She currently serves on the AIB’s board as Vice President Programs.

Rebecca Piekkari is Marcus Wallenberg Chair of International Business at Aalto University School of Business, Finland. She is an incoming Associate Editor of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and sits on several editorial boards of IB and management journals. Rebecca’s recent research interests focus on translation as a perspective on IB phenomena, the shifting meaning of location for cross-border activities, as well as questions of social sustainability, diversity and inclusion in multinational corporations. She is known for her expertise in qualitative research methods and language-sensitive research in IB. Together with her co-authors she won the 2021 JIBS Decade award on theorizing from case studies. Rebecca has also co-edited several handbooks and book chapters on these topics. She is Fellow of the Academy of International Business and the European International Business Academy.

EIBA History track

Steph

The forthcoming EIBA annual conference (European International Business Academy) in Oslo, December 2022, will include a track on “Using History in International Business”? Here is the link to the conference:

http://www.bi.edu/about-bi/events/2022/december/eiba-2022/

Here is the link to the track description:

http://www.bi.edu/about-bi/events/2022/december/eiba-2022/using-history-in-international-business/

Fully-Funded PhD in International Business in Vienna

Steph

Fully-Funded PhD in International Business at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics University of Vienna, Austria
Reference number: 11518

The Department of Marketing and International Business at the University of Vienna invites applications for University Assistant (praedoc) at its International Business research group (Professor Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki).

Duration of employment: 4 years

Extent of Employment: 30 hours/week

Job grading in accordance with collective bargaining agreement: §48 VwGr. B1 Grundstufe (praedoc) with relevant work experience determining the assignment to a particular salary grade.

Job Description:

The successful candidate will:

1. Contribute to the teaching (to the extent regulated by the collective agreement) and research activities of the International Business research group with a focus on SMEs Internationalisation, Family Firm Internationalisation, International Entrepreneurship.

2. Participate in publications, academic articles and presentations.

3. Write the doctoral thesis: We expect the successful candidate to sign a doctoral thesis agreement within 12-18 month.

4. Additional tasks: supervision of students; involvement in the organisation of meetings; conferences, symposiums; involvement in the department administration as well as in teaching and research administration.

Profile:

MA or MSc in the study field of Business Administration or a comparable degree; interest in qualitative and quantitative methods; excellent command of written and spoken English; IT user skills; ability to work in a team.

Applications including a letter of motivation (English or German) should be submitted via the Job Center to the University of Vienna

(http://jobcenter.univie.ac.at) no later than 10.12.2020, mentioning reference number 11518.

For further information please contact Ladenstein, Judith

+43-1-4277-38012, Plakoyiannaki, Emmanuella +43-1-4277-38010.

The University pursues a non-discriminatory employment policy and values equal opportunities, as well as diversity (http://diversity.univie.ac.at/). The University lays special emphasis on increasing the number of women in senior and in academic positions.

Given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female applicants.

Human Resources and Gender Equality of the University of Vienna Reference number: 11518

E-Mail: jobcenter@univie.ac.at

Privacy Policy of the University of Vienna

For further details on the post, please see link below:

https://univis.univie.ac.at/ausschreibungstellensuche/flow/bew_ausschreibung-flow?_flowExecutionKey=_cDD7508A0-C8E1-EEF1-7D44-7B69DCE7F098_k48BB6E72-EE0A-4149-DBB3-CC9565C62B87&tid=82843.28

Distinguished lecture: “The Structural Reshaping of Globalization” by Peter Buckley

Steph4 Comments

I am pleased to share details on the forthcoming distinguished lecture with Peter Buckley, Professor of International Business at Leeds University Business School, who will talk on The Structural Reshaping of Globalization. Alain Verbeke, Professor of International Business Strategy at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary will serve as a discussant. 

This talk examines the role of theory, specifically internalization theory, in examining the structural reshaping of globalization. Four empirical changes in the global economy are identified.

  • (1) The fracture in the global economy between the USA and China, including “the splinternet”. 
  • (2) “Systemic Competition” and its consequences. 
  • (3) Rising VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) and corporate responses. 
  • (4) Innovation. The theoretical response is presented by nested theories of internalization, relying on common principles and concepts.

Details of the online talk through Zoom are listed as follows. You are welcome to join this online lecture and hope to meet you online soon!

  • Topic: The Structural Reshaping of Globalization
  • Date and Time: Nov 20, 2020; 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

https://westernuniversity.zoom.us/j/95450147539

  • Meeting ID: 954 5014 7539
  • Passcode: 361691

For more information about Professor Peter Buckley, you can refer to

https://business.leeds.ac.uk/divisions-international-business/staff/248/peter-j-buckley-

For more information about Professor Alain Verbeke, you can refer to

https://www.ucalgary.ca/verbeke/

CfP in JWB “Time Matters”

Steph

“Time Matters: Rethinking the Role of Time in International Business Research”

Submissions open August 15, 2020; Submissions due August 30, 2020

Guest Editors:

  • Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki, University of Leeds, UK
  • Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, University of Turku, Finland
  • Melanie E. Hassett, University of Sheffield, UK
  • Elizabeth L. Rose, University of Leeds, UK
  • Peter W. Liesch, The University of Queensland, Australia

Supervising Editor:

  • Ulf Anderson, Mälardalen University, Sweden

Special Issue Overview

This special issue intends to stimulate thinking on the role and impact of time in International Business (IB) theory and practice. We seek conceptual, theoretical and empirical – both qualitative and quantitative – papers that advance our understanding of temporal issues as they pertain to IB phenomena.

The current global environment is changing rapidly. Climate change, migration, trade wars, political volatility, technological disruptions (e.g., artificial intelligence) and the depletion of natural resources create grand challenges for firms. Such rapid changes pose challenges to the applicability of traditional theories. While scholars are calling for grand theories to address grand challenges (e.g., Buckley, Doh & Benischke, 2017), firms are struggling with the timing of their international activities in an increasingly uncertain, disruptive and complex environment (Doh, 2015).

Time is central to IB theory and practice, relevant to both stability and change in internationalization and cross-border operations. It has a crucially important role in the three domains – the philosophical, conceptual, and the methodological (George & Jones, 2000). The literature reflects a strong interest in processes, particularly with respect to internationalization (Knight & Liesch, 2016; Odlin, 2019; Welch, Nummela, Liesch, 2016; Welch & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki 2014). However, much IB research seeks to advance our understanding of internationalization processes by focusing on antecedents and consequences of specific events, rather than on the events’ temporal emergence and their associated dynamic mechanisms (Jones & Coviello, 2005; for similar arguments see Pettigrew, 2012; Van de Ven 1992). For example, the focus is often on explaining firms’ attaining specific internationalization-related goals rather than explaining the temporally-embedded processes of how they reach the goals (Welch & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2014). Researchers are more likely to study initial foreign entry with less consideration given to subsequent post-entry strategies and their evolution (Chen, Sousa, & He, 2019; Fuad & Gaur, 2019).

While one of the first principles of process research is the study of events over time, several scholars (e.g., Hurmerinta, Paavilainen-Mäntymäki & Hassett, 2016; Jones & Coviello, 2005) have expressed concern in current and unfolding phenomena, such as Brexit and the trade wars between the US and China, highlight how political uncertainty can affect the timing of events in domestic and international business.

In addition, while IB research has long emphasized the importance of context (Delios, 2017; Teagarden, Von Glinow & Mellahi, 2018), we advocate explicit attention to time in our consideration of context to offer more deeply-contextualized explanations of IB phenomena (Welch, Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki, & Paavilainen, 2011). Accomplishing this will require the use of different methodological approaches, including the addition of deep historical accounts (e.g., Jones & Khanna 2006) and the application of novel tools such as interactive visualization (Schotter, Buchel, Vashchilko, 2018).

Few studies fully adopt a “temporal paradigm” (Pauwels & Matthyssens, 1999) vis-à-vis fieldwork, data sources (e.g. real time; longitudinal, retrospective) and focal phenomena (e.g. dynamic, discontinuous, historical). Time is often neglected despite its inherent presence in research design. Analytical approaches seldom allow for a processual contribution, rather relying on the prevailing variance-oriented approaches that disconnect processes through categorizations and coding (Welch & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2014).

The IB field will benefit from making effective use of processual analytical methods aimed at uncovering dynamics and the relationships between constructs, rather than focusing on their similarities and differences or their antecedents and consequences (Maxwell & Miller, 2008). Bringing business history perspectives and the analogous futures research methods to the IB toolkit will help IB scholars make stronger theoretical contributions. Methodological advances are needed.

In qualitative research, the methodological approaches used in IB for analyzing temporal and processrelated phenomena remain underdeveloped (Plakoyiannaki, Wei, & Prashantham, 2019). Process and temporal research is currently subject to limitations associated with narratives that may be considered as chronologies of anecdotes that can be potentially flawed due to memory bias, hindsight-based conclusions and subjective choices regarding what is included in retrospective studies. Observational, visual and multimodal research are scarce in IB despite their potential to represent, contextualize and theorize temporal phenomena. There are also concerns about the feasibility of contemporaneous research, given time and financial constraints, and the challenges associated with analyzing longitudinal or processual data.

For quantitative research, there are well-established statistical approaches for analyzing time-series data. However, effective estimation of these time-series models (e.g., ARIMA) requires access to a long history of data (see, e.g., Rose, 1993). This is problematic in IB, as the assumption of consistent underlying mechanisms across long periods of time (e.g., a minimum of 100 years if the data are annual) is highly questionable. Therefore, we need to develop different approaches for accounting for time, without resorting to assumptions that relationships are consistent across different eras.

Objectives of this Special Issue

  • To understand how assumptions about time shape theorizing in IB
  • To incorporate the role of time in the conceptualization of IB phenomena
  • To account for time more explicitly in IB research
  • To develop more effective ways to include time empirically in qualitative and quantitative IB research

Illustrative Topics

We encourage conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Philosophical domain: Theorizing about time in IB

  • How do different conceptions of time (e.g., subjective; organic; cyclical) advance knowledge of IB phenomena?
  • How do different philosophical traditions (e.g., interpretivism, phenomenology, critical realism, positivism) define the study of time in IB scholarship?

Conceptual domain: The role of time in the conceptualization of IB phenomena

  • How can we define time in IB research?
  • What is the role of time in theorizing in IB?
  • How can process and variance-oriented research complement one another in providing IB with stronger theoretical bases?
  • How is time conceptualized in IB research?
  • How can time-related concepts be defined in IB research?
  • How do IB researchers take advantage of dynamic theories?

Methodological domain: Accounting for time in research design

  • How do we define and distinguish between dynamic and static theories in IB?
  • How can we incorporate time into the assembly of qualitative and quantitative data in IB research?
  • How can we analyse longitudinal or process data – qualitatively and quantitatively?
  • How can we incorporate practices and methods from business history research into IB?
  • How can we make strong theoretical contributions using temporal, processual and longitudinal research?

We look forward to your submissions that address the important issue of advancing our understanding of time in the context of IB.

Submission Process

Between August 15 and August 31, 2020, authors should submit their manuscripts online via the Journal of World Business submission system. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this Special Issue, it is important that authors select ‘VSI: Time Matters’ when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Journal of World Business Guide for Authors available at http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-world-business/1090-9516/guide-for-authors . All submitted manuscripts will be subject to the Journal of World Business’s double-blind review process.

Manuscript Development Workshops

The editors of the Special Issue anticipate holding information sessions and development workshop at different conferences. Participation in these events does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for publication in JWB, and attendance is not prerequisite for publication in the special issue. The first event is a panel titled “When Time Matters: Rethinking the Role of Time in IB Theory and Practice” organized at the 45th EIBA Annual Conference in Leeds in December 2019. We will announce details of these events through different channels.

For more information, please contact the guest editors

Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki, e.plakoyiannaki@leeds.ac.uk

Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, eriikka.paavilainen-mantymaki@utu.fi

Melanie E. Hassett, melanie.hassett@sheffield.ac.uk

Elizabeth L. Rose, e.rose@leeds.ac.uk

Peter Liesch, p.liesch@business.uq.edu.au

Reconstructing the B-School

Steph

Reblogged from NEP-HIS:

Mitch Larson very kindly reviewed our article in Business History: “Clio in the Business School: Historical Approaches in Strategy, International Business and Entrepreneurship”, which the publishers have made available for free for a time: Business History, 59(6): 904-27

Review by Mitchell J. Larson (University of Central Lancashire)

Recently Martin Parker (Bristol) has taken to the airwaves promoting the idea of bulldozing the business school. In sharp contrast, Andrew Perchard, Niall MacKenzie, Stephanie Decker, and Giovanni Favero make a compelling case for certain disciplines in the management sciences to open themselves to alternative methodological and epistemological approaches. They argue that the fields of strategy, international business, and entrepreneurship have not embraced historically-oriented research to the same extent as other fields within business and management studies. The authors also admit that many scholars conducting historical business research have not made a sufficiently solid case about the robustness of their historical methodology(s) or data to convince other social scientists about the validity of their claims. Drawing upon an impressive range of previous works to develop their discussion, the paper attempts to reconcile these discrepancies to highlight how a more explicit articulation of the historian’s process could overcome the concerns of ‘mainstream’ management scholars regarding theorization and methodology in these three fields specifically and in management studies generally.

To continue reading, click here: https://nephist.wordpress.com/2018/07/24/reconstructing-the-b-school/

 

CfP: PDW on International Business and Civilizations

Steph

PDW Call for Papers

International Business and Civilizations

Deadline: Friday, January 15, 2017 for abstracts

Thursday, March 30, 2017
Embassy Suites Denver Downtown
1420 Stout Street, Denver, Colorado, 80202, USA

Organized under the auspice of the BHC workshop committee Contact: Teresa da Silva Lopes (teresa.lopes@york.ac.uk), Heidi Tworek (heidi.tworek@ubc.ca) and Christina Lubinski (cl.mpp@cbs.dk) 

In recent years, both business historians and international business scholars have grown increasingly interested in the promise of using historical sources, methods and reasoning in international business research. History, it has been argued, can be valuable in addressing a number of limitations in traditional approaches, including in accounting for contexts and institutions, in understanding the relationship between international entrepreneurship and economic change, in providing multi-­‐‑ level perspectives on international business and in showing connections between business and regional ways of life. Business historians have for long engaged with business behavior across borders and international opportunity recognition and are increasingly making their work pertinent to new audiences, in international business scholarship and at business schools.

With the Business History Conference devoting the 2017 annual conference to the theme of “civilizations,” the preceding one-­‐‑day Paper Development Workshop offers developmental feedback to papers explicitly targeting the double audience of international business and history scholars. The purpose of the workshop is to support the development of historical research on international business for publication in high-­‐‑quality outlets, including “The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business.” In addition, workshop participants will discuss how to address the common challenge of writing for a dual audience of historians and international business scholars, including more explicitly presenting the engagement with theory and demonstrating the contribution historical methods and sources make to studying international business phenomena.

We invite papers that explore broad connections between international business and society, the mutual influences of business and culture, the impact of international business activities on home and host countries, the emergence of standards for moral and legitimate international business behavior, and the positive and negative effects of business activities across borders and over time. Authors are encouraged to address what “global” means in the context of their respective work, how the global nature of business changed over time and which actors contributed to this change. All papers should expand current thinking on international business by addressing long-­‐‑term developments based on historical sources and methodologies and by exploring arguments and methods capable of explaining change over time.

We welcome work-­‐‑in-­‐‑progress at all stages of development. Interested scholars may submit two types of submissions for discussion: full research papers (8,000 words) or paper ideas (1,000 to 3,000 words). The workshop will take place immediately before the BHC meeting and at the same location. Paper selection and registration is separate from the annual meeting; participation in both BHC meeting and workshop is possible. There will be a modest registration fee to recover catering costs.

If you are interested in participating, please submit an initial abstract of max. 300 words and a one-­‐‑page CV before Friday, January 15, 2017 to Teresa da Silva Lopes (teresa.lopes@york.ac.uk), Heidi Tworek (heidi.tworek@ubc.ca) and Christina Lubinski (cl.mpp@cbs.dk). Invitations to the PDW will be sent out before February 15, 2017. Full paper (8,000 to 12,000 words) or paper idea (1,000 to 3,000 words) submissions will be expected by Friday, March 3, 2017. Please feel free to contact the organizers with your paper ideas if you are interested in early feedback or want to inquire about the fit of your idea with this PDW.

Cross-posting: Organizational history and international business

Steph

This has been cross-posted from Andrew Smith at The Past Speaks – if interested please contact Andrew!

The Journal of World Business is calling for proposals for Special Issues (see below). As someone who strongly believes that Business History can offer a great deal to scholars in International Business and International Management, I would be interested in forming a team to submit a proposal for a special issue on Business History to this journal. I’m thinking that a team of three guest editors would be ideal for this project. One of them should be an established IB or IM scholar who is interested in historical research methods.

If you are interested in helping me to craft a proposal for the Special Issue of this prestigious journal (ranked 4 in the ABS journal guide), please contact me.

JOURNAL OF WORLD BUSINESS

CALL FOR SPECIAL ISSUE PROPOSALS

Due date: January 15, 2016

Please send proposals to

Kim Cahill, Managing Editor

 The Journal of World Business (JWB) invites proposals for special issues with a due date of January 15, 2016.

JWB has a long tradition of publishing high impact special issues on emerging or provocative topics within the editorial purview of the journal. The objective of these special issues is to assemble a coherent set of papers that move understanding of a topic forward empirically and theoretically. Therefore, as a rule, JWB will not publish special issues based solely on papers presented at conferences or workshops. Rather, special issues must be motivated by a clear and compelling focus on an issue that is timely, significant and likely to generate interest among JWB‘s readership.

PROCESS

Prospective guest editor(s) should submit written proposals that incorporate the rationale for the special issue topic, positions it in the literature, and include some illustrative topics that papers could focus upon.The proposal should also include a draft of the actual call for papers and outline the credentials of the guest editor(s).

After the closing date, the JWB editorial team will review the proposals submitted and select one to three for further assessment. This additional analysis may include communication with prospective guest editors, suggestions as to how to strengthen the proposal and/or recommendations for the addition of other guest editors. Following this consultation, one proposal will generally be selected by the Editor in Chief to progress, although the guest editor(s) may still be asked to develop and refine the proposal further. The Editor-in-Chief will generally assign a JWB Senior Editor to serve on the SI editorial team as the Supervising Editor. The Supervising Editor will be responsible for acting as a liaison between the JWBeditorial team and the guest editor(s) and ensuring that JWB editorial standards are maintained through the special issue process. She/he will be actively involved in the entire editorial process, including helping to select which papers are sent for review, identifying and assigning reviewers and in preliminary decisions throughout the review process. However, the ultimate decision to accept or reject papers rests with the Editor in Chief.

GUEST EDITOR(S)’ ROLE

 The guest editor(s) will be responsible for publicizing the call for papers and for generating submissions for the special issue. If appropriate, they may host a workshop for papers being considered for the special issue but attendance at the workshop cannot be a prerequisite for the acceptance of papers. They will also be actively involved in all stages of the review process in terms of inviting reviewers and making preliminary decisions on submissions. The review process will be managed online through the EES system. It is also expected that the guest editors will write an introductory article that will position the special issue in the relevant literature and briefly introduce the papers in the issue. This paper will be subject to editorial review. In order to prevent any perception of conflicts of interest, it is JWB policy that Guest Editors cannot submit to the special issue as authors of papers beyond the introductory article.