Foreignness has long been a central construct in international business research, with research streams examining its conceptualizations, manifestations, and consequences. Researchers started by taking foreignness to be a liability, then later considered the possibility of its being an asset. A still more recent view is that foreignness is an organizational identity that a firm can purposefully manage. Broadly conceived, foreignness is an umbrella construct that directly or tangentially covers r...
Multiculturals – individuals with notable cultural knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) – are widely assumed to contribute to MNE performance leading, ultimately, to global competitive advantages. We nuance this general belief by arguing that what matters for an MNE’s competitive advantage is not the employment of multiculturals per se, but rather the MNE’s ability to transform multiculturals’ KSAOs into strategic human capital resources by creating complementarities b...
#1Yadong Luo(SYSU: Sun Yat-sen University)H-Index: 93
Current techno-nationalism presents new risks in international business, amplifying volatility, uncertainty, and complexity for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This study explains how today's techno-nationalism differs from its traditional form, the underlying theoretic logic, the damage it may cause to MNEs, and what MNEs can do to contain the potential harm. We elaborate on several points: (1) new techno-nationalism combines geopolitical, economic, national security, and ideological consider...
Contractor argues that the coronavirus outbreak only had temporary effects on the global economy, and that post COVID-19 globalization will resume. We posit that the pandemic will have significant long-lasting effects on globalization. Our arguments are grounded in three observations. First, the pandemic has increased inter- and intra-country inequalities and has reversed trends in poverty reduction, which will intensify anti-globalization sentiments in the future. Second, the pandemic has fuele...
#1Ilgaz Arikan(College of Business Administration)H-Index: 6
#2Asli M. Arikan(College of Business Administration)H-Index: 8
Last. Oded Shenkar(Max M. Fisher College of Business)H-Index: 53
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We revisit the new perspectives that explain the internationalization and growth of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets (EMs). Do we need a new theory for EM MNEs? Are the new theorizing efforts seeking the “just right” approach as in the Goldilocks story justified? We beg to disagree. We draw attention to the foundations of current international business (IB) and organization theories, rooted in culture, history, institutions, economics, strategy, and market dynamics to meet th...
Articles in Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and elsewhere have argued that international business (IB) is a uniquely complex field. We offer an alternative perspective and evidence that IB is not so uniquely complex compared to organizational behavior, strategic management studies, and entrepreneurship. We argue that viewing IB as uniquely complex is likely a result of what a vast body of social psychology research has uncovered and labeled false uniqueness bias: the tendency fo...
While internationalization process theory has deepened our understanding of international expansion, it and many other international business (IB) theories have largely neglected the underlying managerial processes and decision-making contexts of internationalization. In response, we articulate a model that accounts for both the external context and the internal processes leading to internationalization decisions. We argue that internationalization decisions are grounded in contestation and stru...
Knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises is a source of competitive advantage. However, we know little about repatriates’ role in reverse knowledge transfer upon their return to headquarters (HQ). Using an organizational embeddedness perspective, we conceptualized how embeddedness fit – individuals’ perceived match between their knowledge and skills and the job requirements – during the expatriation assignment and upon repatriation predicts repatriate knowledge transfer. To test the h...