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International Business in a VUCA World

The Changing Role of States and Firms

Alain Verbeke editor Rob van Tulder editor Barbara Jankowska editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Emerald Publishing Limited

Published:21st Oct '19

Should be back in stock very soon

International Business in a VUCA World cover

This fourteenth volume in the PIBR series is dedicated to Professor Peter Buckley, OBE, whose creative contributions to IB theory and practice over many decades are unmatched. His scientific oeuvre has continued to grow, both in depth and breadth, and reflects an evolving level of scholarly resilience that has kept pace with the increasing Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) characteristics of the modern environment of international business.

The VUCA dimensions of the business environment that face both managers and policy makers are amplified by a wide variety of unpredictable social, economic, political and technological forces, such as: inter alia, the (post-great-recession) rise of populism; growing anti-European sentiment in the European Union; increasing protectionism; a slowdown in growth of emerging markets; the rise of the digital economy, and many more. These trends affect the competitive position of nations and firms. He present volume focuses on the threats and opportunities created by the VUCA-trends for multinational enterprises (MNEs), small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and international new ventures (INVs), along the following five headings:

  1. IB scholarship in a VUCA world.
  2. New Perspectives on the Interplay between Firms and the Non-Market.
  3. New Governance Challenges in International Business.
  4. New Contexts for Newly Internationalizing Firms.
  5. Contemporary Management Perspectives in IB Research.
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This volume brings together 24 chapters by researchers from around the world, who address the challenges multinational enterprises face when expanding or repositioning themselves in the global environment in the context of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). They first discuss international business in the VUCA environment, including the role of international business theory in an uncertain world, the optimal location of plants by a global firm, risk and uncertainty in the international context, and the VUCA approach and the global factory model. The next section addresses the relationship between firms and the non-market, including trade policy uncertainties and implications for global value chains, the role of intergovernmental organizations in shaping country institutional environments, the effects of introducing a tariff on trade in the automotive sector, adaptation strategies of European Union enterprises affected by sanctions on Russia, and whether fewer trade barriers and more economic freedom lead to better functioning societies. Subsequent sections cover new governance challenges in international business, including macro-environmental dynamism and its impact on a firm's risk management, the relationship between firms' top management teams and internationalization complexity, alternatives firms can use after the initial relocation of manufacturing abroad, the role of institutional context in backshoring decisions, and multinational enterprises and poverty in Europe, as well as the context of new international business operations, including early internationalizing firms, the role of the technological environment in facilitating international venturing of emerging market firms through entrepreneurial transformation, the role of market uncertainties in the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the internationalization of social enterprises. The final section describes the future of the global mobile telecommunications industry, managing ambidexterity using networking, talent management in Brazil and Russia, institutional effects on ownership in cross-border acquisitions by African firms, adaptation to foreign markets, and the impacts of institutional distance on the multinationality level of firms from developing countries. The book is based on the conferences of the European International Business Academy. -- Copyright 2019 * Portland, OR *

ISBN: 9781838672560

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 850g

536 pages