Call for papers. Special Issue: Advances in Strategic Management dedicated to “Corporate Strategy and Resource Redeployment

Advances in Strategic Management dedicated to “Corporate Strategy and Resource Redeployment"

Submission Deadline: May 15, 2015

It is well understood that whether corporate strategists create value is determined by their ability to deploy resources across multiple business units. Strategies in pursuit of “synergy,” where resources are simultaneously shared across businesses, have commanded the dominant attention of researchers and practitioners to date. Only recently has it been explicated that a second type of resource deployment strategy might create corporate value by providing discretion or flexibility to partially or completely withdraw resources from one business and reallocate them to another business. This strategy has been referred to as “inter-temporal economies of scope,” “resource redeployability,” and “resource reconfiguration,” and differs from synergy in that resources are withdrawn from one business and reallocated to another, rather than contemporaneously shared across businesses. It is believed that when firms can redeploy their resources in this manner, it provides greater potential to escape from declining prospects in a business, and is particularly valuable in turbulent environments. As a result, resource redeployability may affect not only firm value creation, but also firm and industry evolution.


Despite recent advances in our understanding of resource redeployment, the discussion remains emergent around how it and synergy differentially affect value and firm decision-making. There are at least three substantive opportunities to advance our understanding of this debate:

First, we need more clarity about the theoretical determinants and effects of synergy versus resource redeployment. Relevant research questions might include:

• · How are the determinants of synergistic value different from the determinants of value derivable from resource redeployment?
• · Is the value deriving from resource redeployment necessarily associated with multi-business firms, or might single-business firms also benefit? What are the conditions under which single-business firms might benefit from redeployability?
• · What environmental conditions are best suited to a strategy based on resource redeployment? And how do firm redeployment strategies affect industry evolution?
• · When can resource redeployment be proactive versus reactive? What processes can help organizations to identify redeployment opportunities? 
• · How can executives manage the human resource challenges around resource redeployment (i.e., maintaining morale of employees; or getting division managers to take actions that can lead to withdrawal of resources)?

Second, we need more clarity about how to empirically disentangle synergy from redeployability, because they may have common derivatives, such as resource relatedness.

• · How might scholars empirically distinguish whether value is derived from synergy or the flexibility to redeploy resources? Is it possible to distinguish the sources of value creation through the use of different variables, or will it require clever methodology/ research design to isolate differences?
• · How do we consistently identify scale-free versus non scale-free resources?
• · Do managers consider the flexibility to redeploy when making entry or exit decisions?

Finally, we may need to revisit prior work investigating the benefits of corporate strategy based on synergy, in order to assess the extent to which prior results may stem from resource redeployability.

• · Because existing work tends not to distinguish between synergy and resource redeployment, is it possible that existing work provides an incomplete picture of the contributions of resource relatedness to firm value and firm decision-making?
• · How would the results of prior research on the value created by corporate strategy change if resource redeployability were included?

Despite recent work to address the three issues identified above, significant work remains. In this call, we invite theoretical and empirical work that tackles these and related issues.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions are due no later than May 15, 2015. All papers submitted must represent original research not previously published elsewhere. All submissions will be subject to in-depth review, and editorial decisions and revision requests will be communicated to authors by September 1, 2015. Authors going forward to the second round will be invited to present their revised paper at a conference in October or November 2015 in Strasbourg France (exact date TBD), with travel supplements provided. The targeted publication date for the volume is August 2016.


To submit a paper, or to ask questions about the content of this AiSM volume or the editorial process, please contact the volume editors, Timothy Folta (timothy.folta@business.uconn.edu), Constance Helfat (Constance.E.Helfat@tuck.dartmouth.edu), or Samina Karim (samina@bu.edu) or the AiSM series editor, Brian Silverman (silverman@rotman.utoronto.ca).


Further information on the series can be found at:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/series/astm or at

http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/~silverman/AiSM/asm_index.html.

Advances in Strategic Management is an ISI Web of Science-indexed journal.

Call for papers: Special Issue on: Internationalisation of Family Business Groups

Call for papers: Special Issue on: "Internationalisation of Family Business Groups"

European Journal of International Management

European J. of International Management

Guest Editors: 

Frank Hoy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA fhoy@wpi.edu
Jacobo Ramirez and Michael Wendelboe Hansen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
jra.ikl@cbs.dk
mwh.ikl@cbs.dk
Paloma Miravitlles, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain paloma.miravitlles@ub.edu

Important Dates

• Submission of manuscripts: 11 May, 2015
• Notification to authors: 22 June, 2015
• Final versions due: 16 November, 2015

Special Issue on: "Internationalisation of Family Business Groups"

Internationalisation strategies of family business groups vary across developed and emerging free-market economies (e.g. Etemad 2013; Astrachan 2010). While a growing literature addresses issues related to the internationalisation of family business groups (e.g. Zahra, 2003; Donckels & Fröhlich 1991), there has been less of a research focus on (1) how institutional pressures moderate their internationalisation process, (2) the motivations behind their internationalisation (e.g. Ward 1997), and (3) the specific internationalisation strategies adopted. This special issue is open to theoretical and empirical papers that analyse the link between family business groups and their internationalisation processes.
Different institutional contexts might dictate family business groups’ responses to institutional pressures. Formal (official regulations and laws) and informal (traditions and customs) institutions might challenge the internationalisation of family business groups (e.g. Dickson et al. 2006). It might be argued that in turbulent institutional settings, both challenges and opportunities encourage the internationalisation of family business groups. External challenges may be in developing alliances with partners with local knowledge (e.g. Lu & Beamish, 2001). However, family business groups could also face internal challenges, as their members could have different global visions, mindsets and entrepreneurial personalities (e.g. Hutchinson et al. 2007).

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• · Responses by family business groups to political and societal institutional arrangements to gain access to international developed and emerging markets
• · Effects of family management on the intention for internationalisation
• · Effects of family culture and ethnicity on internationalisation
• · Intentional vs. opportunistic impacts on family business practices in international expansion
• · Extension of family network relations into international operations
• · Where and how family groups internationalise
• · Types of strategic alliances that family groups use in their internationalisation strategies
• · Family firm life cycles and internationalisation
• · Sources of financing for implementing family business group internationalisation strategies
• · Roles of governments in family business internationalisation
• · Human resource issues for family businesses in international commerce
• · Supply chain issues faced by family firms in internationalisation
• · Perceptions that international business partners hold of family ownership

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).


All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online before 11 May 2015. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page or at http://www.inderscience.com/info/ingeneral/cfp.php?id=2878

Call for papers. Special issue of the Journal of World Business

Business Group Affiliation and Internationalization of Emerging Market Firms

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2015

Guest Editors: Ajai Gaur, Jane Lu, Vikas Kumar, Robert Hoskisson

Business groups are prevalent in both developed and emerging markets (Ghemawat & Khanna, 1998) and constitute the dominant organizational form in many emerging markets (Chung & Luo, 2008; Khanna & Rivkin, 2001). Scholars have utilized multiple theoretical perspectives, including institutional economics, sociology and resource-based view to define, characterize and comprehend business groups. Business groups play an important role in emerging markets by filling institutional voids and creating their own internal capital, labor and product markets (Khanna & Palepu, 2000a). There are important differences between group affiliated and unaffiliated firms in emerging economies, in terms of their underlying resource base and embeddedness in the institutional and social fabric of the local market. To add to this complexity, institutional environments in emerging economies are constantly evolving and thereby impacting strategy, particularly of organizations such as business groups that are highly embedded in the domestic context (Hoskisson, Eden, Lau, & Wright, 2000; Hoskisson, Wright, Filatotchev, & Peng, 2013). Internationalization of business group firms under such tumultuous conditions presents a rich context for advancing internationalization theory and, in particular, contributing to a better understanding of the strategic adaptation of emerging market firms.

The extant literature on business group has primarily focused on how groups as a whole and/or firms affiliated to groups perform in their home countries (e.g. Chacar & Vissa, 2005; Chang, Chung, & Mahmood, 2006; Douma, George, & Kabir, 2006; Khanna & Palepu, 2000a; 2000b; Khanna & Rivkin, 2001). There are only a few studies that have explored the impact that affiliation to a business group has on the degree of internationalization of the focal firm, and present inconclusive findings (e.g. Chang, 1995; Kim, Kim, & Hoskisson, 2010). Examining not only institutional differences but also factor market difference between home and host countries also seems to matter with regard to internationalization from emerging economies (Kim, Hoskisson, & Lee, 2014). In the wake of the recent widespread and accelerated internationalization of emerging market firms, including many that are affiliated to larger business groups, the internationalization of business group affiliated firms warrants a deeper and systematic investigation from a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches.

As emerging economies develop and become mid-range economies (Hoskisson, et al., 2013), how does this change the nature of business groups and their internationalization strategies. Do they restructure their portfolios as transaction cost theory would imply (Hoskisson, Johnson, Tihanyi, & White, 2005)? Do they substitute domestic product diversification for more internationalization (Meyer, 2006)? How are they structured and governed differently (Chittoor, Kale, Puranam, 2014) as the country settings change and as they pursue increased innovation and internationalization (Yiu, Hoskisson, Bruton, Lu, 2014)? How does government ownership influence their corporate and internationalization strategies (White, Hoskisson, Yiu, & Bruton, 2008)?

Many studies simply use dummies to distinguish group affiliates from independent firms. This approach assumes all affiliates benefit equally, which is questionable due to differences in value capture.  For example, research shows that affiliate firms differ in their ability to capture benefits from internationalization; in this study more powerful group firms benefit from internationalization compared to less powerful affiliates (Wan, Hoskisson, & Kim, 2004). However, we have limited understanding of differences in power and of value capture among affiliates because few scholars examine heterogeneity among group affiliates.

The special issue solicits scholarly contributions that provide a finer-grained analysis of the internationalization of business group affiliated firms from emerging markets, encapsulating the unique attributes of business groups as well as that of the institutional and cultural contexts where they prosper. The following is an illustrative list of questions:

1.     How is the efficacy of business groups affected due to the rapidly changing institutional environment in EEs?

2.     Business groups are social structures deeply embedded in the broader institutional environment of EEs. How does this embeddnesses affect the internationalization propensity of their affiliates?

3.     What are the similarities and differences between business groups from different emerging economies as well as developed economies and how do these similarities/differences affect their internationalization behavior?

4.     How are business groups organized and managed differently in different country institutional and factor market settings? What organizational transformation are business groups undergoing to respond to the changes in the external institutional environment?

5.     What are the unique resources and capabilities of business groups?  How do these capabilities help group affiliated firms in internationalization?

6.     Are the advantages and/or disadvantages of affiliation to business group context-dependent?  How do individual business affiliate firms benefit more or less from group affiliation?

7.     Do advantages and/or disadvantages transfer to foreign markets when EE firms internationalize their operations?

8.     How do business groups extend their group like structure in foreign markets?

9.     How does the presence of a business group in an industry affect the industry-wide innovation and internationalization?

10.  How do the foreign market entry modes different between group affiliated and unaffiliated firms?

We encourage potential contributors to examine the internationalization of business groups from different theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches, including multi-level models and case studies.  Authors should not merely be testing the existing theories in the context of business groups, but make use of the novel context to develop new theories and explanations, and thereby enrich our understanding of firm internationalization behavior in general, and of business group internationalization behavior in particular.

Submission Process:

By March 1, 2015 all manuscripts should be submitted using the online submission system.  The link for submitting manuscript is: http://ees.elsevier.com/jwb. 

To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this Special Issue, it is important that authors select ‘SI: Business Groups’ when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process.

We may organize a workshop designed to facilitate the development of papers. Authors of manuscripts that have progressed through the revision process will be invited to it. Presentation at the workshop is neither a requirement for nor a promise of final acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue.

Questions about the special issue may be directed to any of the following guest editors:

Ajai Gaur, Rutgers University, USA ajai@business.rutgers.edu   

Jane Lu, University of Melbourne, Australia jane.lu@unimelb.edu.au 

Vikas Kumar, University of Sydney, Australia vikas.kumar@sydney.edu.au

Robert E. Hoskisson, Rice University robert.hoskisson@rice.edu

 References

Chacar, A., & Vissa, B. (2005). Are emerging economies less efficient? Performance persistence and the impact of business group affiliation. Strategic Management Journal,26(10): 933-946.

Chang, S.J. (1995). International expansion strategy of Japanese firms: capability building through sequential entry.  Academy of Management Journal, 38(2): 383-407.

Chang, S., Chung, C., & Mahmood, I.P. (2006). When and how does business group affiliation promote firm innovation? A tale of two emerging economies. Organization Science, 17(5): 637-656.

Chittoor, R., Kale, P., & Puranam, P. (2014). Business groups in developing capital markets:  Towards a complementarity perspective.  Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming.

Chung, C., & Luo, X. (2008). Human agents, contexts, and institutional change: the decline of family in the leadership of business groups. Organization Science, 19(1): 124-142.

Douma, S., George, R., & Kabir, R. (2006). Foreign and domestic ownership, business groups, and firm performance: evidence from a large emerging market. Strategic Management Journal, 27(7): 637-657.

Ghemawat, P., & Khanna, T. (1998). The nature of diversified business groups: a research design and two case studies.  Journal of Industrial Economics, 46(1): 35-61.

Hoskisson, R.E., Eden, L., Lau, C.-M., & Wright, M. 2000. Strategy in emerging economies. Academy of Management Journal, 43: 249–267.

Hoskisson, R. E., Johnson, R. A., Tihanyi, L. & White, R. E. (2005). Diversified business groups and corporate refocusing in emerging economies. Journal of Management, 31: 941-965.

Hoskisson, R.E., Wright, M., Filatotchev, I., Peng, M. (2013). Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: The influence of institutions and factor markets. Journal of Management Studies, 50(7): 1295-1321.

Khanna, T., & Palepu, K. (2000a). Is group affiliation profitable in emerging markets? An analysis of diversified Indian business groups. Journal of Finance, 55(2): 867-891.

Khanna, T., & Palepu, K. (2000b). The future of business groups in emerging markets: long-run evidence from Chile. Academy of Management Journal, 43(3): 268-285.

Khanna, T., & Rivkin, J.W. (2001). Estimating the performance effects of business groups in emerging markets. Strategic Management Journal, 22(1): 45-74.

Kim, H., Hoskisson, R.E., & Lee, S.-H. (2014). Why strategic factor markets matter: ‘New’ multinationals’ geographic diversification and firm profitability. Strategic Management Journal, Forthcoming.

Kim, H., Kim, H., & Hoskisson, R.E. (2010). Does market-oriented institutional change in an emerging economy make business-group-affiliated multinationals perform better? An institution based view. Journal of International Business Studies, 41: 1141-1160.

Meyer, K.E. (2006). Globalfocusing: From domestic conglomerate to global specialist. Journal of Management Studies, 43(5): 1109-1144.

Kim, H., Hoskisson, R. E. & Wan, W. P. 2004. Power dependence, diversification strategy and performance in keiretsu member firms, Strategic Management Journal, 25: 613-636.

White, R. E., Hoskisson, R. E., Yiu, D. & Bruton, G. (2008). Employment and market innovation in Chinese business group-affiliated firms: The role of group control systems,Management and Organization Review, 4: 225-256.

Yiu, D. Hoskisson, R. E., Bruton, G. & Lu, Y. (2014). Dueling institutional logics and the effect on strategic entrepreneurship in Chinese business groups. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 8(3): 195-213.

Call for Special Issue: Emerging Market Multinationals: Perspectives from Latin America

Journal of World Business

Call for papers for a special issue

Submission deadline: May 4, 2015

Emerging Market Multinationals: Perspectives from Latin America 

Guest Editors:

• Ruth Aguilera
• Luciano Ciravegna
• Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra
• Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez

“Name some Brazilian multinationals. Even harder than "famous Belgians", isn't it? Despite Brazil being the world's eighth-largest economy, with plenty of big, profitable firms, few of them have a reasonable share of their operations abroad and are thus genuinely multinational.” The Economist, Sept 21, 2000.

“For the first time Brazil has a crop of companies that can be described as multinationals. Some of them are already well known outside Brazil: Petrobras; Vale, one of the world’s largest mining companies; and Embraer, the world’s third-largest maker of passenger jets.” The Economist, November 12, 2009.

These two quotes from the British newspaper The Economist reflect the change in view about Multilatinas, or Latin American multinational companies. The reason is not that there were no Multilatinas before 2000. In fact, there have been Multilatinas for over a century. For example, the Argentinean shoemaker Alpargatas was created in 1885 and established subsidiaries in Uruguay in 1890 and in Brazil in 1907. The reason is that there were few studies analyzing Multilatinas before the 2000s. This was part of a general trend in the international business literature that appeared to have ignored the region. For example, a review of articles in two leading journals in the field of international business (Journal of International Business Studies and Management International Review) in the period 1987-1997 indicated that fewer than 6% of the articles mentioned Latin America (Elahee and Vaidya, 2001). This paucity of studies on the region had not changed in recent times. A review of studies in four leading international business journal (Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, Journal of World Business, and International Business Review) in 2001-2005 indicated that only 2.75% of articles studied firms in the region (Perez-Batres, Pisani and Doh, 2010). Nevertheless, a few analyses of multinationals have indicated that firms from this region are becoming multinational rapidly and some of them are becoming leaders in their industries (Casanova, 2009; Cuervo-Cazurra, 2008,; Fleury and Fleury, 2010; Santiso, 2013).

In this special issue we plan to take stock of what is known about these firms and identify potential avenues for future research. Other special issues of the Journal of World Business have analyzed various regions of the world such as India (Varma and Budhwar, 2012), China (Laforet, Paliwoda and Chen, 2012), Africa (Kamoche, 2011), the Middle East (Mellahi, Demirbag and Riddle, 2011), and Korea (Paik and Lee, 2008). This special issue contributes to the global scope of the Journal of World Business by studying firms from Latin America, which have, thus far, been underrepresented in the management and business literature (Brenes, Montoya and Ciravegna, 2014).  With this special issue, we aim to not only increase our understanding of Multilatinas, but also to identify the particular characteristics of their internationalization and how it compares with the internationalization of firms from other regions.

The rise of emerging market multinationals has been well documented (for example see the papers in the special issues edited by Aulakh, 2007; Cuervo-Cazurra, 2012; Gammeltoft, Barnard and Madhok, 2010; Luo and Tung, 2007; and in the books edited by Cuervo-Cazurra and Ramamurti, 2014; Ramamurti and Singh, 2007, Sauvant, 2008; Williamson et al., 2013), yet the literature on emerging market multinationals has thus far focused mainly on firms from regions other than Latin America. With this Special Issue of Journal of World Business, we aim to fill this gap, contributing to the international business literature and the body of knowledge documenting the practices of multinational companies.

This call is an attempt to integrate different aspects that might have influenced the growth and internationalization of Latin American firms. We welcome theoretical, empirical, methodological and case studies submission addressing, but not limited to, the following issues:

• ·         Successful Multilatinas expanding outside their region
• ·         Comparative ownership advantages/disadvantages of Multilatinas
• ·         Internationalization patterns of Latin American firms
• ·         The internationalization of state-owned Latin American firms
• ·         Institutional constraints for Latin American companies to internationalize
• ·         Foreign performance of Latin American firms
• ·         Effects of exports promotion agencies on the internationalization of Latin American firms
• ·         Governance in Multilatinas
• ·         The internationalization of Latin American business groups  
• ·         Global leadership in Multilatinas
• ·         Dimensions of management diversity in Multilatinas
• ·         Determinants of outward FDI from Latin America
• ·         The role of governments in Latin American International Business
• ·         Corporate social responsibility and sustainable practices in Multilatinas
• ·         The role of family-owned business conglomerates in Multilatinas
• ·         Oligopolistic structures and internationalization in Multilatinas
• ·         Multilatinas and economic and political crises
• ·         Cultural challenges in doing business from Latin America
• ·         The role of Latin American diaspora and returning emigrants in international business

Submission process:

By May 4, 2015, authors should submit their manuscripts online via the new Journal of World Business EES submission system. The link for submitting manuscript is: http://ees.elsevier.com/jwb. 

To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this Special Issue, it is important that authors select ‘SI: Latin American MNCs’ 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 blind review process.

We may organize a workshop designed to facilitate the development of papers. Authors of manuscripts that have progressed through the revision process will be invited to it. Presentation at the workshop is neither a requirement for nor a promise of final acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue.

Questions about the Special Issue may be directed to the guest editors:

• ·         Ruth V. Aguilera, Northeastern University, United States (r.aguilera@neu.edu)
• ·         Luciano Ciravegna, King’s College, London, UK, (Luciano.ciravegna@kcl.ac.uk)
• ·         Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Northeastern University, United States (a.cuervocazurra@neu.edu)
• ·         Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia (mgonza40@eafit.edu.co)

References:

Aulakh, P. S. (2007). Emerging multinationals from developing economies: motivations, paths, and performance. Journal of International Management, 13, 338-355.

Brenes, E. R., Montoya, D., & Ciravegna, L. (2014). Differentiation strategies in emerging markets: The case of Latin American agribusinesses. Journal of Business Research, 67, 847-855.

Casanova, L. (2009). Global Latinas: Latin America's emerging multinationals. Palgrave Macmillan.

Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2008). The multinationalization of developing country MNEs: The case of Multilatinas. Journal of International Management, 14, 138-154.

Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2012). How the analysis of developing country multinational companies helps advance theory: Solving the Goldilocks debate. Global Strategy Journal, 2, 153-167.

Cuervo-Cazurra, A., & Ramamurti, R. (2014). Understanding multinationals from emerging markets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Economist. (2001). Brazil's Gerdau: Who dares wins. The Economist. www.economist.com/node/374586

Economist. (2009). Special Reports Economist Brazil. The Economist. www.economist.com/node/14829517

Elahee, M. N., & Vaidya, S. P. (2001). Coverage of Latin American business and management issues in cross-cultural research: An analysis of JIBS and MIR 1987-1997. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, 4, 21-31. 

Fleury, A. & Fleury, M. T. L. (2011). Brazilian multinationals: Competences for internationalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Gammeltoft, P., Barnard, H., & Madhok, A. (2010). Emerging multinationals, emerging theory: macro- and micro-level perspectives. Journal of International Management, 16, 95-101.

Kamoche, K. (2011). Contemporary developments in the management of human resources in Africa. Journal of World Business, 46, 1-4.

Laforet, S. Paliwoda, S. and Chen, J. (2012). Introduction. Journal of World Business, 47, 1-3.

Luo, Y., & Tung, R. L. (2007). International expansion of emerging market enterprises: A springboard perspective. Journal of International Business Studies, 38, 481-498.

Mellahi, K., Demirbag, M., & Riddle, L. (2011). Multinationals in the Middle East: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of World Business, 46, 406-410.

Paik, Y., & Lee, S. H. (2008). Introduction. Journal of World Business, 43, 1-4.

Pérez-Batres, L.A., Pisani, M.J., & Doh, J.P. (2010). Latin America’s Contribution to IB Scholarship. Academy of International Business Insights, 10, 3-7. 

Ramamurti, R., & Singh, J. V. (eds). (2009). Emerging multinationals from emerging markets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Santiso, J. (2013). The decade of the Multilatinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sauvant, K. P. (ed). (2008). The rise of transnational corporations from emerging markets: Threat or opportunity? Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. (2012). International Human Resource Management in the Indian context. Journal of World Business, 47, 157-338.

Williamson, P., Ramamurti, R., Fleury, A., & Fleury, M. T. (eds). (2013). Competitive advantages of emerging country multinationals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Call for Papers: Journal of World Business Special Issue on Business Group Affiliation and Internationalization of Emerging Market Firms

Journal of World Business

Special Issue on Business Group Affiliation and Internationalization of Emerging Market Firms.

Business Group Affiliation and Internationalization of Emerging Market Firms

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2015

• Guest Editors: Ajai Gaur, Jane Lu, Vikas Kumar, Robert Hoskisson

Business groups are prevalent in both developed and emerging markets (Ghemawat & Khanna, 1998) and constitute the dominant organizational form in many emerging markets (Chung & Luo, 2008; Khanna & Rivkin, 2001). Scholars have utilized multiple theoretical perspectives, including institutional economics, sociology and resource-based view to define, characterize and comprehend business groups. Business groups play an important role in emerging markets by filling institutional voids and creating their own internal capital, labor and product markets (Khanna & Palepu, 2000a). There are important differences between group affiliated and unaffiliated firms in emerging economies, in terms of their underlying resource base and embeddedness in the institutional and social fabric of the local market. To add to this complexity, institutional environments in emerging economies are constantly evolving and thereby impacting strategy, particularly of organizations such as business groups that are highly embedded in the domestic context (Hoskisson, Eden, Lau, & Wright, 2000; Hoskisson, Wright, Filatotchev, & Peng, 2013). Internationalization of business group firms under such tumultuous conditions presents a rich context for advancing internationalization theory and, in particular, contributing to a better understanding of the strategic adaptation of emerging market firms.

The extant literature on business group has primarily focused on how groups as a whole and/or firms affiliated to groups perform in their home countries (e.g. Chacar & Vissa, 2005; Chang, Chung, & Mahmood, 2006; Douma, George, & Kabir, 2006; Khanna & Palepu, 2000a; 2000b; Khanna & Rivkin, 2001). There are only a few studies that have explored the impact that affiliation to a business group has on the degree of internationalization of the focal firm, and present inconclusive findings (e.g. Chang, 1995; Kim, Kim, & Hoskisson, 2010). Examining not only institutional differences but also factor market difference between home and host countries also seems to matter with regard to internationalization from emerging economies (Kim, Hoskisson, & Lee, 2014). In the wake of the recent widespread and accelerated internationalization of emerging market firms, including many that are affiliated to larger business groups, the internationalization of business group affiliated firms warrants a deeper and systematic investigation from a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches.

As emerging economies develop and become mid-range economies (Hoskisson, et al., 2013), how does this change the nature of business groups and their internationalization strategies. Do they restructure their portfolios as transaction cost theory would imply (Hoskisson, Johnson, Tihanyi, & White, 2005)? Do they substitute domestic product diversification for more internationalization (Meyer, 2006)? How are they structured and governed differently (Chittoor, Kale, Puranam, 2014) as the country settings change and as they pursue increased innovation and internationalization (Yiu, Hoskisson, Bruton, Lu, 2014)? How does government ownership influence their corporate and internationalization strategies (White, Hoskisson, Yiu, & Bruton, 2008)?

Many studies simply use dummies to distinguish group affiliates from independent firms. This approach assumes all affiliates benefit equally, which is questionable due to differences in value capture. For example, research shows that affiliate firms differ in their ability to capture benefits from internationalization; in this study more powerful group firms benefit from internationalization compared to less powerful affiliates (Wan, Hoskisson, & Kim, 2004). However, we have limited understanding of differences in power and of value capture among affiliates because few scholars examine heterogeneity among group affiliates.

The special issue solicits scholarly contributions that provide a finer-grained analysis of the internationalization of business group affiliated firms from emerging markets, encapsulating the unique attributes of business groups as well as that of the institutional and cultural contexts where they prosper. The following is an illustrative list of questions:

• 1. How is the efficacy of business groups affected due to the rapidly changing institutional environment in EEs?
• 2. Business groups are social structures deeply embedded in the broader institutional environment of EEs. How does this embeddnesses affect the internationalization propensity of their affiliates?
• 3. What are the similarities and differences between business groups from different emerging economies as well as developed economies and how do these similarities/differences affect their internationalization behavior?
• 4. How are business groups organized and managed differently in different country institutional and factor market settings? What organizational transformation are business groups undergoing to respond to the changes in the external institutional environment
• 5. What are the unique resources and capabilities of business groups? How do these capabilities help group affiliated firms in internationalization?
• 6. Are the advantages and/or disadvantages of affiliation to business group context-dependent? How do individual business affiliate firms benefit more or less from group affiliation?
• 7. Do advantages and/or disadvantages transfer to foreign markets when EE firms internationalize their operations?
• 8. How do business groups extend their group like structure in foreign markets?
• 9. How does the presence of a business group in an industry affect the industry-wide innovation and internationalization?
• 10. How do the foreign market entry modes different between group affiliated and unaffiliated firms?

We encourage potential contributors to examine the internationalization of business groups from different theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches, including multi-level models and case studies. Authors should not merely be testing the existing theories in the context of business groups, but make use of the novel context to develop new theories and explanations, and thereby enrich our understanding of firm internationalization behavior in general, and of business group internationalization behavior in particular.

Submission Process:

By March 1, 2015 all manuscripts should be submitted using the online submission system. The link for submitting manuscript is: http://ees.elsevier.com/jwb.
To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this Special Issue, it is important that authors select ‘SI: Business Groups’ when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process.
We may organize a workshop designed to facilitate the development of papers. Authors of manuscripts that have progressed through the revision process will be invited to it. Presentation at the workshop is neither a requirement for nor a promise of final acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue.

Questions about the special issue may be directed to any of the following guest editors:

• Ajai Gaur, Rutgers University, USA ajai@business.rutgers.edu<mailto:ajai@business.rutgers.edu>
• Jane Lu, University of Melbourne, Australia jane.lu@unimelb.edu.au<mailto:jane.lu@unimelb.edu.au>
• Vikas Kumar, University of Sydney, Australia vikas.kumar@sydney.edu.au<mailto:vikas.kumar@sydney.edu.au>
• Robert E. Hoskisson, Rice University robert.hoskisson@rice.edu<mailto:robert.hoskisson@rice.edu>

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