CfP. International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems. Innovation in Latin America

International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems

Call for Papers for Special Issue on: “Innovation in Latin America”

Guest Editors

• Prof. Jerry Haar, Florida International University, USA
• Prof. Robert E. Grosse, Thunderbird School of Global Management, USA 

The aim of this special issue is to attract research that addresses and discusses the emergence, status and outlook for innovation in Latin America embodied in its many aspects and dimensions. The transformational (and disruptive) prowess of globalisation continues to impact nearly every nation on the globe. Industrialised and developing countries in every region are experiencing its effects economically, socially, and politically. While both the public and private sectors have, indeed, allocated greater resources to boost growth (and profitability), in manufacturing, services, and natural resources, sustaining competitive levels of performance is more and more difficult. The recognised solution for countries, industries, and firms is to innovate.

Innovation is impacting every region and functional dimension of the global economy. It is an essential driver of economic productivity, social progress, and ultimately human achievement. Innovation is inextricably tied to success and profit, whether the enterprise is a technological giant like Microsoft or Siemens; a natural resources firm like CVRD or BHP Billiton; a conglomerate like Samsung or GE; or a small or medium-sized global enterprise. 

With reference to Latin America, it is the second most entrepreneurial region in the world, according to the World Bank. Its Internet and mobile density are higher than the world average, and the accelerated pace of start-ups - both tech and non-tech based - has been occurring irrespective of economic and political ups and downs in the region. Last year, start-ups in Latin American ballooned to 1,333 and accelerators to 62, with investment approaching $32 million. 

Within this context the ecosystem of innovation in Latin America is built upon the interrelationship between three drivers: national policy (although subnational policies are important, as well), facilitating institutions (e.g. science parks, R&D labs, accelerators, incubators), and firm-level innovation. Each continues to shape the competitiveness of countries and regions in the hemisphere, as well. 

There is a real challenge to innovation in Latin America in that the level of R&D activity is far below that in the Triad countries (US, Japan, and EU), as well as far below that in Eastern Europe and developing Asia. It would be useful to see some discussion of how Latin American companies and governments can stimulate more R&D – as well as pursuing even greater innovation in business models and practices, as evidenced by the high level of entrepreneurship noted above.

Subject Coverage

Topics 

include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Innovation in the structure, organisation and management of the firm 
• Product, process, service and business model innovation 
• Macro-level economic and regulatory policies that impact innovativeness 
• New thinking on innovation in the services sector 
• Innovation in HR policies and practices 
• Open Innovation 
• Innovation in export-oriented small and medium size firms 
• How do we measure innovation? 

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. Please read our Submitting articles page.

If you have any queries concerning this special issue, please email the Guest Editors Prof. Jerry Haar at haarj@fiu.edu and Prof. Robert E. Grosse at grosser@global.t-bird.edu  .

Important Dates

• Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2017 
• Notification to authors: 15 March, 2018
• Final versions due: 15 May, 2018

CfP: Strategy, Innovation, and New Ventures in the New Normal Global Business Landscape

Journal of Management Studies

Special Issue Call for Papers:

Strategy, Innovation, and New Ventures  in the New Normal Global Business Landscape

Submission Deadline: 15 December 2017

Guest Editors:

• David Ahlstrom, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Management (ahlstrom@baf.cuhk.edu.hk)
• Jean-Luc Arregle, EM Lyon Business School (arregle@em-lyon.com)
• Michael A. Hitt, Texas Christian University, Neeley School of Business and Texas A&M University, Mays School of Business (m.a.hitt@tcu.edu)
• Xufei Ma, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Management (xufei@baf.cuhk.edu.hk)
• Gongming Qian, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Management (qian@baf.cuhk.edu.hk)

JMS Editor:

• Dries Faems, University of Groningen, Dept. of Innovation Management & Strategy (d.l.m.faems@rug.nl)

Overview

At the end of the 1990s, Hitt and colleagues (Hitt, Keats & DeMarie, 1998) introduced the notion of the new competitive landscape to describe the emergence of a changing business environment. That newer environment was characterized by more turbulent and technology-intensive conditions where some firms (and countries) grew at almost unheard of rates and new competitors could appear unexpectedly, assisted by new technologies as well as the increased globalization that facilitated market entry, cost arbitrage, and scale. However, the current competitive landscape is shifting once again. Since the worldwide financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, coupled with simmering populist concerns, we are seeing emergence of a new business landscape changing the environment for firms once again – i.e. a New Normal whereby something that was previously unusual has started to become more commonplace (El-Erian, 2010; Hitt, Li, & Xu, 2016). In a 2010 talk titled Navigating the New Normal in Industrial Countries, the head of PIMCO, Mohamed A. El-Erian stated: “Our use of the term was an attempt to move the discussion beyond the notion that the [financial] crisis was a mere flesh wound...instead the crisis cut to the bone. It was the inevitable result of an extraordinary, multiyear period which was anything but normal." International Monetary Fund Director, Christine Lagarde, added in October 2014 that the advanced economies may be facing a “new mediocre,” while former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, foresaw an era of “secular stagnation.”

The New Normal

It has become increasingly clear that a restructuring of the economic order has been taking place, and has particularly affected multinational enterprises (MNEs), and others doing business across borders. After the 2008 crisis for example, capital flows between countries and trade in goods and services have retreated significantly to levels not seen in a quarter century (Sharma, 2016: 2). Foreign direct investment has fallen from its pre-crisis high of over $3 trillion to around $2 trillion in 2015 (The World Bank, 2017). The more developed economies could linger in a low-level growth equilibrium for an unusually prolonged period (El-Erian, 2016). High debts caused in part by heavy reliance on accommodating monetary policy, may be prolonging that equilibrium. This may also mean costlier capital, an expanded role for governments, and a much larger burden of regulation and taxation for all, as firms find it more difficult to shift activities and park funds in the most favorable locations.

Before the financial crash, many companies had moved or were moving toward globally integrated structures, many encompassing hundreds of locations for various corporate activities. But the notion that we live in a world where the constituent parts of enterprises can be unbundled and distributed almost anywhere at will has been challenged by economic volatility, and changing political sentiments regarding borders, trade, and disruptive new (often local) competitors. The related inattention to the negative labor market and legitimacy consequences of trade and globalization may have further helped to energize populists opposition and the issues for multinational enterprises. At the same time, labor markets have become less dynamic and flexible, contributing to increasing inequality, which itself is hurting economic growth and increasing resentment toward wealthier individuals and firms, and the free trade they encourage (Autor, Dorn, and Hanson, 2016). This labor inflexibility is also seen in projections forecasting shortfalls in the global supply of many categories of engineers and other technical personnel.

The New Normal economy thus challenges how businesses are organized and governed, and even raises concerns with respect to their position in previously difficult-to-contest markets based on scale and scope economies and other thought-to-be strong barriers to competition (Davis, 2016). Global firms and entrepreneurs alike must account for these developments in terms of their plans and strategies in the coming years. Thus, the purpose of this Special Issue (SI) is to explore and explain the ways in which the New Normal affects strategies, innovation, and new venture activity. 

Core Goals of the Special Issue

• First, this SI seeks a clearer conceptualization of the New Normal. Which major economic and commercial changes have occurred and are occurring during this time? How do these changes influence different environmental conditions related to economic growth, industrial environments, commercial practices, and important formal and informal institutions?
• Second, this SI also seeks to increase our understanding of how the New Normal conditions impact key actors at various levels such as MNEs, suppliers, entrepreneurs, investors, and customers. We hope to refine our understanding of the contexts wherein the New Normal is most likely to have its greatest impact.
• Third, this SI hopes to provide a better understanding of how the New Normal conditions unfolding in different domains and different locations may have impact across different actors and ecosystems. Our SI will also seek manuscripts that address big research questions across levels of analysis and create foundational knowledge on a range of topics that addresses the strategic, operational, governance, institutional and performance consequences of the New Normal environment. Contributors are encouraged to provide not only quantitative or qualitative empirical evidence, but also new theory and concepts that can help to explain how some firms are able to adapt to and profit from the New Normal environment.

Possible topics

There are a number of topics/issues that can be addressed in the SI. In particular, it seeks to examine firm strategies, innovation, cooperation, and new venture creation in this New Normal environment. Several possible topics for the SI are provided below, though they need not be limited to these.

• I. Strategies

A. Global and Business Level

1. Globalization in the New Normal: A positive or malevolent force? In many developed countries, optimistic and positive feelings about a “Global World” have been replaced by negative ones, blaming globalization and unrooted, widely distributed corporate structures for existing economic or societal problems. How have MNEs been dealing with these legitimacy concerns? Are they purely problems of perception and reputation, or can something else be done?
2.  Entry-related issues in the New Normal: In recent years, lower-tech, less environmentally-friendly industries have been less desired by many host countries, while industries using high-tech and clean-energy are preferred. How have potential multinational entrants responded to these and other changes in industrial policies and how they should respond?
3.  Exit-related issues in the New Normal: Given the increase in the cost of doing business in some formerly “hot” host countries such as China in which costs are rising, how will multinational firms design and implement retrenchment or exit strategies if it becomes necessary to back out of foreign investments? Will they return to their home countries?
4.  Regional strategies in the New Normal: Companies whose strategies currently emphasize flexible supply chains, arbitraging costs, and achieving economies of scale across national boundaries may need to shift toward embeddedness, adapting to local conditions. Companies whose strategies emphasize arbitrage—taking advantage of differences—may need to make the same shift.

B. Strategies – Corporate (Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategic Alliances)

In the face of economic slowdown, overcapacity and low interest rates, there are numerous questions and issues related to use of corporate strategies in the new environment:

1.  What types of M&A or alliances are most effective for a firm to deal with environmental challenges of the New Normal?
2.  What potential difficulties/problems with the corporate strategies exist under the New Normal that may not have been problems before the changes of the past decade?
3.  Will M&As enable firms to take advantage of environmental changes in the New Normal?
4. Will M&As prompt domestic firms to increase the pace of international market expansion under the New Normal?
5. What attitudes of governments towards M&As and particularly towards international M&As are likely to exist? Are they preventing or encouraging M&As under the New Normal?
6. What strategies can firms best use to achieve their desired growth?

II. Innovation

1. In the New Normal, economic weakness, extra capacity, and possibly a shift in the zeitgeist toward more frugality, may put downward pressure on prices. Expansion into poorer markets at home and abroad will intensify this trend. How should firms respond to this pressure (and opportunities)?
2. Are more entrepreneurs and firms pursuing disruptive innovation in the New Normal and what are the outcomes of this innovation strategy?
3. A sustainable competitive position is more difficult if a company is unable to innovate its business model. How do firms develop business model innovations in the New Normal?
4. How does management innovation help firms design and implement organizational transformation in the New Normal?
5. Why and how do firms conduct social innovations for a sustainable development in the New Normal? 
6. Market-creating innovations use capital to scale up to a greater extent than more common incremental innovations to enhance efficiency. How can these crucial market-creating innovations be encouraged in the New Normal?

III. New ventures 

1. Does the New Normal enhance or hinder entrepreneurial activity?
2. What forms of new ventures may be required for the New Normal?
3.  What are the mechanisms for firms to conduct new opportunity discovery, evaluation, and exploitation in the New Normal?
4. How do new entrepreneurial firms adapt to changes such as low interest rates and trade barriers in the New Normal?
5. In the New Normal, what strategies help new entrepreneurial firms to strengthen their competitiveness domestically and internationally?
6.  The New Normal conditions also suggest that efficiency ratios such as ROI may not be as helpful for resource allocation decisions. What other measures are appropriate for managers and venture capitalists to use in making investment decisions?
7.  How is economic growth proceeding in the New Normal compared to the past two decades? Are the most commonly publicized figures masking things of which management and IB researchers should be aware? 

Submission Process and Deadlines

•  Submissions should be prepared using the JMS Manuscript Preparation Guidelines.
• Manuscripts should be submitted by 23 December 2017 to Margaret Turner (business.jms@durham.ac.uk).
• Manuscripts will be reviewed according to the JMS double-blind review process.
• For informal inquires related to the Special Issue, proposed topics and potential fit with the Special Issue objectives, please contact the guest editors.

Special Issue Workshop:

 To help authors advance their manuscripts, a Special Issue Workshop may be held on or around 9 August 2018 (possibly immediately before the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago, USA). If there is a workshop, authors of R&R manuscripts will be invited to present and discuss their papers during the workshop. However, presentation at the workshop will not guarantee acceptance of a paper for publication in JMS. Also, attending the workshop will not be a precondition for acceptance of a paper for the Special Issue.

CfP: Location, Collocation and Innovation across National Borders

Call for Papers

Special issue of Industry and Innovation

“Location, Collocation and Innovation across National Borders:
Connecting the International Business, Economic Geography and Innovation Communities”

Full papers deadline: 31 December 2015

Guest Editors

Ram Mudambi, Fox School of Business, Temple University (USA), Rajneesh Narula, Henley Business School, University of Reading (UK), and Grazia D. Santangelo, University of Catania (Italy)

The distribution of economic value creating activities across space has intrigued scholars since at least the nineteenth century. Over the course of the last century, this phenomenon has been studied from different perspectives with economic geographers and regional scientists leading the trend. The growing interest in geography in the international business community is reflected in a number of special issues in IB journals. This special of Industry and Innovation seeks to expand the understanding of cross-border innovative activities along at least two dimensions.

First, traditionally international business scholars have focused on the organization of economic activities and less so on the characteristics of places (Beugelsdijk et al., 2010). In other words, economic geography has focused on the location, while international business scholars have examined the (multinational) firm. Second, the recent debate on the propensity of firms to collocate innovative activity remains lively. In particular, multinationals face collocation advantages and disadvantages when crossing international borders and selecting host locations (Narula and Santangelo, 2009, 2012). On the one hand, multinationals may wish to collocate with unaffiliated firms (e.g. suppliers, competitors, or customers) to internalize L-advantages in order to enhance and create firm-specific advantages. On the other, firms may either deliberately avoid collocating (Alcacer, 2006) or resort to strategies to monitor collocated partners (Narula and Santangelo, 2009) in order to limit dissipation of unintended knowledge flows. Both collocation advantages and disadvantages are not automatic and critically depend on the public goods nature of the Ladvantagesto be internalized, the level of competition, MNC technological leadership and insidership in the host location (Alca´cer, 2006; Alca´cer and Chung, 2007; Cantwell and Mudambi, 2011). Embeddedness in multiple local contexts creates opportunities, but also raises challenges, particularly in terms of stressing the bandwidth of managers who must handle the increasing complexity (Meyer et al., 2011). We are still missing a clear picture and a full understanding of the boundary conditions of collocation advantages and disadvantages. 

This special issue intends to offer a further forum bridging the international business community with economic geography, and start a new forum where these two communities could connect with innovation scholars. The ultimate aim is to achieve a fruitful cross-fertilization of the three fields in order to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of the organizational and geographical dimension of cross-border innovative activities. 

The special issue welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions, which draw on different theoretical streams. Research adopting a variety of research methodologies is welcome, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed- method approaches. Empirical studies should explicitly contribute to a theoretical agenda, and preferably be based on novel and exclusive data. Papers that are primarily descriptive are not welcome. Possible topics and research questions that would be appropriate for this special section would include, but would not be limited to, the following list:

1. What are the implications of the rise of knowledge-intensive intangibles for MNEs’ location and organizational strategies? Does this phenomenon provide new advantages for international new ventures? Does the rise of knowledge-intensive intangibles shift collocation advantage in disadvantages and vice versa?
2. Do MNEs exposed to multiple sources of knowledge dissipation need new strategies to protect their ownership advantages? Is modularity a panacea?
3. Would the nature of collocation advantages and/or disadvantages MNEs face in emerging markets be different than in advanced economies? Would the boundary conditions for collocation advantages be different in emerging market clusters?

Submission Process

Manuscripts of a maximum of 6,000 words should be prepared in accordance with Industry and Innovation guidelines and submitted by December 31, 2015 via the online journal submission system by selecting this special issue title. The online submission system for the special issue will open on December 15, 2015. No earlier submissions will be accepted.

References

Alcacer, J. 2006. “Location Choices across the Value Chain: How Activity and Capability Influence Collocation.” Management Science 52: 1457–1471.

Alcacer, J., and W. Chung. 2007. “Location strategies and knowledge spillovers.” Management Science 53: 760–776.

Beugelsdijk, S., P. McCann, and R. Mudambi. 2010. “Introduction: Place, space and organization— economic geography and the multinational enterprise.” Journal of Economic Geography 10: 485–493.

Cantwell, J. A., and R. Mudambi. 2011. “Physical attraction and the geography of knowledge sourcing in multinational enterprises.” Global Strategy Journal 1: 206–232.

Meyer, K., R. Mudambi, and R. Narula. 2011. “Multinational enterprises and local contexts: The opportunities and challenges of multiple embeddedness.” Journal of Management Studies 48: 235–252.

Narula, R., and G. D. Santangelo. 2009. “Location, collocation and R&D alliances in the European ICT industry.” Research Policy 38: 393–403.

Narula, R., and G. D. Santangelo. 2012. “Location and collocation advantages in international innovation.” Multinational Business Review 20: 6–25.



Professor Grazia Santangelo
Jean Monnet Chair International Business for European Union (IB4EU)
Department of Political and Social Science
University of Catania
Via Vittorio Emanuele II, 8
95131 Catania
ITALY

http://www.dsps.unict.it/content/scheda-docente?cf=U05UR1pENzNBNDlHMzcxSA==

Call for conference papers: AIB-Lat 2016

Innovation Environments and Global Value Chains in Latin America

6th AIB-LAT Annual Conference - February 18-20, 2016 

São Paulo - Brazil

Innovation environments (clusters, technology parks and business incubators) can play an important role in integrating Latin American firms into global value chains (GVC) in a more qualified way. On the one hand, innovation environments have attracted R&D&I units of MNCs to Latin America and thus have fostered innovation in the region. There are successful cases in specific industries such as oil and gas, automotive, biomed, IT and others. On the other hand, there is growing interest in inserting Latin American firms in GVCs in order to increase international trade and capture value in the innovation steps in those GVCs. The Global Open Innovation approach can help in this regard. However, this context imposes several challenges and questions arise:

How to attract R&D&I units of MNCs to innovation environments in Latin America? How to insert Latin American firms into the innovation steps of GVCs? What are the dilemmas in the internationalization of innovation environments? How to manage Global Open Innovation? What is the role of government? How to identify which industries should be focused upon? How to stimulate the internationalization of technology based firms from Latin America?

To deal with these interesting issues, the Latin American Chapter of the Academy of International Business is pleased to announce that the conference "Innovation Environments and Global Value Chains in Latin America" will be held in São Paulo, Brazil at FEA – Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade, USP - Universidade de São Paulo, on February 18-20, 2016. This AIB-LAT conference aims to promote the best and latest research findings and theoretical developments in the fields of Innovation Environments and Global Value Chains in Latin America.

We cordially invite you to share your experience in this research field by submitting empirical and conceptual papers explicitly or implicitly related to the theme of the conference. Papers more broadly based on international business and Latin America will also be accepted. Below is an illustrative list of topics that will be considered:

• Global value chains in Latin America
• Internationalization of innovation environments
• Global strategy and innovation
• Global open innovation
• Multinational and subsidiary management
• Internationalization in Latin America and entry modes o Knowledge management in the region
• International marketing
• International human resources management
• Corporate social responsibility and international business ethics 
• Inward and outward FDI
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Offshoring and outsourcing in the region
• Corporate governance, international finance,  international standards
• Regional policies, IGOs, NGOs
• International social entrepreneurship
• Research methods in international business o Cross-cultural management
• Internationalization of family firms

Submission of papers:

Deadline for full paper submissions: 19th October 2015
Communication to the applicants: 26th October 2015.

O
Visit the AIB-LAT website in the next few weeks for more information: www.aib-lat.org

or submit your questions to: lat2016@aib.msu.edu


Conference Chair: Dr. Moacir de Miranda Oliveira Jr., University of São Paulo Chapter Chair: Dr. William Newburry, Florida International University

AIB-LAT is the Latin American Chapter of the Academy of International Business (AIB) and it is the leading association of scholars and specialists in the field of international business in Latin America. In its mission to advance the teaching and scientific research of all areas of international business, AIB-LAT is now accepting proposals related to the conference theme.

Call for papers. New advantage and liability sources in entrepreneurial firms:

Group & Organization Management 

Call for Papers for a Special Issue

NEW ADVANTAGE AND LIABILITY SOURCES IN ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS: ASSESSING PROGRESS AND EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES

Submission Period: June 30, 2015-August 31, 2015

Guest Editors:

Hans Landström, Lund University Franz Lohrke, Samford University

Background and Special Issue Purpose

2015 marks the 50th anniversary and 2016 the 30th anniversary, respectively, of Stinchcombe’s (1965) landmark work on liabilities of newness and Auster and Aldrich’s (1986) seminal work on liabilities of smallness. Do new ventures (NVs) still face the same daunting survival odds scholars first asserted a half century ago or are they innovative, flexible organizations that attract customers, suppliers, and investors? Are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) unable to compete effectively with or can they respond to changing competitive environments better than their larger counterparts? Extant research provides ample evidence that both these contrasting views may be valid.

On the one hand, scholars have found a positive relationship between firm newness and failure, often referred to as ‘liabilities of newness.’ These findings support the long-standing hypothesis that factors related to newness, such as low organizational legitimacy with external stakeholders, may contribute to high NV financial distress and failure rates (DeVaughn & Leary, 2010). Similarly, scholars have noted that SMEs face size disadvantages (i.e., ‘liabilities of smallness’), including inabilities to capture economies of scale, develop a strong brand name, attract top managerial talent, or gain bargaining power with key stakeholders (Strotmann, 2007).

On the other hand, other theoretical and empirical studies have suggested that NVs and SMEs may actually enjoy important strategic advantages. For example, NVs may enjoy ‘assets of newness’ resulting from high strategic flexibility and attractiveness to early adopters (Choi & Shepherd, 2005). In addition, SMEs may be able to avoid organizational inertia and respond more quickly than large enterprises can to competitive threats in dynamic environments (Chen & Hambrick, 1995).

These latter perspectives may be enhanced by recent innovations and other trends that could boost NV and SME advantages and/or partially mitigate their disadvantages. For example, NVs and SMEs can now build a brand name and find critical human resources talent via social media, access essential software via cloud computing, prototype products with 3D printing, outsource production to overcome capacity constraints, run geographically dispersed operations with virtual teams, and raise capital for new business ideas through crowdfunding. In addition, national and local governments have often tried to support entrepreneurship by passing favorable legislation and establishing incubation facilities. These innovations and policies have lowered industry entry barriers as well as enhanced the ability of NVs and SMEs to compete on a more equal footing with their more established and larger counterparts.

Although research has provided insights into some innovations and trends affecting liabilities of newness and smallness, studies of other topics remain extremely limited. For example, although a large body of work exists examining the value of incubation facilities, only a handful of studies, to date, have examined advantages entrepreneurs can gain from employing social media, 3D printing, virtual teams, and crowdfunding to help overcome their firms’ respective liabilities.

Accordingly, this special issue seeks to examine if and how critical issues related to liabilities of newness and liabilities of smallness have changed, given recent technological innovations and other trends. We believe that a special issue devoted to these topics is especially timely, not only because this research can inform current management theory, policy, and practice but also because it has now been five and three decades, respectively, since the publication of Stinchcombe’s (1965) and Auster and Aldrich’s (1986) seminal works. These anniversaries provide an ideal time to reflect on findings, to date, and examine future research avenues.

Possible Research Questions

For this special issue, we are looking for submissions that provide important conceptual and empirical insights about liabilities of newness or smallness that would be of interest to a wide range of organizational scholars. Appropriate topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Entrepreneurship and innovation: Do NVs and SMEs implement organizational changes required by the advent of new technologies more easily than their older and larger counterparts? How are NVs structurally “imprinted” by their founding during times when new technologies develop? Does adopting new technologies enhance NV or SME innovation? What role does absorptive capacity in these firms have on their ultimate success with innovations? 
• Strategic management: What specific strategies can firms use to overcome liabilities of newness and smallness? How and when can NVs exploit ‘assets of newness’ to develop competitive advantages? How will recent innovations affect the overall entrepreneurship process of opportunity identification, evaluation, and exploitation? 
• Public policy: How can government policies help mitigate liabilities of newness and smallness? What role do institutions such as business incubator and university technology transfer programs have in reducing these liabilities? How could lower entry barriers resulting from these technologies and trends impact industry structure and, in turn, NV and SME performance? 
• Technology and innovation: What impact will new technologies and trends have on NV and SME access to critical resources such as capital and human resources talent? Can these firms use technologies developed externally to build a sustainable competitive advantage? 
• Social entrepreneurship: Do key success factors for employing new technologies differ between public organizations and private firms? Do non-profits and socially missioned for-profit firms have any advantages or disadvantages relative to traditional for-profit firms in using new technologies like crowdfunding?
• International management and entrepreneurship: How will these innovations impact the process of creating and managing new international ventures? Can small companies employ innovations such as virtual teams to expand their operational scope internationally? 
• Behavioral issues: Are NVs and SMEs with higher entrepreneurial orientation more likely to adopt and successfully exploit new technologies? What linguistic cues and other actions can entrepreneurs use to enhance the probability of successful crowdfunding campaigns? 
• Ethical and legal issues: What ethical issues arise for entrepreneurs when employing technological advances such as 3D printing, social media, and crowdfunding? What impact will these technologies have on the value of patents and copyrights? 

Deadlines, Submission, and Review Process

Submissions should be prepared in accordance with Group & Organization Management guidelines. The submission window will be open between June 30 and August 31, 2015. For additional guidelines, please see ‘Manuscript Submission” at http://www.sagepub.com/journals/Journal200823/ manuscriptSubmission.

Further Information

For questions regarding the content of this special issue, please contact the guest editors:

• Hans Landström, Lund University, hans.landstrom@fek.lu.se  
• Franz Lohrke, Samford University, ftlohrke@samford.edu

References

• Auster, E. R. & Aldrich, H. (1986). Even dwarfs started small: Liabilities of age and size and their strategic implications. Research in Organizational Behavior, 8: 165-198. 
• Chen, M.-J. & Hambrick, D. C. (1995). Speed, stealth, and selective attack: How small firms differ from large firms in competitive behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 453-482. 
• Choi, Y. R., & Shepherd, D. A. (2005). Stakeholder perceptions of age and other dimensions of newness. Journal of Management, 31, 573-596. 
• DeVaughn, M. L., & Leary, M. M. (2010). Antecedents of failure for newly chartered banks in the U.S. banking industry. Group & Organization Management, 35, 666-695. 
• Stinchcombe, A. (1965). Organizations and social structure. In J. G. March (ed.), Handbook of organizations, pp.142-193. Chicago: Rand McNally. 
• Strotmann, H. (2007). Entrepreneurial survival. Small Business Economics, 28, 84-101.

Call for conference papers: 8th Annual Conference of the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

8th Annual Conference of the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

http://www.aieconference.org

Co-organized by

• National Entrepreneurship Research Centre, Tsinghua University, China
• Technology and Management Centre for Development, Oxford University, UK
• Canada-China Institute for Business and Development, Ryerson University, Canada

Co-Chairs

• Dr. Steven Murphy, Dean, Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University
• Dr. Jian Gao, Senior Associate Dean, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University
• Dr. Xiaolan Fu, Director, Technology and Management Centre for Development, Oxford University

Call for Proposals:

Ryerson, Tsinghua and Oxford universities are pleased to announce that the 8th Annual Conference for the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (#AIE2015) will be held for the first time in beautiful Toronto, Canada from August 20-21, 2015. The AIE conference was first held in 2008 at Tsinghua University in Beijing, consistently ranked as one of China’s top institutions for higher learning and mentioned in Forbes as building China’s next generation of entrepreneurs. The conference has since taken place at the prestigious Oxford University in London, England. Oxford has promoted entrepreneurship and innovation through its Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship and the Technology and Management Centre for Development. A truly international conference, it has attracted more than 1,500 participants from more than 27 countries over the years. This time, conference participants will have the unique opportunity to experience Canada as an innovation nation. Toronto has a vibrant entrepreneurial sector, as exemplified by Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ), one of the top ranked incubators in the world. Zones under the umbrella of the DMZ include the Center for Urban Energy, Fashion Zone, Design Fabrication Zone, Transmedia Zone, and Social Ventures Zone. Coming in the future are Aerospace , Biomed and Sports Zones and others. The DMZ has internationalized its model to India and will be duplicated in other emerging economies. The multitude of industries represented by the zones and programs at Ryerson University is reflective of the bustling and buzzing city of Toronto, a highly economically diversified city on Lake Ontario. While surrounded by natural beauty, including the Toronto Islands, wine country just south of the city, and the Canadian Shield to the north, Toronto is also diverse and glamorous for its variety of people and events. Known as “Hollywood of the North”, especially because it hosts one of the most prestigious film events in the world, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), many movies are made here. Ryerson even has a Creative Industries program as reflective of our vibrant arts scene. There is no end to things to do in Toronto, even for those of us who live here! The AIE Conference provides a broad platform to convene scholars from around the world to present research and to stimulate discussions on critical research issues and new developments in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Conference Team:  Building An Inclusive Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

The conference has an overarching theme that emphasizes the important role of entrepreneurship in a sustainable innovation ecosystem and the impact of diversity on entrepreneurial development and social innovation. It covers the following topics of interest but is not limited to:

• The role of entrepreneurship in the economic diversification and development process
• New business creation process, incubators, and accelerators
• The role of entrepreneurship in innovation and revitalization of corporations
• Cross-sector partnerships for increasing innovation
• The role of government and public policy in innovation
• The role and effects of education and training on innovation
• University based new ventures and student engagement
• Sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation with a focus on solving environmental issues
• Technology-based venturing and management of technological innovations
• Venture capital, angel investing, and entrepreneurial finance 
• Creation and management of family business
• Diversity within innovation and entrepreneurship (e.g., women, immigrants, aboriginal peoples, visible minorities, persons with disability and seniors)
• Social innovation and entrepreneurship
• Technological innovation to bridge rural-urban divides
• International entrepreneurship and “born global” strategies
• Entrepreneurship in and design of innovations for low income or emerging markets 

Important Dates

• May 15, 2015 Proposal Deadline - Extended from April 15, 2015
• June 30, 2015 Final Submissions (including papers, photos and profiles)
• August 20-21, 2015 AIE Conference

Submission

Applicants are invited to submit proposals in two of the following ways:

1) Individual proposals that consist of:

• Title
• Theme(s) addressed
• Full contact information
• An abstract of your paper consisting of no more than 500 words (2 pages) 
• An updated CV

2) Panel sessions of 3-5 participants that consist of:

• Proposed title of the panel session
• Theme(s) addressed
• A 500 word (2 pages) overview of the main theme(s) discussed in the panel and how each paper interconnects 
• Full contact information of each participant
• Updated CVs for all participants 

Please submit your proposal in electronic format (in one Word or PDF document) to

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aie2015 by April 15 (11:59pm EST). Proposals received after this time will not be considered. The conference encourages proposals from current and emerging scholars, those in public policy and industry partners. You will be notified electronically of your acceptance no later than May 15 2015

Presenters whose proposals are accepted for the conference will be invited to submit full papers of no more than 20-25 pages on the topic outlined in your abstract. The best paper selected by the conference committee will win the Best Paper Award co-sponsored by Emerald Publishing and will be considered for publication by the Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies. For more information on the conference please visit http://www.aieconference.org, and for general help and administrative matters please contact AIE Support at aie@sem.tsinghua.edu.cn

Call for papers: International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (IJEI)

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (IJEI) and Industry and Higher Education

Call for papers:

The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ISSN 1465-7503) is a refereed journal and is published in February, May, August and November. Online access to the electronic edition is provided as a free supplement to subscribers to the printed journal.

Key topics

• Strategic dimensions of growth
• The entrepreneur as manager of a growing company
• Financing company growth
• Internationalization and growth
• The acquisitions process of a growing company
• Teaching entrepreneurship
• Strategic alliances
• New forms of organization
• Women and entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial behaviour in large organizations
• Entrepreneurship in developing countries
• Making allies in business
• Ethics, the entrepreneur and the company 

Contents

Each issue of IJEI includes four to six double-blind peer-reviewed papers. Contents and abstracts of the latest issue are available on this Website.

In addition to the selected papers, regular features are:

A case study of around 2,000-3,000 words. Designed for use in the 'classroom', case studies will be supported by questions, provided either by the author or the editor. The case studies will be diverse in coverage and approach. They may, for example: (1) describe a process whereby an entrepreneurial activity has succeeded or failed; (2) outline the stages involved in establishing a new enterprise: innovation, start-up, maturation, growth and decline; or (3) analyse a particular facet of a new enterprise (eg a human resource issue or the financing of the enterprise).
The Internet Review. This section identifies and reviews Websites of interest for those interested in research on entrepreneurship, small firms and innovation in an international context.

Further information: http://www.ippublishing.com/ijei.htm

Call for papers. Special Issue: Globalization of Capital Markets: Implications for firm strategies

Special Issue Call for Papers

Journal of International Management
Globalization of Capital Markets: Implications for firm strategies

Guest Editors:

• Igor Filatotchev, City University London and Vienna University of Economics and Business
• R. Greg Bell, University of Dallas
• Abdul A. Rasheed, University of Texas at Arlington

Submission Deadline: May 15, 2015

The increasing integration of global capital markets now makes it easier for firms to access capital outside of their home countries. Firms access international capital markets through a variety of means such as initial public offerings (IPO), seasoned equity offerings (SEO), cross-listings, depository receipts, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACS), shelf offerings, private equity and other informal equity capital channels. Firms can also access debt resources outside their market through bank loans, and foreign bond issues. Finally, cross border flows of venture capital (VC) continue to increase rapidly. The objective of this Special Issue will be to explore the challenges firms face in capital markets beyond their domestic boundaries, be it equity, debt, or VC markets.

While IB research continues to evaluate the challenges facing firms in foreign product markets, IB scholars have yet to adequately address the underlying reasons why firms face challenges in foreign equity markets. These include underpricing, higher underwriting and professional fees, higher listing fees, audit fees (Bronson, Ghosh, and Hogan, 2009), and greater risk of lawsuits (Bhattacharya, Galpin, and Haslem, 2007), and home bias on the part of investors (French and Poterba, 1991). Further, research suggests the existence of a “foreign firm discount” relative to host market firms (Frésard and Salva, 2010).

Venture capital and private equity have truly become global phenomena and take many forms such as cross-border investment, foreign acquisitions, VC firms opening offices overseas, and influencing their portfolio firms to enter and exit international stock exchanges. Foreign firms raise significantly more debt than equity in the U.S.. Indeed, the largest component of the international capital market is the bond market. 

Research on the motivation, the processes, the supporting mechanisms, and the range of outcomes that firms experience as a result of entering international capital markets is extremely limited so far. We believe such research can draw from a variety of theoretical perspectives and research traditions in international business. The choice of whether to access financial resources outside of the firm’s home market, how to select the appropriate foreign market, and the manner in which to raise resources are all relevant questions that parallel prior IB research market and entry mode choice. IB scholars consider LOF as the “fundamental assumption driving theories of the multinational enterprise” (Zaheer, 1995: 341). Yet, the conceptualization and research on LOF solely based upon product market may be inadequate today given the increasing integration of capital markets (Bell, Filatotchev and Rasheed, 2012).

In addition to the main theoretical perspectives in international business, the Special Issue welcomes scholars and perspectives from diverse disciplines such as finance, economics, and sociology.

Topics

The interaction between product market and capital market strategies
Prior research shows that the decision to list abroad has implications on the success of the firm’s products. What are the implications of capital market strategies for product market strategies and vice versa?

• Culture and capital markets 

There is a growing body of research that investigates how culture affects both economic exchange and outcomes by affecting expectations and preferences (Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales, 2009). How does culture affect cross-border transactions in formal or informal capital markets?

• The role of distance 

Even in a world where technology has shrunk distance and time, spatial costs are non-trivial. Do spatial costs exist in financial markets? Moreover, do spatial costs impact capital market strategies, and the choice of foreign capital markets?

• The role of innovation 

Financial markets are continuously producing new vehicles through which firms can acquire capital resources. What are the antecedents of innovations in global capital markets? How do firms take advantage of these innovations?

• Institutional environments and their implications on capital market strategies 

New exchanges in Europe and Asia with vastly different listing and disclosure requirements thank New York and London. How has the competition among stock exchanges impacted the international capital raising strategies of firms?

• Liabilities of Foreignness 

What are the sources of Liabilities of Foreignness (LOF) that firms face in formal or informal capital markets and what are the strategies that enable firms to overcome them?

• Informal capital market strategies 

Private equity represents an innovation in the ability to provide capital to unquoted firms. What are challenges that private equity firms face in international markets? Likewise, what are the challenges that private equity portfolio firms face?

• Governance and capital market strategies 

To what extent does internationalization of capital markets lead to convergence of governance practices across countries??

• The role of trust 

Trust has been found to affect the international investment choices of private equity firms (Bruton, Ahlstrom, and Puky, 2009). How does trust impact the international capital market strategies of firms?

• Third parties and capital market strategies 

Capital markets are mediated markets in that sense that participants rely greatly on key third parties, such as investment banks, brokers, and investment analysts for information production. How do third parties impact the choice of foreign capital markets? What are the internationalization strategies that these third parties pursue?

• Processes 

What are the top management and board factors that impact capital market strategies? Both individual and team level factors hold considerable promise providing greater insights into the reasons why firms choose capital resources outside of their home market, and the manner in which these resources are accessed.

• Performance 

What accounts for success in foreign capital markets? How do strategies for firms seeking debt capital differ from those seeking equity? How do home and host country factors determine the outcome of these strategies?

While many of the firms that make their initial public offerings go on to succeed, what is often overlooked is the fact that more than half of these firms actually delist within the first few years (Doidge, Karolyi, and Stulz, 2010). What are the factors that account for the delisting of firms on foreign exchanges?

Submission Instructions

The deadline for manuscript submission is May 15, 2015. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with Journal of International Management’s Style Guide for Authors: http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-international-management/1075-4253/guide-for-authors and submitted through the Journal’s submission website. A paper development workshop will be held at the 2015 Academy of Management conference in Vancouver. Final Drafts are due February 28, 2016.

Please direct any questions regarding the Special Issue to Igor Filatotchev (Igor.Filatotchev@city.ac.uk), Greg Bell (gbell@udallas.edu) and Abdul Rasheed (abdul@uta.edu).

References

• Bell, R. G., Filatotchev, I., Rasheed, A. 2012. The liability of foreignness in capital markets: Sources and remedies. Journal of International Business Studies, 43(2): 107-122.
• Bhattacharya, U., Galpin, N., Haslem, B. 2007. The home court advantage in international coporate litigation. Journal of Law and Economics, 50: 625-659.
• Bruton, G., Ahlstrom, D., Puky, T. 2009. Institutional differences and the development of entrepreneurial ventures: A comparison of the venture capital industries in Latin America and Asia. Journal of International Business Studies, 40: 762-778. 
• Doidge, C., Karolyi, A., Stulz, R., 2010. Why do foreign firms leave U.S. equity markets? Journal of Finance 65, 1507-1553.
• French, K., Poterba, J. 1991. Investor diversification and international equity markets. The American Economic Review, 81(2): 222-226
• Frésard, L., Salva, C. 2010. The foreign firm discount. Working Paper, HEC School of Management, HEC Paris. 
• Guiso, L., Sapienza, P., Zingales, L. 2009. Cultural biases in economic exchange? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(3): 1095–1131.
• Schmeisser, B. 2013. A systematic review of literature on offshoring of value chain activities. Journal of International Management, 19(4), 390-406.
• Zaheer, S. 1995. Overcoming the liability of foreignness. Academy of Management Journal, 38(2): 341-363.

Call for journal papers. Special Issue on The process of firm growth

Call for papers

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management And Innovation

Entrepreneurship thematic area

The process of firm growth

Edited by:

• Marta Gancarczyk, Jagiellonian University, Poland
• Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, University of Deusto, Spain

Contemporary research on firm growth has been vitally developing since the 1980s, when the phenomenon of gazelles was described as both critical to economic growth and rare in the population of enterprises (Birch, 1981, 1994; Storey, 1994; Coad, 2009; Acs et al., 2008). Studies on firm growth have evolved into three major streams (Davidsson et al., 2006; McKelvie and Wiklund, 2010). The first is directed at growth as an outcome, identifying the determinants and predictors of expansion, such as the characteristics of the entrepreneur(s), the firm and its strategy (Storey, 1994; Barringer et al., 2005; Coad, 2009). The second stream focuses on the outcomes of growth, exploring the conditions and methods of managing the company that expanded its scope and size, and is reflected in the stage or life-cycle models (Levie and Lichtenstein, 2010). Finally, the third and most current stream intends to explore the process of growth, i.e. how expansion is implemented and achieved, in terms of the entrepreneurial motives, economic rationale, mechanisms, environmental influences and modes (organic, external/acquisitive or hybrid modes, such as joint venture, licensing or franchising) (Davidsson et al., 2006; McKelvie and Wiklund, 2010; Stam, 2010; Leitch et al., 2010; Wright and Stigliani, 2013).

Major theoretical foundations of firm growth were laid by E. Penrose (1959) and evolutionary economists (Nelson and Winter, 1982) and they further developed into the resource-based approach to decision-making on firm scope and size (Peteraf, 1993, Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991; Hamel and Prahalad, 1990; Kogut and Zander, 1992). Concepts such as core competence and core-related capabilities, absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002) and dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997, Teece, 2007) have explanatory power as to the motives and rationale for expansion). The heterogeneity of firm capabilities is reflected in the differences in their competitive positions and the ways firms achieve growth. The resource-based view of the firm, is often confronted but also combined with more external, environment-oriented view of transaction cost theory (Williamson, 1999; Tsang, 2000; Foss, 2005; Argyres and Zenger, 2012). This approach is particularly relevant for considering how firms can grow (mechanisms and modes of expanding the firm boundaries – i.e. their scope and size) (McKelvie and Wiklund, 2010; Williamson, 1975, 2005). It can be thus posited that the expansion process results from the assessment of capabilities and expected value relative to uncertainty and transaction costs.

We invite both theoretical and empirical papers that discuss the broad issue of firm growth process, namely:

• - Entrepreneurial motivations and attitudes towards growth: opportunity exploitation, perceptions of risk and uncertainty;
• - Economic rationale for growth: increasing value and strengthening the competitive position, strengthening the position relative to buyers and suppliers;
• - Stimuli and impediments to company growth at the firm, industry and country levels;
• - Mechanisms of growth: including causal relationships among the growth determinants (success factors and barriers), and the logic of the expansion, such as capability exploitation or exploration;
• - Different modes of expansion, namely, organic, acquisitive and hybrid forms, including joint ventures, licensing and franchising; criteria of the mode choice, benefits, challenges, and performance outcomes from these specific modes;
• - Science-based entrepreneurship as a possible mechanism for firm growth: drivers and impediments of knowledge transfer with a special emphasis on science-based industries; evaluation of public policy for science-based entrepreneurship – rationale, stakeholder groups, outcomes;
• - Innovations as drivers of firm growth: the role of product, process, organizational and marketing innovations and their scope (newness for the world, for the firm and for its market);
• - Economic relevance of firm growth at the national and regional levels: inputs into employment, value added, exporting activities, etc.

One-page abstracts should be sent to jemi@wsb-nlu.edu.pl, by May 1, 2015. The authors of the proposals that fit into the theme of the special issue will be invited to submit a full paper by October 1, 2015. The papers will undergo a double-blind review. Submissions must be in English, should be no more than 15 pages single spaced in length (up to 8000 words), and follow the submission requirements posted on the JEMI website at http://jemi.edu.pl/pl/submission.html. The publication is planned as issue 1 in 2016.

References:

• Acs, Z., Parsons, W., Tracy, S. (2008). High-Impact Firms: Gazelles Revisited. Washington: Small Business Administration.
• Argyres, N., Zenger, T. (2012). Capabilities, Transaction Costs, and Firm Boundaries. Organization Science, 23(6), 1643-1657.
• Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
• Barringer, B., Jones, F. & Neubaum, D. (2005). A Quantitative Content Analysis of the Characteristics of Rapid-Growth Firms and Their Founders. Journal of Business Venturing, 20(5), 663-687.
• Birch, D., Medoff, J. (1994). Gazelles [in:] Solmon, L, Levenson, A. (eds.), Labor Markets, Employment Policy and Job Creation. Boulder: Westview Press, 159-168.
• Birch, D. (1981). Who Creates Jobs? The Public Interest, 65, 3-14.
• Coad, A. (2009). The Growth of Firms: A Survey of Theories and Empirical Evidence. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Cohen, W., Levinthal, D. (1990), Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation. Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 35(1), 128-152.
• Davidsson, P., Delmar, F. & Wiklund, J. (2006). Entrepreneurship and the Growth of Firms. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Foss, K., Foss, N. (2005). Resources and Transaction Costs: How Property Rights Economics Furthers the Resource-Based View. Strategic Management Journal, 26(6), 541.
• Hamel, G., Prahalad, C. (1990), The Core Competence of Corporation. Harvard Business Review, 68(5-6), 600-620.
• Kogut, B., Zander, U. (1992). Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology, Organization Science, 3(3), 383–397.
• Leitch, C., Hill, F. & Neergaard, H. (2010). Entrepreneurial and Business Growth and the Quest for a Compre­hensive Theory: Tilting at Windmills? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34(2), 249–260.
• Levie, J., Lichtenstein, B. (2010). A Terminal Assessment of Stages Theory: Introducing a Dynamic States Approach to Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34(2): 317-350.
• McKelvie, A., Wiklund, J. (2010). Advancing Firm Growth Research: A Focus on Growth Mode instead of Growth Rate. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34(2), 261-288.
• Nelson, R., Winter, S. (1982). An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Penrose, E. (1959). The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Peteraf, M. (1993). The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resources-Based View. Strategic Management Journal, 14(3), 179-191.
• Stam, E. (2010). Growth beyond Gibrat: Firm Growth Processes and Strategies. Small Business Economics, 35(2), 129-135.
• Storey, D. (1994). Understanding the Small Business Sector. London: Routledge.
• Teece, D. (2007), Explicating Dynamic Capabilities: The Nature and Microfoundations of (Sustainable) Enterprise Performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(13), 1319-1350.
• Teece, D., Pisano G. & Shuen, A. (1997). The Dynamic Capabilities of Firms: An Introduction. Industrial and Corporate Change, 3(3), 537-556.
• Tsang, E. (2000). Transaction Cost and Resource-Based Explanations of Joint Ventures: A Comparison and Synthesis. Organization Studies, 21(1), 215-242.
• Wernerfelt, B. (1984). A Resource-Based View of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 5(2), 171-180.
• Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. New York: The Free Press.
• Williamson, O. (1999). Strategy Research: Governance and Competence Perspectives. Strategic Management Journal, 20(12), 1087–1108.
• Williamson, O. (2005). The Economics of Governance. The American Economic Review, 95(2), 1-18.
• Wright, M., Stigliani, I. (2013). Entrepreneurship and Growth. International Small Business Journal, 31(1), 3-22.
• Zahra, S., George, G. (2002). Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension. Academy of Management, 27(2), 185-203.

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Business & Society. Insights from Institutional Theory

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Business & Society

Social Innovation: Insights from Institutional Theory

Guest editors:

• Silvia Dorado, University of Rhode Island
• Ignasi Marti, EMLYON Business School, OCE Research Center
• Jakomijn van Wijk, Maastricht School of Management 
• Charlene Zietsma, Schulich School of Business, York University

Submission deadline: September 1, 2015

Social innovation refers to the process of developing and implementing novel solutions to social problems, often involving re-negotiations of settled institutions among diverse actors with conflicting logics. As such, social innovation entails institutional change. Social innovations are urgently needed as we confront “wicked problems” (Rittel and Weber, 1973), such as climate change, poverty alleviation, income inequality and persistent societal conflicts. Such problems feature substantial interdependencies among multiple systems and actors, and have redistributive implications for entrenched interests (Rayner, 2006). 

Institutional research has played a significant role in the study of efforts to alleviate social problems (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Dorado, 2013; Hallett, 2010; Lawrence, Hardy & Phillips, 2002; Maguire, Hardy & Lawrence, 2004; Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010), and is well positioned to contribute to an improved understanding of social innovation. Institutional theory starts at a macro-level, assessing the positions and interdependent actions of the multiple constituents of issue-focused fields (Wooten & Hoffman, 2008; Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010), and considering seriously the idea that rules, norms and beliefs are socially constituted, negotiated orders (Marti, Courpasson & Barbosa, 2013; Strauss, 1978), which can be renegotiated in socially innovative ways (e.g. Van Wijk, Stam, Elfring, Zietsma & den Hond, 2013). The study of institutional work emphasizes the creation, disruption and maintenance of the institutionalized social structures that govern behavior (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006), and thus speaks to how entrenched practices and ideas get held in place, and how they may be replaced with more socially beneficial arrangements. Furthermore, the burgeoning institutional complexity perspective, with its focus on how actors respond to multiple, sometimes competing logics (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta & Lounsbury, 2011), applies well to the context of wicked societal problems. 

Taking an institutional perspective on social innovation suggests several topics and a range of interesting questions in line with our theme, listed in the full call for papers, available at:
http://www.iabs.net/Research/BusinessSociety/SpecialIssueCallSocialInnovation.aspx.
A paper development workshop is planned at EMLyon in France from March 27-29, 2016. 

Further information:

Dr. Charlene Zietsma
Associate Professor and Ann Brown Chair in Organization Studies
Director, Entrepreneurial Studies
Schulich School of Business, SSB N317
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON, CANADA
M3J 1P3
(416) 736-2100, Ext. 77919.

Call for papers. Special issue: Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets: Roles of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development

Special issue call for papers from International Journal of Emerging Markets

Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets: Roles of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development

Deadline approaching soon: December 15, 2014

Visit call for papers at http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=5254

Topics for inclusion (among others)

We welcome papers within the broadly defined subject theme area from all the major disciplines in business and management studies, including: strategy, international business, organizational behavior and cross-cultural management, marketing, operations and decision sciences, finance and accounting, international trade and business economics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Sustainability as a driver for innovation, growth and internationalization – analyses from developed and developing world
• The role of sustainability and institutions in promoting or constraining innovation in emerging markets
• Factors impacting the geographic clustering of internationalization efforts in sustainability worldwide
• The impact of distance on sustainable innovation and internationalization
• The effect of internationalization on sustainable innovation within a company or geographic region
• The role of institutions in promoting or constraining inward and outward internationalization
• Managerial mindsets needed for sustainable innovation and internationalization in emerging markets
• Cross-cultural collaboration in sustainable innovation efforts
• The marketing of sustainable innovations in emerging markets vis-à-vis the developed world
• Theoretical and Empirical contributions to the field of sustainability, institutions, and emerging markets

You may contact the guest editors if you have questions:


Dr. Anshu Arora
Associate Professor - Marketing
Director of Global Logistics & International
Business Center
Savannah State University, Georgia, USA
aroraa@savannahstate.edu
Phone: +1 912 358 3387


Dr. Nicole Hartley
Lecturer - Marketing
University of Queensland Business School
University of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia
n.hartley@business.uq.edu.au
Phone: +61 7 3346 8022

Call for conference papers: European International Business Academy (EIBA)

European International Business Academy (EIBA)

40th Annual Conference
Conference website: www.eiba2014.org
Uppsala University, Sweden

December 11-13, 2014

The Future of Global Organizing

Call for Papers

Introduction & Background

Over the past four decades, since the establishment of the European International Business Academy (EIBA), we have seen large changes with regard to the organization and structure of international firms. Partly as a consequence of the on-going globalization process, we see today a great variety of organizational and geographic structures in multinational corporations (MNCs). These structures, in turn, reflect the tensions between different organizational principles, such as, the MNC as a hierarchy or a network, internalizing or externalizing core business activities, and the relative importance of headquarters and subsidiaries in the value creation processes. Such tensions are crucial issues for further research on the future of global organizing – the underlying theme of this year’s EIBA Annual Conference.
We have also seen an increased interest in the interplay between the environment and the MNC. While earlier studies tended to concentrate on the impact of national and cross-national institutions on the organization of business, recent studies have also focused on the political role of MNCs and their possibility to shape the rules and regulations in different countries. The interplay between the institutional environment and the MNC leads to new challenges as well as a variety of opportunities for multinational corporations to ultimately affect the way in which business across national borders is organized. Taking a more critical stance towards MNCs has raised questions of organizational politics and power, not only reacting to unethical behaviours and financial crises, but more fundamentally challenging our overall understanding of the MNC; post-colonial organizational and intersectionality theories have also provided new understandings.
When we observe contemporary phenomena around us we find a number of interesting organizational forms, which potentially may characterize global organizing in the future. One example is cross-sector partnerships where firms join together with non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, and local communities to pursue unattainable goals and resources. Further, individuals outside the MNC are increasingly involved in the firm in novel ways such as in the use of ‘open innovation’, or ‘equity crowd funding’. We can raise questions as to whether these large groups of investors in the future may be interested in more than profit in return for their investments, and if so, what does that imply for firm management and organization? We have also seen how small local players who organize themselves into networks have become competitors seriously challenging large global firms, as for example, when small energy producers in Germany challenged large multinationals on the market. Will such independent local network organizations spread across the world and become a new form of global organizing in the future?

The above raises questions like:

• What new forms of global organizing can we expect in the future, and will the MNC as we know it become extinct?
• How can we understand the value creation processes in the MNC and the contributions of different units in these processes?
• How is the tension between corporate and local rationality handled in the contemporary MNC?
• Are market power and political power of the contemporary MNCs relevant issues for research among IB scholars?
• How can MNCs meet the often conflicting demands of corporate social responsibility, sustainable operations, and responsible (ethical) leadership, and remain viable in the long run?
• What do contemporary digital and technological developments, e.g., social media, virtual worlds, and cloud services, imply for the international organization of work, communication, and management practices?
• How can MNCs’ human resource management practices become inclusive yet motivating, flexible yet representative, and how do they link to employer branding efforts on a global scale?
• How do linguistic and cultural diversity enrich global organizations and their activities?

We encourage and would welcome the IB community at large to submit their thought-provoking and adventurous papers on these and related questions to the EIBA 2014 theme track on the future of global organizing.

Conference Tracks

We invite competitive papers and working papers on any of the following EIBA 2014 conference tracks.

For more information and key words for each track, please visit the conference website:http://www.eiba2014.org/.

Competitive papers, presented in competitive sessions, should be close to a publishable state, whilst working papers, presented in interactive sessions, may be in an earlier stage of development.
Proposals for panel sessions can also be submitted to the most appropriate track.


1. Theme track: The Future of Global Organizing

Track chair: Ivo Zander, Uppsala University

2. Developments In IB Theory and Methods, Trends and Critical Approaches

Track chair: Ana Teresa Tavares-Lehmann, University of Porto

3. Internationalisation Process, SMEs and Entrepreneurship

Track chair: Olli Kuivalainen, Lappeenranta University of Technology

4. Corporate Governance, Finance, and Accounting

Track chair: Niels Hermes, Groningen University

5. International HRM, Global Leadership, Language and Cross-Cultural Management

Track chair: Dana Minbaeva, Copenhagen Business School

6. MNC Strategy and Organisation

Track chair: Tina Ambos, University of Sussex

7. International Marketing and Value Chain Management

Track chairs: Tomas Hult, Michigan State University, and Vicky Bamiatzi, University of Leeds

8. Knowledge Management and Innovation

Track chair: Kristiina Mäkelä, Aalto University

9. MNCs, Governments and Sustainable Development

Track chair: Mo Yamin, Manchester Business School

10. Teaching International Business

Track chair: Elizabeth Rose, University of Otago

Submission of Papers

All papers will be double-blind refereed. Copies of all the accepted papers for competitive and interactive sessions will be published in the EIBA 2014 Conference Proceedings. Detailed guidelines for the submission of conference papers will be available on the conference website: http://www.eiba2014.org/.
The submission deadline for all competitive and working papers, as well as for panel proposals, is Tuesday, July 15, 2014.
All papers should be submitted via the conference website to the Chair of one (and only one) of the conference tracks. The submission system will be live from May 15, 2014.

Pre-Conference Activities

Doctoral Tutorial & Doctoral Symposium

The 2014 EIBA Annual Conference is proud to host the 28th John H. Dunning Doctoral Tutorial in International Business. This one-day event gives selected doctoral students the opportunity to discuss their research with distinguished international faculty, and enables the students to become better acquainted with an international network of researchers in international business.

EIBA 2014 is also pleased to host the 3rd EIBA Doctoral Symposium, recently initiated to increase the number of student participants to EIBA doctoral events and conferences as well as offer and provide more feedback opportunities for young scholars in the field of IB.

More information about both doctoral events will be available on the EIBA 2014 conference website; the submission deadline for thesis proposals is September 1, 2014. Note that students participating in the Doctoral Tutorial or the Doctoral Symposium are expected to register for the EIBA conference.

IBR & JIBS Paper Development Workshops

Among the featured EIBA 2014 pre-conference activities will be Paper Development Workshops for theInternational Business Review (IBR) and the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). Authors who have not yet been published in the respective journal can submit their papers for the workshop of their choice; deadline September 1, 2014. Note that papers submitted to these workshops cannot also be presented at the conference.

For more information about the above pre-conference events, please visit the EIBA 2014 website.

Conference Venue

The EIBA 2014 conference will be held in Uppsala University’s main building and in the Centre for Economic Studies. The beautiful university main building and the Auditorium (Aula), built in the 1880s, will be the venue of the opening session and welcome reception on Thursday evening, December 11, 2014. On December 12and 13, delegates will be in the Centre for Economic Studies that will house the remaining plenary sessions – including a lecture by the 2014 Nobel prize winner in economics on December 13 – as well as the parallel competitive and workshop sessions. Both venues are within walking distance (5-10 minutes) of each other and are located close to the city centre, which is also the older part of Uppsala. To complete the conference, the gala dinner on Saturday evening will take place in Uppsala Castle, located on a hill overlooking the city centre.

The international airport of Stockholm (Arlanda) is located between Stockholm and Uppsala.
Several means of transportation will take participants directly to Uppsala within 30-50 minutes.
Hotel accommodation has been reserved in advance, ranging from low-budget to high-quality standards.

Conference Fees and Registration

The EIBA 2014 conference fee includes: conference participation, breaks and lunches, the opening reception, the gala dinner, the conference handbook and CD-ROM (including the proceedings), EIBA membership for 2015, and a one-year journal subscription to the International Business Review. There are reduced conference fees for PhD students and persons accompanying registered delegates who wish to attend the gala dinner.

Contact Information

Detailed information about EIBA 2014 Uppsala can be found on the conference website.

All related inquiries should be sent via e-mail to info@eiba2014.org.

EIBA President & 2014 Conference Chair: Rian Drogendijk (Uppsala University)

Call for papers. Special Issue: Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets: Role of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development

Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets:  Role of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development 

Special issue Call for Papers for the International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM)

Firm innovation and internationalization in emerging markets are intertwined with sustainability and the need for sustainable world development. The economic dimension of sustainability focuses on increased ROI, revenue and market share increases, lower costs, reduced risk, etc. The environmental dimension encompasses activities to preserve, protect, conserve and restore ecosystems and natural resources (e.g., climate change policies, preservation of natural resources, and minimization and prevention of toxic wastes). The social dimension addresses conditions and actions that specifically affect humanity (e.g., poverty, unemployment, education, health, human rights, etc.). Sustainability is critical for the developing world to ensure long-term business success while significantly contributing towards sustainable world development through a healthy environment and a stable society. Institutions, both formal and informal, facilitate or hinder sustainable business practices. Hence the need to incorporate the institutional lens, consisting of regulatory, cognitive and normal dimensions, in exploring sustainable business practices in emerging markets (Scott, 1995)

In this special issue of the IJoEM, we intend to raise questions of sustainability, institutions and internationalization in emerging economies akin to those raised by Peng, Wang, and Jiang (2008): (1) What drives firm strategy in emerging markets? (2) What role do sustainable business practices and innovation play in firm success and failure? and 3) “How to play the game, when the rules of the game are changing and not completely known?” (Peng et al., 2008). 

Any contribution that furthers these topics, or related ones, in the context of MNCs in emerging markets is most welcome. In line with the above topic, we are editing a special issue of the IJoEM examining these issues. The special issue will feature the best papers from the Academy of International Business Southeast (AIB-SE) chapter meetings to be held in Miami, Florida in October 2014as well as submissions in response to the general call for papers.

Potential Topics of Interest (among others)

We welcome papers within the broadly defined subject theme area from all the major disciplines in business and management studies, including: strategy, international business, organizational behavior and cross-cultural management, marketing, operations and decision sciences, finance and accounting, international trade and business economics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• • Sustainability as a driver for innovation, growth and internationalization in developed vs emerging markets 
• • The role of institutions in promoting or constraining sustainable innovation in emerging markets 
• • Factors impacting the geographic clustering of internationalization efforts in sustainability worldwide 
• • The impact of distance on sustainable innovation and internationalization 
• • The effect of internationalization on sustainable innovation within a company or geographic region 
• • The role of institutions in promoting or constraining inward and outward internationalization 
• • Managerial mindsets needed for sustainable innovation and internationalization in emerging markets 
• • Cross-cultural collaboration in sustainable innovation efforts 
• • The marketing of sustainable innovations in emerging markets vis-à-vis the developed world 
• • Theoretical and Empirical contributions to the field of sustainability, institutions, and emerging markets

Deadlines, Submission Guidelines and Editors’ Information

Submissions for the special issue will be sourced from the best papers of the 2014 AIB-SE conference as well as responses to a general call. Based on editorial review, top rated papers will be invited to go through additional peer review to be considered for publication. Manuscripts for the special issue should be submitted through the IJoEM website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijoem.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2014.

For general submission guidelines, see: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=ijoem


For additional information on the 2014 AIB-SE Conference, see: 

http://www.aibse.org/2014-annual-conference/2014-call-for-papers/ 

Dr. Anshu Arora (Special Issue Editor)
Associate Professor - Marketing
Director of Global Logistics & International
Business Education and Research Center
Savannah State University, Georgia, USA
aroraa@savannahstate.edu
Phone: (912) 358-3387

Dr. Nicole Hartley (Special Issue Editor)
Lecturer - Marketing
University of Queensland Business School
University of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia
n.hartley@business.uq.edu.au
Phone: +61 7 3346 8022

Dr. Rangamohan V Eunni (Consulting Editor)
Professor & Chair, Management Department
Director: Emerging Markets Initiative
Williamson College of Business Administration
Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio rveunni@ysu.edu
Phone: (330) 941-7180

Call for Special Issue Journal: Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets: Role of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development

Sustainability, Institutions, and Internationalization in Emerging Markets: Role of Sustainable Innovation for Sustainable World Development

Special Issue Call for Papers for the International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM)

Firm innovation and internationalization in emerging markets are intertwined with sustainability and the need for sustainable world development. The economic dimension of sustainability focuses on increased ROI, revenue and market share increases, lower costs, reduced risk, etc. The environmental dimension encompasses activities to preserve, protect, conserve and restore ecosystems and natural resources (e.g., climate change policies, preservation of natural resources, and minimization and prevention of toxic wastes). The social dimension addresses conditions and actions that specifically affect humanity (e.g., poverty, unemployment, education, health, human rights, etc.). Sustainability is critical for the developing world to ensure long-term business success while significantly contributing towards sustainable world development through a healthy environment and a stable society. Institutions, both formal and informal, facilitate or hinder sustainable business practices. Hence the need to incorporate the institutional lens, consisting of regulatory, cognitive and normal dimensions, in exploring sustainable business practices in emerging markets (Scott, 1995)[1]

In this special issue of the IJoEM, we intend to raise questions of sustainability, institutions and internationalization in emerging economies akin to those raised by Peng, Wang, and Jiang (2008)[2]: (1) What drives firm strategy in emerging markets? (2) What role do sustainable business practices and innovation play in firm success and failure? and 3) “How to play the game, when the rules of the game are changing and not completely known?” (Peng et al., 2008). Any contribution that furthers these topics, or related ones, in the context of MNCs in emerging markets is most welcome. In line with the above topic, we are editing a special issue of the IJoEM examining these issues. The special issue will feature the best papers from the Academy of International Business Southeast (AIB-SE) chapter meetings to be held in Miami, Florida in October 2014as well as submissions in response to the general call for papers.

Potential Topics of Interest (among others)

We welcome papers within the broadly defined subject theme area from all the major disciplines in business and management studies, including: strategy, international business, organizational behavior and cross-cultural management, marketing, operations and decision sciences, finance and accounting, international trade and business economics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• · Sustainability as a driver for innovation, growth and internationalization in developed vs emerging markets
• · The role of institutions in promoting or constraining sustainable innovation in emerging markets
• · Factors impacting the geographic clustering of internationalization efforts in sustainability worldwide
• · The impact of distance on sustainable innovation and internationalization
• · The effect of internationalization on sustainable innovation within a company or geographic region
• · The role of institutions in promoting or constraining inward and outward internationalization
• · Managerial mindsets needed for sustainable innovation and internationalization in emerging markets
• · Cross-cultural collaboration in sustainable innovation efforts
• · The marketing of sustainable innovations in emerging markets vis-à-vis the developed world
• · Theoretical and Empirical contributions to the field of sustainability, institutions, and emerging markets

Deadlines, Submission Guidelines and Editors’ Information

Submissions for the special issue will be sourced from the best papers of the 2014 AIB-SE conference as well as responses to a general call. Based on editorial review, top rated papers will be invited to go through additional peer review to be considered for publication. Manuscripts for the special issue should be submitted through the IJoEM website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijoem.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2014.

For general submission guidelines, see: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=ijoem

For additional information on the 2014 AIB-SE Conference, see: http://www.aibse.org/2014-annual-conference/2014-call-for-papers/


Dr. Anshu Arora (Special Issue Editor)
Associate Professor - Marketing
Director of Global Logistics & International
Business Education and Research Center
Savannah State University, Georgia, USA
aroraa@savannahstate.edu

Dr. Nicole Hartley (Special Issue Editor)
Lecturer - Marketing
University of Queensland Business School
University of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia
n.hartley@business.uq.edu.au
Phone: +61 7 3346 8022

Dr. Rangamohan V Eunni (Consulting Editor)
Professor & Chair, Management Department
Director: Emerging Markets Initiative
Williamson College of Business Administration
Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio rveunni@ysu.edu
Phone: (330) 941-7180

References:

• Scott, W.R.1995. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Peng, M., Wang, D, & Jiang, Y. (2008). An institution-based view of international business strat­egy: A focus on emerging economies. Journal of International Business Studies, 39, 920–926.

---------
[1] Scott, W.R.1995. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[2] Peng, M., Wang, D, & Jiang, Y. (2008). An institution-based view of international business strat­egy: A focus on emerging economies. Journal of International Business Studies, 39, 920–926.