“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
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
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Laforet, S. Paliwoda, S. and Chen, J. (2012).
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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).
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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
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Sauvant, K. P. (ed). (2008). The rise of
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MA: Edward Elgar.
Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. (2012). International
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Williamson, P., Ramamurti, R., Fleury, A., &
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