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CALL FOR PAPERS
"‘Strategies for Firm Globalization and Regionalization’’
Edited by: Professor Alan M. Rugman (Henley Business School), Professor Abby Ghobadian (Henley Business School), Professor Rosalie L. Tung (Simon Fraser University)

BJM is pleased to announce a special issue focused on examining the globalisation and regionalization strategies of firms, a key debate in international business which touches on all disciplines of management.

SPECIAL ISSUE OVERVIEW
Over the last decade, a debate has raged about the nature of business strategy following Levitt (1983). Many authors had assumed that with the growth of globalization, it is possible for firms to expand globally. Such international expansion yields economies of scale, a so-called integration strategy. A leading proponent of this approach is George Yip (1995, 2003) who proposes a “total global” strategy. In contrast, Rugman (2000, 2005) has demonstrated empirically that there are rigidities in both country level and firm level economic activity respectively. This work suggests that firms must be using regional strategies, not global ones, and that the regions are triad based. Schlie and Yip (2000) have argued that regional strategy is a step towards a global strategy. In a British context, the multinational strategies and performance of large British firms have been examined by Rugman, Yip and Jayaratne (2008). This stressed a strong home region focus upon Europe with 64 percent of sales of British firms in the EU. The way organisations develop internationally has implications not only for strategy but also for structure, organisational development, human resources (HR), institutional engagement, societal engagement, and political engagement.

The current economic crisis is forcing organisations to rethink their strategies and many unresolved issues around the regional and global debate suggest that it is timely to broaden the perspectives with which these issues are examined by adding to the dominant economic and strategy lens organisational and social lenses. It is also timely to add functional perspectives to the mix.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA L ISSUE OVERVIEW
SUBMISSION CRITERIA
BJM will publish a special issue drawing together original papers addressing the issue of whether firm strategies are global or regional, and their potential impact on a broad range of organisational dilemmas. Building upon the work of Rugman and Verbeke in JIBS (2004) and in Ghemawat (2007), a regional strategy is defined as one confined to a region of the broad triad of the EU, North America, or Asia. In contrast, a global strategy operates across these three broad regions of the world.

At this time, the debate about global versus regional strategy can be advanced by new theoretical and more careful empirical work. Theoretical work needs to address the extent to which there are barriers to business activity between triad regions (the so called liability of inter-regional foreignness). Such an analysis should include both economic and social traditions. At an empirical level, when are both country level and global level activity replaced by regional activity, to what extent do country level metrics for economic, political and cultural activity remain valid? In particular, can the Kogut and Singh (1993) country level cultural index be replaced by a regional one? Are there now regional HR strategies (Tung and Verbeke, 2010)?

In particular, papers will be considered in the following areas:

We welcome empirically based papers from a broad range of scholarly communities. Furthermore, we welcome submissions using a broad range of methodological approaches as well as trans-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary work. ICT applications in the public sector: e-government, e-governance and m-government.
 
Submissions should be uploaded to the British Journal of Management ScholarOne Manuscripts site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjm no later than 1st April 2012.
Authors must ensure they adhere to the journal guidelines which are available on the journal’s website: www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/bjm . The outcome of first review will be communicated to authors by 1 July 2012. The date for the submission of papers selected for revise and re-submission will be 1 October 2012
References:
Levitt, T. (1983). The Globalization of Markets. Harvard Business Review, May/ June 1983, pp. 92  102.
Ghemawat, P. (2007). Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Border in a World Where Differences Still Matters. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.
Rugman, A.M. (2000). The End of Globalization. London, UK: Random House Business Books.
Rugman, A.M. (2005). The Regional Multinationals: MNEs and “Global” Strategic Management. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rugman, A.M. and Verbeke A. (2004). A Perspective on Regional and Global Strategies of Multinational Enterprises, Journal of International Business Studies, 35(1), pp. 3-18.
Rugman, A.M., Yip, G.S. and Jayaratne, S. (2008). A Note on Return on Foreign Assets and Foreign Presence for UK Multinationals, British Journal of Management 19(2), pp. 162-170.
Schlie, E. and Yip. G.S. (2000). Regional Follows Global: Strategy Mixes in the World Automotive Industry, European Management Journal, 18, pp. 343  205.
Tung, R.L. and Verbeke, A. (2010). Beyond Hofstede and GLOBE: Improving the quality of cross-cultural research, Journal of International Business Studies, 41(8), pp. 1259-1274.
Yip, G. S. (1995). Total Global Strategy: Managing for Worldwide Competitive Advantage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Yip, George S. (2003) Total Global Strategy II: Updated for the Internet and Service Era. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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