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Dear AIB List serve Moderator:
Please post this announcement -
Turning the Spotlight
on Service
Multinationals: New Theoretical Insights and Empirical
Evidence
Guest Editors
Sumit K. Kundu, Florida
International
University
Somnath Lahiri, Illinois State University
Submission Deadline: February
28, 2014
One of the most noteworthy
aspects of today’s
international business (IB) landscape is the growing importance
of service
multinationals (SMNCs). As the services sector expands, the
prominence of SMNCs
in producing and delivering value-creating services across
national borders
continues to grow more than ever before. Data from UNCTAD show
that between
1990-1992 and 2008-2010 global inward FDI flow in services grew
almost 843%
(from 95,772 to 903,256 million U.S dollars) compared to 570% in
manufacturing
(52,181 to 349,720 million U.S. dollars) during the same
time-period. Success
stories of SMNCs from different parts of the world, both
developed and
developing economies, have caught the attention of the IB
community. Yet SMNC
research has not kept pace with the unprecedented growth of
services and SMNCs
over the years. While Li and Guisinger (1992: 691) noted in 1992
that “results
of our study suggest that service FDI can be explained by a rich
variety of
theories,” Capar and Kotabe (2003) lamented that “the service
sector has been
explored to a limited extent so far, although service firms have
contributed to
the majority of the job growth in the industrialized nations.”
The state of
SMNC research was summed up by Kundu and Merchant (2008), who
observed that the
“the challenge lies ahead in the development of theories of
service
multinational enterprise to explain the intricacies of service
firms.” The aim
of this special issue is to encourage research that develops new
theory,
provides robust empirical evidence, and promotes novel
practitioner insights on
SMNCs.
The importance and contribution
of services
and SMNCs in IB caught the attention of scholars almost a
quarter of a century
ago (Boddewyn et al., 1986, Dunning, 1989, Erramilli, 1990).
Over time,
researchers have attempted to draw on various theories,
traditionally used for
the manufacturing sector, to explain competitiveness and
internationalization
of SMNCs. But compared to studies in the manufacturing sector,
empirical
examination in the services sector has continued to remain
grossly inadequate.
We are yet to fully understand how SMNCs differ from their
manufacturing counterparts,
along crucial business dimensions such as birth, growth,
evolution, performance
and sustenance. The scholarly community has continued to remain
divided on
whether business theories that apply to manufacturing MNCs aptly
suit the
context of SMNCs. Meanwhile, the IB landscape has gradually
changed and factors
such as greater connectivity across nations, firms and
individuals; global
economic meltdown; increasing natural calamities, global
terrorism and
stakeholder power; increasing global participation of emerging
markets, etc.
have become powerful determinants of firm performance and
competitive
advantage. While paucity of research on SMNCs constrains
valuable knowledge
generation, it represents useful opportunity for IB scholars to
develop new,
insightful theories and empirical evidence.
Against this backdrop, this
special issue
solicits manuscripts that advance our understanding of SMNC
dynamics in the
context of today’s IB environment. The following is an
illustrative list of
research themes and questions that contributors might consider:
·
How do SMNCs decide on
location choice and handle the associated organizational and
managerial issues
(Kundu & Contractor, 1999)?
·
How do SMNCs manage
the antecedents, processes and outcomes of corporate
diversification,
internationalization and multi-nationality?
·
Does distance
(psychic, organizational, geographical, etc.) matter in the
growth,
internationalization, competitiveness and performance of SMNCs
(Berry et al.,
2010)?
·
How do SMNCs organize
and manage various resources and capabilities (Lahiri &
Kedia, 2009) to
efficiently formulate and implement localization, regional or
global
strategies?
·
How do SMNCs’ growth,
diversification and performance differ across industry domains
within the
services sector?
·
How do SMNCs plan,
execute and manage foreign market entry mode strategies?
·
How do SMNCs organize
and manage their human resources?
·
How does
organizational and strategic behavior of SMNCs differ across
developed and
emerging markets? (Aulakh, 2007).
Submission instructions
The deadline for manuscript
submission is
February 28, 2014. 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.
Intending contributors relatively new to JIM may find the work
of Kothari and
Lahiri (2012) useful.
Manuscripts should be
electronically submitted
to: http://ees.elsevier.com/intman.
To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for
review in relation
to the special issue it is important that authors select “Service
Multinationals” when they reach the “Article Type” step in
the submission
process. All submissions will be subject to the regular
double-blind peer
review process at JIM. Manuscripts may be conceptual or
empirical (quantitative
or qualitative). Preference will be given to manuscripts that
compare and
contrast SMNCs with manufacturing MNCs. This special issue is
expected to be
published in 2015.
Please direct any questions
regarding the
Special Issue to Sumit K. Kundu ([log in to unmask])
and Somnath Lahiri ([log in to unmask]).
References
Aulakh, P.S. 2007. Emerging
multinationals
from developing economies: Motivations, paths and performance. Journal
of
International Management, 13(3): 235-240.
Berry, H., Guillén, M.F., &
Zhou, N. 2010.
An institutional approach to cross-national distance. Journal
of
International Business Studies, 41: 1460-1480.
Boddewyn, J J., Halbrich, M.B.,
& Perry, A
C. 1986. Service multinationals: Conceptualization, measurement
and theory. Journal
of International Business Studies, 17 (3): 41-57.
Capar, N., & Kotabe, M. 2003.
The
relationship between international diversification and
performance in service
firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 34:
345-355.
Dunning, J.H. 1989. Multinational
enterprises
and the growth of services: Some conceptual and theoretical
issues. Service
Industries Journal, 9(1): 5-39.
Erramilli, M.K. 1990. Entry mode
choice in
service industries. International Marketing Review,
7(5): 50-62.
Kothari, T., & Lahiri,
S. 2012.Yesterday,
today and tomorrow: An overview of research publications in the
Journal of
International Management. Journal of International
Management, 18(1):
102-110.
Kundu, S.K., & Contractor,
F.J. 1999.
Country location choices of service multinationals: An empirical
study of the
international hotel sector. Journal of International
Management, 5(4):
299-317.
Kundu, S.K., & Merchant, H.
2008. Service
multinationals: Their past, present, and future. Management
International
Review, 48 (4): 371-377.
Li, J., & Guisinger, S. 1992.
The
globalization of service multinationals in the"
triad"
regions: Japan, Western Europe and North America. Journal of
International
Business Studies, 23(4): 675-696.
Lahiri, S., & Kedia, B.L.
2009. The
effects of internal resources and partnership quality on firm
performance: An
Examination of Indian BPO providers. Journal of
International Management,
15(2): 209-224.
Thank You.
-- Dr. Sumit K. Kundu Professor James K. Batten Eminent Scholar Chair in International Business Academic Director - Master's in International Business program Department of Management and International Business College of Business Administration Florida International University 345-B Ryder Business Building 11200 SW 8 Street Miami, FL 33199 USA Telephone: (305) 348-3251 Fax: (305) 348-6146 Email: [log in to unmask]____