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AIB 2015 Annual Meeting 
Bengaluru, India
June 27-30, 2015

 

 

Call for Papers

 

Theme: Global Networks: Organizations and People

Program Chair: Ram Mudambi, Temple University ( [log in to unmask] )

Submission Deadline: Thursday, January 15th, 2015

 

Conference Website: http://aib.msu.edu/events/2015/ 

 

International business scholars know that the world is not flat. Ghemawat
and other IB scholars have made this case in demolishing Thomas Friedman's
argument of a level competitive playing field between rich and poor
countries. Important barriers remain, but the world is becoming increasingly
connected through organizations, people, technology and social media, and
this global connectivity has exploded in scale and scope over the last
decade. Global networks underpin the interlacing megatrends that are shaping
the world economy and will determine its course over the coming decades.

The first megatrend is the shift from trade-in-goods to trade-in-activities.
Beginning several decades ago, but accelerating rapidly over the last
decade, products and services are increasingly emerging from global value
chains (GVCs) that are geographically dispersed around the globe. These GVCs
are orchestrated, in the main, by multinational enterprises (MNEs) and
increasingly disaggregated and fine-sliced into narrow, highly specific
activities that are undertaken in economic clusters. These narrow activities
produce intermediates (and not complete goods or services) and these compose
the vast majority of all international trade today.

 

The second megatrend is the rise of knowledge-intensive intangibles. Value
is rapidly migrating out of tangible goods and services that are becoming
commoditized and into the soft intangibles that encase them. These
intangibles arise from specialized, upstream knowledge (R&D, patents,
inimitable organizational routines, software, training) and downstream
knowledge (brands, trademarks, customer service) activities. This migration
of value has dramatically magnified the importance of innovation,
concomitantly shortening technology lifecycles.

 

The third megatrend is the rise of emerging markets. The number of locations
where the highly specific GVC activities can be performed has ballooned over
the last two decades. A long list of clusters locations in Asia and South
America and even some parts of Africa have become integral parts of GVCs.
These locations are tightly woven into global economy and give rise to
perceptions of "flatness" perceived by many lay observers.

 

Connectivity is operationalized in global networks through "pipelines"
created and maintained by MNEs, and through personal and social networks
within far-flung Diasporas. The three megatrends enabled by connectivity
raise fundamental research questions about the nature of the world economy
in the coming decades. These questions concern immobile locations as well as
mobile firms and individuals. High-level research questions relate to
whether we need new theories to address the changed world of the future or
whether we merely need to apply extant theories to new settings. 

 

How do emerging and developing economy locations enter GVCs? Are locations
that undertake low-value, routine activities like assembly forever doomed to
low value creation and relative poverty? If not, how do catch-up processes
in poorer countries operate? Will advanced economies face ever-increasing
inequality as their low-knowledge populace descends into poverty? Or are
there processes and policies that can ameliorate such a frightening future?
As leading knowledge clusters become increasingly connected to each other
across national borders, what will happen to peripheral regions within
advanced (e.g., the so-called "fly-over" states of Middle America) as well
as emerging economies (e.g., interior China)?

 

How do the organizational pipelines of MNEs interact with the reality of
large and growing global Diasporas? How do advanced economy MNEs affect
catch-up processes in emerging economies? How do emerging economy MNEs enter
global innovation networks? As innovation becomes increasingly important in
value creation, how do MNEs leverage the potential of open innovation and
globally dispersed knowledge networks? What are the implications of the
three megatrends for stakeholder analysis and environmental sustainability?
How do they affect corporate social responsibility and shared value
strategies of MNEs?

 

Our host city, Bangalore is particularly appropriate since it encapsulates
all three megatrends in a single location. It is at once a center of high
value, focused IT activities that appear within a wide range of GVCs, from
avionics to financial services. It is one of the leading knowledge clusters
in the world in terms of the production of knowledge-intensive intangibles.
Finally, its location in an emerging economy enables visitors to see for
themselves the juxtaposition of gleaming, globally connected IT campuses and
economically isolated communities disconnected from the world economy. 

 

Paper and Panel Submissions

Paper and panel submissions for AIB 2015 need to be categorized into one of
thirteen topical tracks and two special tracks. Each paper or panel proposal
must be submitted to only one track. All submissions will be handled through
the AIB online submission system. 

 

For a full list of tracks, descriptions, keywords, and submission
instructions, please visit the full AIB 2015 Bengaluru Call for Papers at
http://aib.msu.edu/events/2015/callforpapers.asp  .

 

 

 

 

 


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