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  .