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Dear Colleague
This is a reminder of the deadline for the submission for this Special Issue.


Business Research Quarterly

Call for Papers for a Special Issue

Inter-Regional Internationalization: Ties and Flows across Regions
Submission Deadline: November 15, 2016

Guest editors:
Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Northeastern University, USA
Jose Pla-Barber, University of Valencia, Spain

Aims and Scope:
The objective of this special issue of Business Research Quarterly (BRQ) is to advance our understanding of business relationships across regions. The regional expansion of companies is both a well-known action as well as a widely studied phenomenon in the literature; many of the largest companies in the world tend to be regional in their operations, deriving most of their revenues from their home country and nearby countries (Rugman and Verbeke, 2008). The reason is that expanding far and wide is challenging; managers face higher psychic distance when considering countries they do not know well (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977), companies suffer from higher costs of operating at a distance (Teece, 1977), and there are more barriers to economic exchanges across countries that have fewer commonalities in currency, language, political ties, or prior colonial relationships (Frankel and Rose, 2002).  

Nevertheless, in recent times we observe an increasing global expansion of companies not only from their home country into their nearby region, but also across regions. A new generation of Asian as well as Latin American firms such as Bimbo, Cemex, Embraer, JBS, Huawei, Lenovo, Suzlon or Tata have achieved remarkable success in Europe and the USA (Cuervo-Cazurra and Ramamurti, 2014). This expansion outside the home region has been the focus of analysis of an increasing number of studies on emerging market multinationals, which in some cases have expanded into advanced economies in search of more advanced capabilities like technology or brands (Luo and Tung, 2007). Nevertheless, inter-regional internationalization is a complex strategy. Firms have to confront the liability of regional foreignness (Asmussen and Goerzen, 2013), which imposes additional costs on being an outsider to the region, as well as familiarity costs with and access to regional business networks due to their ‘outsidership’ (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009) 

Hence, in this special issue we want to draw attention to the particular advantages as well as challenges that companies face when they engage in inter-regional internationalization. We are interested in providing a better understanding of inter-regional expansion by going beyond the usual discussion of distance or differences across countries. We aim to provide a better understanding of subtle relationships and connections that exist despite the geographic distance across regions, and that companies can use to leverage their advantages. We are also interested in understanding the relationships between company strategies and the additional challenges that exist when companies expand beyond their home region.

We are open to a wide range of topics on these processes of inter-regional internationalization. The following list represent some examples of topics that fit the special issue:
•	How do multinationals create and transfer innovation and knowledge across regions? How do colonial and cultural links facilitate or hinder relationships?
•	How do local institutions affect governance of inter-regional investments? How do free trade agreements and other regional economic integration agreements modify investment behavior?
•	How can companies overcome the liability of interregional foreignness? How do historical ties among countries in different regions modify the relationships?
•	How can we account and measure the degree of inter-regional adaptability? How do changes in firms and institutions in the home and host regions modify the competitive environment and firm behavior?
•	What are the internationalization patterns of firms from emerging economies in advanced economies? What are their comparative ownership advantages and disadvantages? What are the barriers and institutional constraints these companies confront? How do they compare with firms from other regions?
•	What are the internationalization patterns of advanced economy firms in emerging economies? What are the determinants of their investments and strategies? How do they compare with firms from other regions?

This BRQ special issue will consider conceptual as well as empirical papers with different theoretical perspectives and research methodologies. The main objective is to publish a well-balanced mix of papers with sound, robust and relevant contributions to the literature. We are particularly interested in papers that extend and modify our current understanding of theories by analyzing the business relationships across regions.

Submission process:
Papers for the special issue should be prepared according to BRQ guidelines for authors (https://www.elsevier.com/journals/brq-business-research-quarterly/2340-9436/guide- for-authors). Publication of the special issue is planned for 2017. Please submit your paper between November 1st and November 15th, 2016 via the Elsevier Editorial System (http://ees.elsevier.com/brq). Authors should indicate that they would like their submission to be considered for the special issue “Inter-Regional Internationalization: Ties and Flows Across Regions.”

Further information:
For additional information on the special issue please contact both coeditors: Alvaro Cuervo- Cazurra ([log in to unmask]) and Jose Pla-Barber ([log in to unmask]).
Business Research Quarterly is the official journal of the Spanish Academy of Management. BRQ is indexed in the Journal Citation Report, 2016. For information on the journal please visit: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/brq- business-research-quarterly/.

References:
Asmussen, C.G., and Goerzen, A. 2013. Unpacking dimensions of foreignness: firm- specific capabilities and international dispersion in regional, cultural and institutional space. Global Strategy Journal 3: 127-149.
Cuervo-Cazurra, A., & Ramamurti, R. (Eds.). (2014). Understanding Multinationals from Emerging Markets. Cambridge University Press.
Frankel, J., & Rose, A. (2002). An estimate of the effect of common currencies on trade and income. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117: 437-466.
Johanson, J. and Vahlne, J. E. 2009. The Uppsala internationalisation process model revisited: from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership. Journal of International Business Studies, 40:1411-1431.
Johanson, J., and Vahlne, J. E. 1977. The internationalization process of the firm-a model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitments. Journal of International Business Studies, 28: 23-32.
Luo, Y., & Tung, R. L. 2007. International expansion of emerging market enterprises: A springboard perspective. Journal of International Business Studies, 38: 481-498.
Rugman, A and Verbeke, A. 2008. A regional solution to the strategy and structure of multinationals. European Management Journal, 26(5): 305-313.
 Teece, D. J. 1977. Technology transfer by multinational firms: The resource cost of transferring technological know-how. The Economic Journal, 87: 242-261.




********************************
Dr. José Pla-Barber
Professor of International Business
Department of Management.University of Valencia.
Avda naranjos s/n. Faculty of Economics.
46022. Valencia. Spain.
Tlf.+34 963828312
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