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Dear colleagues and friends, Allow me to share with you a part of the editorial written by guest editors Vasileios A. Vlachos & Aristidis Bitzenis "The (Reinvigorating) Role of Foreign Direct Investment after the Crisis". I hope you check out all the interesting papers just published in the Journal of East-West Business. This issue of the Journal of East-West Business contains the first volume of accepted scholarly work that responded to the call for papers on "Foreign direct investment in the European Union after the global financial and economic crisis" and completed successfully the double-blind peer review process. The initiation point of the call for papers was based on the fact that several countries did not fully recover from the devastating consequences of the recent multifaceted global crisis, which emerged in 2007 as a subprime mortgage and energy crisis (i.e., oil shock of 2007-2008) and gradually developed into a financial, sovereign-debt, and ultimately an economic crisis without precedent in post-war economic history. Under the consideration of macroeconomic data until 2015 (2014 for FDI), the call stressed that economic recovery in the West was fragile. While the United States (where the crisis commenced) and most European countries (where the crisis impacted the most economies) had recovered in terms of GDP and inward FDI, only two countries from the European Union (EU) had recovered in terms of employment and similarly, only seven EU countries had surpassed the amount of fixed investment (gross fixed capital formation) that was reported before they were hit by the crisis. The United States had also not recovered in terms of employment and fixed investment. Although the global financial and economic crisis triggered in 2007 has admittedly ended in the first half of 2010, full recovery is still in question. The impact of the crisis is still visible across the euro area as Eurostat data reveal that several members have not yet fully recovered in terms of GDP, fixed capital formation, and employment (Eurostat, Eurostat database: GDP, gross fixed capital formation, and employment. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database accessed March 21, 2018). By the end of 2017 for example, six EU members (namely Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Italy, and Portugal) did not fully recover in terms of GDP (i.e., surpassing the amount reported in 2008, before they were hit by the crisis in 2009). Fourteen EU members (namely Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Portugal) did not fully recover in terms of gross fixed capital formation. By the end of 2016, eleven EU members (namely Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) fully recovered in terms of total employment (Labour Force Survey Data from Eurostat, 15 to 64 years old). The call referred to the experience of economic adjustment in the EU with regard to the limited potential for public investment expenditure and the emphasis on improving competiveness in order to indicate the critical role of inward FDI. For example, in countries such as Greece, which experience rapid economic adjustment amid economic recession, policy imperatives should improve the conditions favouring the factors that determine inward FDI and the reinvestment rate. The purpose should be to keep as many of the rents from FDI in the domestic economy as possible and improve the absorptive capacity in order to increase competitiveness, innovation, and productivity. Within this context, the call for papers for this special issue described the focus on the factors attracting FDI and its impact on the host and home EU countries in the aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis. The articles of the special issue The articles of this special issue deal with financial integration, the performance of multinational enterprises, and the effect of external inflows on economic growth. The article by Aleksandar Stojkov and Thierry Warin under the title "EU Membership and FDI: Is There an Endogenous Credibility Effect?" focuses on intra-EU bilateral FDI flows. The authors explore whether EU bilateral FDI flows increase as the integration of EU economies deepens, and in particular, how important is the adoption of the euro for the investment decisions of multinational enterprises. When a country adopts the euro, market features of the euro area such as size, similarity, and distance are altered and their magnitude dictates the presence of FDI premiums for member states. The authors develop a structural gravity approach and find evidence of a growing European financial integration that has been adversely affected by the global financial crisis. In particular, the authors estimate that the euro effect on intra-EU bilateral FDI is 23 percent (Luxembourg not included). The article by Dimitris Manolopoulos titled "Entrepreneurship and Multinational Subsidiaries' Performance in an Era of Financial Crisis and Economic Uncertainty" focuses on the performance of multinational subsidiaries in Greece amidst financial recession and high economic uncertainty. The author aims to investigate the impact of three firm-level characteristics-the extent of autonomy, in-house R&D activity, and strategic mandates-on subsidiaries' return on investment and instead of trying to operationalize entrepreneurship based on attitudinal data, the author measures it as manifested on aspects such as subsidiary role, extent of technology centralization, R&D development by in-house (subsidiary) activities, and subsidiary autonomy. The analysis of data from a questionnaire-based survey of 87 foreign firms operating in Greece indicates that a product mandate subsidiary with high levels of autonomy is positively associated with advanced performance, and that a subsidiary formed as a result of merger/acquisition positively impacts on performance. The article by Petros Golitsis, Kushtrim Avdiu, and Leslie T. Szamosi under the title "Remittances and FDI Effects on Economic Growth: A VECM and GIRFs for the Case of Albania" focuses on the effect of external inflows on economic growth. The purpose is to investigate the relationship between FDI, GDP, gross fixed capital formation, and inflation in Albania, which was awarded candidate status by the EU in June 2014. The authors aim to answer 20 research questions in order to investigate the directions of Granger-causality and the presence of a long-run relationship among the variables, and to measure the effects of FDI on the Albanian economy. Their findings indicate that remittances positively affect economic growth and disinflate the Albanian economy; that inflation Granger-causes negatively FDI; and that there is no relationship between FDI, economic growth, and gross fixed capital formation. Many greetings to you all! Prof. Dr. Desislava Dikova WU / Vienna University of Economics and Business, IB Institute Editor in Chief Journal of East-West Business Senior Associate Editor European Management Review Senior Editor International Journal of Emerging Markets Welthandelsplatz 1, D1, floor 5 A-1020 Vienna, Austria Tel: + 43 1 313 36 / 5480; + 43 676 821 35 480 Fax: +43 1 313 36 / 905015 Email: [log in to unmask] http://www.wu.ac.at/iib/team/faculty/dikova ____ AIB-L is brought to you by the Academy of International Business. For information: http://aib.msu.edu/community/aib-l.asp To post message: [log in to unmask] For assistance: [log in to unmask] AIB-L is a moderated list.