We are pleased to announce a new special issue on Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management (JMTM) under the title “Rethinking international manufacturing in times of global turbulence: convergent perspectives of international business and international operations management”.

A brief call for papers (CFP) can be seen on: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=8175. The CfP`s full text is attached to this message.  

The special issue aims at rethinking international manufacturing in times of global turbulence and highlighting whether and how firms’ internationalisation decisions especially in what concerns the manufacturing function are influenced by recent economic, political, and technological trends. The research topics include, but are not limited to the following:

·   Relationship between the firm’s business strategy in the times of global turbulence and the footprint of its global production network 

·  Choice of sites around the world for production of different parts of the firm’s value chain in the context of recent economic, political, and technological trends

·  Choice and consequences of how the site is set up (green field, outsourced, licensed alliance, joint venture, or acquisition) in the context of recent economic, political, and technological trends

·  The optimisation of the allocation of the firm’s critical resources in its global production and supply chain networks in the times of global turbulence

·  Impact of new technologies (e.g., IoT, Industry 4.0, Blockchain, and 3-D printing) on the design and management of the firm’s global production networks

·  Consolidation of global production and supply chain networks after merger and acquisition

·  Tracking and auditing the evolution of the firm’s global production and supply chain network and understanding their interaction

·  Tracking and auditing the evolution of the firm’s global production and other functional networks and understanding their interaction

·  Exploring power distribution in global production network

·  Understanding the governance structure of global value chains and its impacts on multinationals’ international configuration

·  Exploring the relationship between headquarters and plants and understanding the impacts of host and home country contexts on this relationship 

We look forward to receiving papers that have a strong theoretical and empirical basis and are aimed at developing international operations management theory. Specifically, We encourage the submissions to adopt the theories widely used in the studies of international business or other disciplines to address international operations.