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The Survival of the fittest in the global markets: MNCs’ evolution versus
decline



Special issue call for papers from Management Decision

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=7824




With the intensification of globalization, national boundaries no longer
act as major barriers to cross-border economic activities. As such, firms
increasingly have a propensity not just to limit their markets to their
home countries, but also to try to achieve organizational growth by selling
their products in foreign economies. Conversely, this means that before the
emergence of globalization, firms’ food chains were relatively stable, and
they could peacefully run their businesses within domestic markets.
However, the increasingly intensified globalization has triggered a
situation in which international markets have turned into ferocious
battlefields for multinational corporations (MNCs). Hence, these companies face
“struggle for existence” challenges and will eventually die out if they
fail to appropriately evolve in such environments (Tian and Slocum, 2015).
This highlights the important fact that not all MNCs are enjoying a period
of prosperity or continual success. For instance, while some MNCs have
accomplished extensive evolution and emerged as powerful organizations in
the global arena (e.g., Samsung in Korea, Tata in India, Haier in China,
and Cemex in Mexico), some other MNCs also have been losing their edge in
the race representing the survival of the fittest and also falling behind
their competition (i.e., natural selection of MNCs). Recent examples of
such behavior could perhaps be found in some Japanese MNCs, as no one can
deny that Japan was a quondam economic giant and that Japanese MNCs were
dominant market leaders in both the domestic and international markets.



However, unlike other MNCs achieving successful evolution, certain Japanese
firms and several organizations both from developed and emerging economies
have autonomously evolved on an isolated island at a long distance from the
continent, which can be denoted as the Galápagos syndrome triggering MNC
decline in the global markets. This syndrome is used by the media to
indicate the geographically isolated development of an otherwise globally
available product. Some MNCs have developed a number of specialized
products (e.g., Japanese 3G mobile phones and smartphones, NTT DoCoMo's
i-mode, Nintendo video game consoles, etc.), but have been unsuccessful
abroad (Akimoto, 2011; Isawa, 2016; Tabuchi, 2009). In addition, the
previous difficulties experienced by Korean automakers (e.g., Daewoo and
Ssangyong) were also caused by the fact that they kept producing outdated
models or models that were only attractive to consumers in their home
market. Thus, this phenomenon raises an interesting research question: why
were these MNCs in danger of dying out?



The current theories and extensive literature in the international business
field have been mainly focusing on answering research questions on such
issues as (a) why MNCs choose foreign direct investment (Buckley and
Casson, 1976; Fan *et al*., 2016; Park, Lee and Hong, 2011), (b) how MNCs
maximize their earnings in host countries in spite of the presence of the
liabilities of foreignness (Buckley and Casson, 1999; Miller, Lavie and
Delios, 2016), and (c) which conditions influence MNCs’ choice of entry
modes (Dunning, 1993, 2000; Majocchi, Mayrhofer and Camps, 2013; Williams,
Lukoianova and Martinez, 2017) and, consequently, we know little about why
some MNCs do not evolve successfully while others avoid retrogression by
natural selection. In addition, discussions dealing with the heterogeneity
of firms declining in the global markets are still in its infancy. There
are different patterns of heterogeneity of firms' declines in the global
markets according to their status of various development levels, though.
Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to bring together the
theoretical and empirical advancements by focusing on discussions on the
evolution of MNCs versus their decline in international business
territories. Thus, we welcome conceptual and empirical papers using
quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method approaches on any level and
across levels of analysis.



*Topics*

More specifically, this Special Issue seeks both theoretical and empirical
academic papers that may address, but are not limited to, the following
list of potential research questions:



   - Why do some MNCs become victims of intensified globalization and what
   factors influence this?
   - Is there a particular relationship between non-innovative corporate
   behaviors and natural selection in competition?
   - Why does a good corporate image die out over the course of time and
   what are the key factors affecting the maintenance of a MNC’s image?
   - What are the primary conditions that enhance the survival of emerging
   market MNCs and minimize the negative organizational outcomes resulting
   from outward FDI from emerging countries?
   - Do emerging market MNCs and developed country MNCs follow different
   paths of evolution?
   - What internal and external factors enable MNCs to overcome the crisis
   of natural selection?
   - How do MNCs from the least developed countries transform their
   environmental capability in order to internationally link it to
   organizational advantages under the institutional void?
   - Do consumers, employees and investors respond differently to MNCs’
   products and services in different countries?
   - Does the country of origin affect the evolution of MNCs versus their
   decline?



We encourage scholars to use other disciplines and regard novel
theoretical, methodological and empirical touches in order to understand,
measure, and analyze the above topics. Intersectoral and interdisciplinary
studies, associated with these topics, will enhance major theoretical and
empirical contributions in various combinations of multiple sectors and
disciplines. These research ideas are not exhaustive, and other topics
within a main category of this special issue are welcome.



*Important Dates:*

*Submission **D**eadline*: March 17, 2019

*Special Issue Workshop, *Chongqing, China: July 26, 2019



*Guidelines on Paper Submission: *

The papers submitted for this Special Issue of the Management Decision (MD)
will initially be desk reviewed by a Guest Editor and when found suitable,
it will be assigned for rigorous review by a qualified team of
academicians. Successful papers in this Special Issue should demonstrate
strong academic discourse combined with robust methodological approach will
be considered during the peer review processes.



Please visit the Management Decision at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journal/md to know more about the journal.



Submissions to the Management Decision are made using ScholarOne
Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system. Registration and
access is available through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/md.



For detailed author guidelines, please visit
http://emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=md



All authors who are invited to revise and resubmit their manuscripts are
expected to present their papers at a MD Special Issue Workshop at Chongqing
Technology & Business University (CTBU), China (June 28, 2019), but their
participation is not compulsory. CTBU will provide individual
accommodations for two nights to one author of every paper invited to
revise and resubmit after the first round, and cover all local workshop
expenses (food, drinks, etc.). During the workshop, the guest editors for
the special issue and MD editorial board members will give constructive
feedback to paper presentations to improve the quality of their papers to
enlarge the effect of the special issue.



*Guest Editors:*

Jeoung Yul Lee, *Chongqing Technology & Business University, China / Hongik
University, South Korea / University of Leeds, UK, **[log in to unmask]*

Byung Il Park, *Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea, *
*[log in to unmask]*



*References:*

Akimoto, A. (2011), In the battle with smart phones is i-mode dead? *The
Japan Times*, April 20, 2011. Available at
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/04/20/digital/in-the-battle-with-smart-phones-is-i-mode-dead/#.WkSQMFVl_3g
[accessed on December 28, 2017].

Buckley, P.J. and Casson, M. (1999), “A theory of international
operations”, In: Buckley, P. J. and Ghauri, P. N. (eds.), *The
internationalization of the firm*. London: International Thomson Business
Press, 55-60.

Buckley, P.J. and Casson, M. (1976), *The future of the multinational
enterprise*. London: Macmillan.

Dunning, J.H. (2000), “The eclectic paradigm as an envelope for economic
and business theories of MNE activity”, *International Business Review*,
Vol. 9, pp. 163-190.

Dunning, J.H. (1993), *Multinational enterprises and the global economy*.
Wokingham: Addison-Wesley.

Fan, D., Cui, L., Li, Y. and Zhu, C.J. (2016), “Localized learning by
emerging multinational enterprises in developed host countries: A fuzzy-set
analysis of Chinese foreign direct investment in Australia”, *International
Business Review*, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 187-203.

Isawa, M. (2016), Nintendo keeps paying, despite less playing. *Nikkei
Asian Review*, March 4, 2016. Available at
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Nintendo-keeps-paying-despite-less-playing
[accessed on December 28, 2017].

Majocchi, A., Mayrhofer, U. and Camps, J. (2013), “Joint ventures or non‐equity
alliances? Evidence from Italian firms”, *Management Decision*, Vol. 51 No.
 2, pp.380-395

Miller, S. R., Lavie, D. and Delios, A. (2016), “International intensity,
diversity, and distance: Unpacking the internationalization–performance
relationship”, *International Business Review*, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 907-920.

Park, Y.-R., Lee, J.Y. and Hong, S. (2011), “Effects of international
entry-order strategies on foreign subsidiary exit: The case of Korean
chaebols”, *Management Decision*, Vol. 49 No. 9, pp. 1471-1488.

Tabuchi, H.  (2009), Why Japan’s cellphones haven’t gone global. *The New
York Times*, July 19, 2009. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/technology/20cell.html [accessed on
December 28, 2017].

 (2009).

Tian, X. and Slocum, J. W. (2015), “The decline of global market
leaders”, *Journal
of World Business*, Vol. 50, pp. 15-25.

Williams, C., Lukoianova, T. and Martinez, C.A. (2017), “The moderating
effect of bilateral investment treaty stringency on the relationship
between political instability and subsidiary ownership choice”, *International
Business Review*, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 1-11.


-- 

Dr. Byung Il Park

Professor of International Business
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
College of Business
Tel: +82-2-2173-3193
Mobile: +82-10-4157-3532
Personal Homepage: http://hufs.ac.kr/user/leedspark/index.action

Editor, International Journal of Multinational Corporation Strategy

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