Dear Colleagues,

Just a friendly reminder that the March 10 submission deadline for the joint iBEGIN and AIB-Canada Chapter conference is quickly approaching. The conference will be hosted by the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business in beautiful Victoria, Canada from August 12-13, 2020, immediately following the Academy of Management Conference in nearby Vancouver. We hope to see you in Victoria!

 

Submission instructions: www.uvic.ca/ibegin

 

 

 

 

International Business, Economic Geography and Innovation

2020 iBEGIN Conference

 

in combination with

 

2020 AIB-Canada Chapter

https://canada.aib.world

 

Sustainable Innovation & Entrepreneurship in a Fragmented World

 

August 12-13, 2020

Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Canada

 

 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Becky Reuber, University of Toronto

Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria

Max von Zedtwitz, Copenhagen Business School

 

 

iBEGIN is a research program at the nexus of the three disciplines of international business, economic geography and innovation. Papers that address any issue at this nexus are welcome as are papers that align with the AIB-Canada Chapter agenda. The conference theme as described below provides a rough guide to the keynote addresses, but will not affect the choice of papers accepted for presentation at the conference.

 

Today, the world faces political, societal, and natural environmental challenges that span geographic and economic boundaries. Increasing protectionism and trade wars impact the way goods and services are produced and traded across country borders (Witt, 2019; Van Assche, 2019), also impacting the way global value chains are fine sliced and geographically spread (Mudambi, 2008). Similarly, societal backlashes to rising income inequality in combination with political dissatisfaction have led to instable business environments and mass migration (Barnard, Deeds, Mudambi, & Vaaler, 2019) highlighting societal cleavages that impact global business (Suddaby, Bruton, & Walsh, 2018). Moreover, global natural environmental challenges have been the subject of intense debate in recent years, leading to another set of challenges for conducting international business (Doh, Tashman, & Benischke, 2019). All these challenges have led to increased fragmentation of the global business environment, wherein global businesses are forced to develop strategies aimed at ever more disparate niches.

In order to cope, businesses are forced to develop and implement innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives that take the changing environments into account. In particular, international innovation and R&D (Boutellier, Gassmann, and Von Zedtwitz, 2008) as well as international entrepreneurship (Kiss, Danis, and Cavusgil, 2012; Reuber, Knight, Liesch, and Zhou, 2018) become increasingly important and require an understanding of global, national, and local environments. Examples are the importance of innovation environments with IP protection standards (e.g. Brandl, Darendeli, and Mudambi, 2018) or individual boundary spanners that support innovative and entrepreneurial activities (e.g. Schotter, Mudambi, and Gaur, 2017).

These innovative and entrepreneurial activities require a sustainable perspective, emphasizing long term considerations, systemic solutions, and the creation of multiple forms of value for diverse stakeholders. The opposing unsustainable and short-term perspective focusing purely on generating economic value for a narrow range of constituents seems increasingly untenable. We encourage contributions related to any of these challenges related to innovation, and entrepreneurship in a fragmented world. There are a number of crucial questions related to each of these areas:

 

Sustainable innovation in a fragmented world

• How can sustainable innovation help address global and national political, societal, and natural environmental challenges?
• How do global and national political developments, such as trade wars and strained international relations, impact innovation? How do governments influence national and global innovation environments?
• How do societal challenges, such as migration, inequality and poverty, impact innovation? How do societies influence national and global innovation environments?
• How do natural environment challenges, such as climate change and environmental degradation, impact innovation? How does nature influence national and global innovation environments?

 

Sustainable entrepreneurship in a fragmented world

• How can sustainable entrepreneurship help address global and national political, societal, and natural environmental challenges?
• How do global and national political developments, such as trade wars and strained international relations, impact entrepreneurship? How do governments influence national and global entrepreneurial activities?
• How do societal challenges, such as migration, inequality and poverty, impact entrepreneurship? How do societies influence national and global entrepreneurial activities?
• How do natural environment challenges, such as climate change and environmental degradation, impact entrepreneurship? How does nature influence national and global entrepreneurial activities?

 

About iBEGIN

Since 2013, the iBEGIN community has aimed to integrate research on the intersection of the three fields of international business, economic geography, and technology/innovation studies. In addition to the conference theme, we welcome all paper submissions that address the broader iBEGIN research agenda. iBEGIN research aims at integrating and leveraging these three diverse research streams to develop a holistic view of the organization of economic activity across space. All iBEGIN research is built around a set of core and fundamental tenets:

• Connectivity across space is the “invisible web” that underlies all human civilization.
• Human connectivity appears in two generic forms – organization-based (pipelines) and individual-based (personal relationships).
• Social networking and innovation are the two most important elements of the human creative experience.

 

About AIB-Canada

The mission of the Academy of International Business (AIB) Canada Chapter is to promote teaching and research of all areas of international business, within the framework of the worldwide AIB. The Chapter acts as a forum for the development and exchange of views on issues in international business, mainly by means of the AIB Canada Chapter Annual Meeting and representation at the Administrative Sciences of Association of Canada (ASAC) Annual Conferences.

 

KEY DATES/INFORMATION:

Submission deadline: March 10, 2020

Authors notified by: end of March, 2020

Conference dates: August 12-13, 2020 (following 2020 AOM Vancouver)

Location: Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

 

SUBMISSIONS:

• Submit extended abstracts or full papers to: [log in to unmask] (see instructions also at www.uvic.ca/ibegin).
• Submission format: extended abstracts (5-7 double-spaced pages) or full papers (maximum 40 double-spaced pages, all inclusive).
• We also welcome submissions of conceptual and empirical abstracts/papers that are in their early phases of development and will be organizing a paper development workshop with senior editors of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and the Journal of International Business Policy (JIBP) for such work (please indicate your interest when submitting).

 

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Conference organizers:

Kristin Brandl ([log in to unmask])

Wade Danis ([log in to unmask])

Andreas Schotter ([log in to unmask])

 

iBEGIN Convener: Ram Mudambi ([log in to unmask])

AIB-Canada Convener: Anthony Goerzen ([log in to unmask])

 

 

REFERENCES

 

Barnard, H., Deeds, D., Mudambi, R., & Vaaler, P. M. (2019). Migrants, migration policies, and international business research: Current trends and new directions. Journal of International Business Policy, 2(4): 275-288.

Boutellier, R., Gassmann, O., & Von Zedtwitz, M. (2008). Managing global innovation: uncovering the secrets of future competitiveness. Springer Science & Business Media.

Brandl, K., Darendeli, I., & Mudambi, R. (2019). Foreign actors and intellectual property protection regulations in developing countries. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(5): 826-846.

Doh, J. P., Tashman, P., & Benischke, M. H. (2019). Adapting to grand environmental challenges through collective entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Perspectives, 33(4): 450-468.

Kiss, A. N., Danis, W. M., & Cavusgil, S. T. (2012). International entrepreneurship research in emerging economies: A critical review and research agenda. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(2), 266-290.

Mudambi, R. (2008). Location, control and innovation in knowledge-intensive industries. Journal of Economic Geography, 8(5): 699-725.

Reuber, A. R., Knight, G. A., Liesch, P. W., & Zhou, L. (2018). International entrepreneurship: The pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities across national borders. Journal of International Business, 49: 395-406.

Schotter, A. P., Mudambi, R., Doz, Y. L., & Gaur, A. (2017). Boundary spanning in global organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 54(4), 403-421.

Suddaby, R., Bruton, G. D., & Walsh, J. P. (2018). What we talk about when we talk about inequality: An introduction to the journal of management studies special issue. Journal of Management Studies, 55(3), 381-393.

Van Assche, A. (2019) Global value chains and development: redefining the contours of 21st century capitalism. Journal of Economic Geography, 19(5): 1169-1170.

Witt, M. A. (2019). De-globalization: Theories, predictions, and opportunities for international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 50: 1053-1077.