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*CALL FOR PAPERS*

*Special Issue of the Journal of International Business StudiesBUSINESS
MODEL INNOVATIONS IN A DISRUPTIVE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL
MARKETING PERSPECTIVE*

*Special Issue Editors:*
• V. Kumar (St. John’s University, USA, [log in to unmask] )
• Saeed Samiee (Tulsa University, USA, [log in to unmask])
• Bettina Cornwell, University of Oregon, USA, [log in to unmask])
• Constantine Katsikeas, University of Leeds, UK, [log in to unmask])

*Extended Deadline for submission: January 15, 2022*

*Introduction*
The focus of this Special Issue is on Business Model Innovations (BMI) in a
Disruptive Global Environment, from an International Marketing perspective.
This call invites manuscripts dealing with a wide range of topics that fall
into BMI across firms (including firms’ responses to the need of the time)
and across geographies, and that are shaping the BMI literature.
International Business (IB) is inherently a multidisciplinary field and
this call for papers emphasizes BMI through the marketing lens in the
context of the global business environment. Further, the world has been
facing a constant challenge in the form of disruptive business
environments. Disruptions are taking the form of new technologies, new
data, health pandemics, new markets (developed vs emerging), unexpected
impacts of cultural and economic differences, new distribution channels,
new competitive structures, infrastructure redesign, new products/services,
and changes in buyer-supplier relationships that create new or transformed
business processes, and new business models. Thus, the focus of this
special issue is at the intersection of business model innovations and the
disruptive environment in the context of a globalizing business arena.

Many globally oriented businesses follow processes whereby developed market
firms do business in emerging markets, capitalize on the innovative
potential therein, reap the benefits (and sometimes costs) of bringing
reverse innovations back to developed markets, and, finally, continually
refine and optimize their innovation strategies (Kumar & Srivastava, 2020,
Papanastassiou, Pearce, & Zanfei, 2020). Moreover, emerging market
multinational enterprises (EMNEs) are changing business processes to
overcome difficulties and extending their footprints in developed markets.
Across diverse emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and India, firms
have had to contend with large-scale changes in consumer preferences as the
direct result of technological and sociocultural upheavals (Leonidou,
Katsikeas, Samiee, & Aykol, 2018). In the wake of these developments, the
innovation potential of emerging markets has never been more promising, and
the need for the marketing discipline needed to address the managerial
realities of marketing in emerging economies has never been greater (Kumar,
2014). Consequently, the responsibility of marketing researchers and
academics to pave the way for a new and more comprehensive understanding of
emerging market contexts has become more pressing in recent years. With an
increasing number of MNEs seeking to do business in emerging economies, the
stakeholders who stand to benefit from such an updated understanding are
manifold. Examples of business model innovations include Base-of-Pyramid
(BoP) innovation processes (Sinkovics, Sinkovics, & Yamin, 2014),
Grassroots Innovation (GRI) processes (Gupta, 2019), Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) strategies, and the role of employees in open
innovation. Business model innovation can also include changes in design of
buyer-supplier relationships, changes in the value chain, changes in firms’
decisions of TMT selection, changes in managing sustainability strategies
such as reductions in carbon emissions (greenhouse gasses), changes in the
firms’ innovation management across their buyers and suppliers (e.g.,
network level innovation) (Sharma, Pathak, Borah, & Adhikary, 2019) that
may affect international business performance and/or internationalization.

Likewise, the orchestration of cross-border business relationships is being
disrupted. While expectations of reliability and relational closeness
mitigate uncertainty about a partner’s behavior, they can limit the
cognitive efforts of partners to reduce external environmental uncertainty.
Still, with a gradually changing environment or with turbulent but
restricted-scope changes, relationship quality can at least stimulate
supply partnerships into making adjustments to becomemore efficient and
equitable. High-quality relationships that have been built up over many
years are likely to struggle to detect, and adjust to, large-scale changes
brought about by business model innovations, digital disruption, and
sociocultural upheaval (Kumar, 2019). Against this backdrop, established
models of cross-border partnering need to be re-evaluated and extended. At
a broader level, disruptions to established global exchange rules (e.g.,
due to trade wars) and deglobalization sentiments (e.g., due to political
populism) (Tung & Stahl, 2018) necessitate the use of innovative strategies
and models of establishing, growing, and maintaining relationships with
stakeholders in overseas markets (Turkina & Van Assche, 2018).

Significant interest in, and focus on, scholarly research in BMI began to
intensify during the 1990s with the advent of the internet and later on
with the onset of technological advances. These forces generated data in a
way that no one could imagine. A 360-degree view of data became possible
and companies were able to evaluate the success/failure of their business
models. Thus, over the last three decades we have seen the demise of
Blockbuster Video and Red Box with the emergence of video streaming
(Netflix). Cable Television paving the way for Streaming services (e.g.,
Hulu, Disney plus, YouTube). Similarly, offline retailers (e.g., Circuit
City, CompUSA) disappeared with the onset of online businesses (e.g.,
Alibaba, Amazon, Flipkart). Taxi and Limo services, and rental car
businesses are on the decline with the entry of ridesharing companies
(e.g., Uber, Lyft). Payment systems have changed to digital modes faster in
emerging markets than in developed markets due to leapfrogging behavior
(Kumar, Nim and Agarwal (forthcoming). Similarly, growing born digital
firms (Monaghan, Tippmann, & Coviello, 2020) present new challenges and
opportunities.

Most IB theories have focused on understanding physical flows of goods and
services (Nambisan, Zahra, & Luo, 2019) and on well-defined flows of
intangibles, such as R&D outcomes and brand names (the transfer of
intangible, intermediate outputs constituting the essence of modern IB
theory, since Buckley & Casson, 1976 and Rugman, 1981) However, disruptions
such as Covid-19 have led multiple firms to shift their focus toward
managing platform ecosystems. This change is also coupled with emergence of
new technologies such as 3D printing. For example, HP produced multiple
medical components such as masks, face shields, ventilator components as
well as personal accessories using 3D printing (
https://enable.hp.com/us-en-3dprint-COVID-19-containment-applications/).
However, questions such as how platform ecosystems will evolve and how
global value chains will change, remain largely unexplored (Laplume,
Petersen, & Pearce, 2016). There have been recent attempts to adopt
conventional IB theories such as internalization theory in digital settings
(Banalieva & Dhanaraj, 2019), but this is not as easy as would appear on
the surface (Hennart, 2019). Research in this stream may explore the role
of multiple stakeholders such as customers, top management teams, and
specifically the chief marketing officer (CMO) (Li, Frederick, & Gereffi,
2019, Li, Chen, Yi, Mao, & Liao, 2019, Nambisan, Zahra, & Luo, 2019), as
well as value chain partners in collaborating in the digital world, thereby
leading to BMI in general, and network driven innovation specifically.

Finally, while multiple aspects of BMI have been discussed, the focus of
the literature has mainly been on lead firms. This issue is probably not
surprising as much of the research in global value chains has focused on
lead firms (Kano, Tsang, & Yeung, 2020). However, as firms start operating
in a constellation of relationships (Cuypers, Ertug, Cantwell, Zaheer, &
Kilduff, 2020), research must move beyond value creation and capture
mechanisms by the lead firm. Specially, looking at disruptions, there is a
need to understand whether it is feasible to create business models
beneficial for each member of the constellation. As the recent Covid-19
crisis has taught us, innovations probably will not be fully developed and
controlled by the lead firm but rather co-created with other members of the
ecosystem. There is a greater need to understand how these lead firms are
revisiting their business models and constellations of relationships, which
may in in turn help each member of the constellation to innovate.

Given the lack of full coverage of the proposed topics in the IB
literature, this special issue will bring together insights from various
perspectives, including a wide spectrum of types of products, markets,
disruptions and customer segments served (Gupta, Pansari, & Kumar, 2018).
The prospective research for the special issue may include topics that
show: (a) the effect of new key variables on BMI; (b) changes in BMI (e.g.,
changes in buyer-supplier relationships) affecting firms’ performance at
the global level or firms’ strategic initiatives; (c) changes in BMI that
may augment extant IB and international marketing theory. Thus, this
Special Issue is intended to motivate and encourage scholars to focus on
developing research projects integrating two themes –BMI and Disruptive
Environment.

*Special Issue Scope*

• Focus on the origin of innovations such as whether they are firm
initiated, customer initiated or community initiated.
• Focus on the relationship between global brand positioning and business
model innovations, customer engagement and/or stakeholder engagement.
• Focus on the BOP segments-based innovations such as grassroots
innovation, social innovation, and reverse innovation from emerging
markets, and the ability to bring it to developed markets.
• Innovations related to products, pricing, promotion, advertising,
selling, and digital marketing.
• Comparing the process and functioning of BMI in a B2B versus B2C context.
• The nature of competition in a disruptive environment, and how firms
overcome the global challenges to succeed.
• The evolution of interorganizational partnerships into new forms,
structures, and constellations that can accommodate major headwinds and
disruptions in foreign markets.
• The use of digital routes to international markets and when and how to
leverage these alongside, or in place of, traditional modes.
• The phenomenon of exporters and other internationalizing firms overcoming
disruptive environments by gathering and using new intelligence and
learning styles, which lessen their reliance on traditional overseas
relationships.
• The need to find new ways to build legitimacy among, and establish
productive relationships with, foreign-market stakeholders, against a
backdrop of deglobalization, protectionism, and inter-country tensions.
• How do firms operating in platform economies create a culture of
innovation and creativity? What is the role played by customers and the
chief marketing officer in developing these relationships?
• What are the major changes in marketing strategy through business model
innovation? How do consumers as well as employees react to business model
innovation?
• How do firms configure the value chain to make the entire value chain
more innovative?
• How do disruptions in the value chain influence business model
innovations?
• What is the customer role in disruption and use of disruptive practices,
technologies or products? Under what conditions do customers favor the
adoption of disruptive technologies and/or products?
• How do disruptive political leaders and societal movements affect BMI
across both emerging and developed markets?


*Review and Submission Processes*
As Guest Editors, we will take an active role in interacting with authors
throughout the submission period. As such, we welcome substantive inquiries
regarding the Special Issue to provide insights that may be useful in
developing or improving manuscripts. Please do not hesitate to contact any
of the Guest Editors if you have questions on the relevance of the topics
for this special issue. All manuscripts for the Special Issue will be
reviewed as a cohort, and the Guest Editors will make joint decisions in
this process.

*Accordingly, we request that authors submit their manuscripts by January
15, 2022 at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jibs
<http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jibs>. *All submissions will go through
the JIBS regular double-blind review process and follow the standard norms
and processes. For more information about this call for papers, please
contact the JIBS Managing Editor ([log in to unmask]).

*About the Guest Editors*
*V. Kumar* (VK) is Professor of Marketing, Tobin College of Business, St.
John’s University, NY. VK is also honored as the HUL Chair Professor at IIM
Ahmedabad, India; Distinguished Fellow, MICA, India; and Distinguished Term
Professor, and Senior Fellow, Indian School of Business, India. VK also
serves as the Consulting Editor of JIBS; Departmental Editor of POM; and as
a Guest Editor and/or the Associate Editor for many scholarly journals in
marketing and related disciplines.

*Saeed Samiee* is the Collins Professor of Marketing and International
Business at the University of Tulsa. He is an Area Editor for JIBS and
Associate Editor for marketing and international business for Decision
Sciences Journal. He is the recipient of the 2017 Significant Contributions
to Global Marketing Award by the Global Marketing SIG of the American
Marketing Association.

*T. Bettina Cornwell* is the Phillip H. Knight Chair and Professor of
Marketing, at the Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon. She
is also Head of the department of marketing. She was named Thomas C.
Stewart Distinguished Professor, the Lundquist College’s highest faculty
honor in 2016.

*Constantine S. Katsikeas* is the Arnold Ziff Research Chair and Professor
of Marketing and International Management at Leeds University Business
School (LUBS), University of Leeds. He is also the Director of Global and
Strategic Marketing Research Centre at LUBS and serves as the Area Editor
for JIBS, and Associate editor for Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science. He has also served as the Editor-in-Chief for Journal of
International Marketing.

*References*

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