for Papers - Special Issue –
Critical Perspectives on International Business (CPoIB)
“Multinational Corporations and Grand Challenges:
Part of the problem, part of the solution?”
Submission deadline: 15th December 2022
Guest editors
About Critical Perspectives on International Business (CPoIB)
The mission of CPOIB is to exclusively support critical reflections on the nature and impact of contemporary international business (IB) activities around
the globe from inter-, trans-, and multidisciplinary perspectives. The journal places a special emphasis on scholarly work that questions the hegemony of multinational corporations (MNCs) and evaluates the effects of their activities on the global economy
and national societies.
Scope and rationale of the Special Issue
Despite the accelerated slowing down of economic integration due to the global financial crisis, the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, multinational
corporations (MNCs) remain prime actors of the global economy with a particular high impact on the social and political life across countries (Dörrenbächer et al. 2021;
Grosse, Gamso, and Nelson 2022;
UNCTAD 2022). Predicated on the important role of MNCs in the world economy, International Business (IB) research has provided a rich account of instrumental knowledge associated
with cross-border and cross-cultural management (Mellahi et al. 2021;
Szkudlarek et al. 2020). These efforts have also comprised the study of the formal and informal structuring of MNCs including their handling of cross-border inter- and
intra-organizational relationships. Nonetheless, research on the specific impact of MNC activities on societies, the environment and various stakeholders has remained scarce and scattered over disciplines (Dörrenbächer
and Gammelgaard 2019;
Geppert and Bozkurt 2021). Studies from a critical IB perspective (often on the pages of CPoIB) have provided insights on the economic and political power of MNCs, their at times morally and legally dubious activities, as
well as on the detrimental effects some of their business activities have for the environment, the climate and vulnerable groups (Cairns and As-Saber 2017). Yet, the much bigger
mainstream of IB research has so far carefully avoided addressing such ‘negative externalities’ of MNC activities across the world. Exceptions are rare and very recent (see e.g.,
Cuervo-Cazurra et al. 2021on MNC misbehavior). It now appears that new debates in mainstream IB are on their way to putting greater emphasis on ‘Societal’s Grand Challenges’ (Buckley,
Doh, and Benischke 2017). However, they one-sidedly focus on the solutions MNCs may provide (Cuervo-Cazurra et al. 2022b) to address Grand Challenges defined
e.g., through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations 2015).
This Special Issue does not reject contributions that focus on practical solutions that MNCs provide to tackle Grand Challenges such as poverty, hunger,
a clean and healthy environment etc. But here we are interested in research that goes beyond pure speculation about what MNCs might be able to do, and critically look at what they actually do, evaluating prerequisites, effects and consequences of such benevolent
activities. This may also include research on MNC’s rainbow washing (i.e., adopting the rainbow colors of the SDGs in marketing and communication without proper action) and SDG cherry-picking (selectively addressing Grand Challenges) (for
the terms see, Cuervo-Cazurra et al. 2022a).
What makes this proposed Special Issue different, is that it recognizes that MNCs are not only part of the solution but in many instances part of the problem
(see e.g., Adams, Nayak, and Koukpaki 2018;
Flores, Bôhm, and Misoczky 2022;
Hermes and Lehto 2021). Hence, the special issue invites papers that investigate the strategies, business conduct and political behaviors of MNCs that cause and/or contribute
to the very existence of Global Challenges in the first place. This involves papers that assess the compensations that MNCs offer (if any) for their harmful activities. We also encourage papers that study regulatory attempts and MNC counter activities to constrain
such harmful activities.
Contributions to the Special Issue may focus on individual MNCs, MNCs of industries as well as on MNCs active in particular regions or countries. Grand Challenges
may refer to specific aspects of an SDGs, a single SDGs or a combination of SDGs. We especially welcome contributions that study the MNC from the perspective of less powerful stakeholders who are less mobile, have less access to information and enjoy fewer
financial resources than the MNCs that impact their lives, including those stakeholders who are politically and economically marginalized. The Special Issue invites both conceptual contributions and empirical studies drawing on qualitative or quantitative
methods and data.
Indicative list of potential topics invited for the Special Issue
We recognize the wide range of possibilities for critical IB research given the magnitude and complexity of the Grand Challenges and the variability of the ways in which
these are intertwined with MNC activity in different locations and contexts. The following list of topics should therefore be seen as merely examples for potential topics rather than exhaustive.
Contributors are encouraged to consult papers previously published in CPoIB related to the topics above:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1742-2043.htm
Submission Process and Deadlines
Guidelines for submission
Guest Editors – contact details
References
Adams, Kweku, Bhabani Shankar Nayak, and Serge Koukpaki (2018), "Critical perspectives on “manufactured”
risks arising from eurocentric business practices in Africa," Critical Perspectives on International Business, 14 (2/3), 210-229.
https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-11-2016-0058
Buckley, Peter J., Jonathan P. Doh, and Mirko H. Benischke (2017), "Towards a renaissance in international
business research? Big questions, grand challenges, and the future of ib scholarship,"
Journal of International Business Studies, 48 (9), 1045-1064. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-017-0102-z
Cairns, George and Sharif As-Saber (2017), "The dark side of MNCs," in
Multinational corporations and organization theory: Post millennium perspectives, Christoph Dörrenbächer and Mike Geppert (Eds.). Research in the sociology of organizations Vol. 49: Emerald Publishing Limited, 425-443.
https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20160000049014
Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro, Marleen Dieleman, Paul Hirsch, Suzana B. Rodrigues, and Stelios Zyglidopoulos (2021),
"Multinationals’ misbehavior," Journal of World Business, 56 (5), 101244.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2021.101244
Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro, Jonathan P. Doh, Elisa Giuliani, Ivan Montiel, and Junghoon Park (2022a), "The
United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals: Pros and cons for managers of multinationals,"
AIB Insights, 22 (1). https://doi.org/10.46697/001c.32530
Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro, Gerard George, Grazia D. Santangelo, Laszlo Tihanyi, Xufei Ma, Lemma Senbet, and
Jonathan Doh (2022b), Call for papers, Special issue of the Journal of International Business Studies: Multinationals' solutions to grand challenges, [Website]. available:
https://resource-cms.springernature.com/springer-cms/rest/v1/content/23399332/data/v1
[2022, Sep 12].
Dörrenbächer, Christoph and Jens Gammelgaard (2019), "Critical and mainstream international business research
- making critical ib an integral part of a societally engaged international business discipline,"
Critical Perspectives on International Business, 15 (2/3), 239-261.
https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-02-2019-0012
Dörrenbächer, Christoph, Rudolf R. Sinkovics, Florian Becker-Ritterspach, Mehdi Boussebaa, Louise Curran,
Alice de Jonge, and Zaheer Khan (2021), "The Covid-19 pandemic: Towards a societally engaged ib perspective,"
Critical Perspectives on International Business, 17 (2), 149-164. https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-02-2021-0021
Flores, Rafael Kruter, Steffen Bôhm, and Maria Ceci Misoczky (2022), "Contesting extractivism: International
business and people’s struggles against extractive industries," Critical Perspectives on International Business, 18 (1), 1-14.
https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-07-2020-0093
Geppert, Mike and Ödül Bozkurt (2021), "A research agenda for international business and management: The
promises and prospects of thinking outside the box," in A research agenda for international business and management, Ödül Bozkurt and Mike Geppert (Eds.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1-20.
https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789902044.00008
Grosse, Robert, Jonas Gamso, and Roy C. Nelson (2022), "De-globalization is a myth,"
AIB Insights, 22 (2). https://doi.org/10.46697/001c.32513
Hermes, Jan and Irene Lehto (2021), "Inequality through MNE–emerging economy coevolution? A political
actor view on Myanmar/Burma’s peacebuilding," Critical Perspectives on International Business, 17 (1), 103-127.
https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-12-2017-0095
Mellahi, Kamel, Klaus Meyer, Rajneesh Narula, Irina Surdu, and Alain Verbeke Eds. (2021), The Oxford handbook
of international business strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198868378.001.0001
UNCTAD. (2022).
World investment report 2022 - international tax reforms and sustainable investment. Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,
https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/wir2022_en.pdf.
United Nations (2015),
The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), [Website]. New York: United Nations. available:
https://sdgs.un.org/goals
[2022, Sep 12].
About the Special Issue Editors
Christoph Dörrenbächer is Professor
of Organizational Design and Behaviour in International Business at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany. His main research subject are multinational corporations, studied from an Organization Theory and Strategy perspective. Christoph currently
serves as a Senior Editor of ‘Critical Perspectives on International Business’.
Mike Geppert is Professor of Strategic
and International Management at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. His primary research interests are in the areas of Industrial Relations, IHMR, International Management and Organization Studies. Mike is specifically interested in cross-national
comparisons of management, work and organizations, socio-political issues in multinational corporations, and institutional change.
Ödül Bozkurt is Senior Lecturer in
International Human Resource Management at the Department of Management, University of Sussex Business School, UK. As a sociologist of work, she is interested in the global/local dynamic of work experiences for a wide range of workers from the highly skilled
professionals to the low skilled in “mundane” jobs such as those in mass retailing firms. Ödül has published on the uses and experiences of mobility in MNC jobs, the gendered outcomes of MNC employment in subsidiary locations, and the hybrid HRM practices
of MNCs from emerging economies.
File (PDF):
https://bit.ly/3ROV9QK
Dr. Christoph Dörrenbächer
Professor of Organizational Design and Behavior in International Business
Berlin School of Economics and Law
Badensche Strasse 50/51
D-10825 Berlin
Tel. 0049-30-30877-1491 (university office)
Skype: cd10825
https://www.hwr-berlin.de/en/hwr-berlin/about-us/staff/139-christoph-doerrenbaecher/
Senior Editor: 'Critical Perspectives on International Business' (CPOIB)
http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=CPOIB