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THE 2024 JIBS DECADE AWARD

 

The Selection Committee for the JIBS Decade Award is pleased to announce
that the 2014 JIBS article "A dynamic capabilities-based entrepreneurial
theory of the multinational enterprise" by David J. Teece (University of
California, Berkeley, USA) has been selected as the winner of the 2024 JIBS
Decade Award.

 

The award, sponsored by Palgrave Macmillan, is designed to recognize the
most influential paper published in the Journal of International Business
Studies ten years prior and is presented at the annual AIB conference. In
order to be considered for the JIBS Decade Award, an article must be one of
the five most cited articles published in JIBS for the year being
considered. This year's Selection Committee members were Kaz Asakawa (Keio
University, Japan), Catherine Welch (Trinity College Dublin, Republic of
Ireland), Peter Liesch (University of Queensland, Australia), Andrew Delios
(National University of Singapore, Singapore) and Rosalie L. Tung (Simon
Fraser University, Canada; Committee Chair and JIBS Editor-in-Chief).

 

In recommending the award-winning article, the Committee noted that aside
from citation relation considerations that led it to being short-listed, the
article stands out for several other reasons as well.

 

First, Teece's study opened the door for scholars in innovation to engage in
IB research. IB and innovation research had long been disconnected in theory
and perspectives. IB scholars have encompassed innovation into their own
research domain, but such endeavors stopped short of motivating and
stimulating innovation scholars to engage directly in IB research as their
core research agenda, beyond treating IB as a mere context.  Teece (2014)
served as a gateway for innovation scholars to do IB research by providing
dynamic capabilities (DCB) as a theoretical linking pin, through which
innovation scholars found a way to theorize innovation in the IB context.
In a way, DCB was a catalyst that paved the way for innovation scholars to
engage in otherwise distant and unfamiliar IB issues, through the familiar
DCB lens.   Furthermore, IB scholars also benefited from applying this
widely known DCB approach to global innovation studies as a way to
legitimize and validate their IB-driven research in the mainstream
innovation research field.  In this way, Teece (2014) served as a crossroad
for global innovation research by creating a useful theoretical intersection
for the IB, innovation, and strategy fields.

 

Second, this study is a challenge to fundamental discussions on what are or
what should be the conceptual foundations for IB research and for research
on multinational firms. Teece (2014) takes care to illustrate where a DCB
approach could extend the internalization approach, and thus the OLI
approach, thereby enriching our understanding of IB and MNEs. Although one
might not agree with Teece (2014) on the advantages of the DCB approach, and
the limitations of internalization theory, the key contribution is that it
opens discussion to new possibilities for theoretical innovation, which in
turn, can propel IB research to not only deal better with issues related to
innovation in international settings, but other related issues such as the
process of capability development in maturing and mature multinational
firms. 

 

Third, Teece shifts the theoretical foundations of a theory of the MNE, the
very nature of the MNE and its boundaries, so that it becomes a theory of
organizational change. In doing so, he makes not just innovation, but
entrepreneurship and managerial leadership central to understanding the
long-term competitive advantage of the MNE. At the same time, he emphasizes
the importance of a firm's past. He reflects decades of research into the
MNE informed by organization theories by tracing long-term competitive
advantage to a firm's heritage, culture and experience. His paper is an
invitation to IB scholars to investigate the MNE's internal routines and
processes, and to do so in ways that are sensitive to time and process.

 

Fourth, this study's approach can feed usefully into key findings that can
foster valuable, thought-provoking discussion and debate by scholars and
students. As an assigned reading for students, it can lead to important
classroom discussion about what is the state of contemporary theorizing in
IB and on MNEs, what is the applicability of foundational IB theory to the
contemporary world, and where does existing theory align or not align with
newly emergent IB phenomena. In this sense, by provoking curiosity, by
stimulating critical debate and by providing a grounding for alternative
viewpoints, Teece (2014) can help advance education on a topic of enduring
relevance to people around the world. Moreover, given its roots in strategic
management, Teece (2014) could also hopefully propel our IB community to
contend more assiduously with the long-tabled question of how do we make IB
research more connected to its cognate disciplines.

 

Fifth, DCB is perhaps even more relevant today than when it was published in
2014.  DCB provides the framework to help us better understand the role of
MNEs under VUCA conditions, such as bifurcation/trifurcation.  In today's
disruptive world, MNEs are facing much tougher challenges to identify and
seize opportunities around the world through their much-needed resilient
organizational capabilities.  It takes MNEs to self-renew their
organizational resources and capabilities continuously to cope with highly
dynamic, uncertain business environment.  By introducing DCB in the IB
field, Teece (2014) prepared a groundwork for IB scholars in the coming
decades who ought to tackle the issue of global entrepreneurship management
under the condition of geopolitical, social and economic disruptions. 

 

Finally, international business scholars who are seeking insight on new ways
that MNEs shape their business environments in our changing world will find
insight in Teece (2014) as his international (strategic) management approach
offers pillars aligned with understanding the causes of differential
performance in MNEs.  That scholars of international business and of
international management are sometimes drawn into a 'tension', albeit a
misleading tension of misaligned domains, Teece (2014) offers a platform for
interchange that should assist in uniting these groups. The international
business discipline can only benefit from strengthening its charter through
knowing more about what is going on in the MNEs it studies as it competes in
our ever-changing world.  Moving towards resolution of tensions in scholarly
fields and disciplines is the grist of scientific advance.

 

The Committee recognizes that the findings of this study will need to be
updated and re-evaluated against the current realities of, first,
digitalization that has given new meaning to the measurement and
operationalization of dynamic capabilities; second, how MNEs can leverage
their dynamic capabilities to better meet and serve the needs of global
sustainability as contained in the UNSDG's goals for sustainable
development; and, third, geopolitical tensions and global disruptions that
may have contributed to the bifurcation/trifurcation of the global economy
along ideological lines and techno-nationalism.  The first two developments
explain for the addition of "Industry 4.0" and "Global Sustainability" as
two new sub-domains by the current JIBS editorial team.  Discussions around
the nature of change processes and their implications for international
business align well with the theme of the Academy of International Business
2024 conference, "The Dynamics of International Business."

 

A session will be held at the upcoming 2024 AIB Annual Meeting in Seoul, in
which the authors and invited discussants will comment on the paper. A
reception honoring the Decade Award winning paper and its authors will also
be held as part of the closing reception at the conference. We hope that you
will join us in Seoul to attend these events; the date and times will be
available at  <https://www.aib.world/events/2024/>
https://www.aib.world/events/2024/ when the conference program is finalized.

 

A retrospective by the authors, together with discussants' commentaries,
will be published in the first issue of the 2025 volume of the Journal of
International Business Studies.

 


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