What appears peripheral can sometimes illuminate the core.
The world of International Business is moving unusually fast. Artificial intelligence is reshaping knowledge and organisations; geopolitical fragmentation is unsettling trade, investment and global value chains; and centres of technological and economic leadership are shifting. These changes place established IB explanations under new pressure.
The edge is where theories meet conditions that make their assumptions visible: different institutions, organisational forms, technologies, locations and temporal trajectories; acceleration, interruption, reversal and unexpected outcomes. Such edges are fertile ground for learning because anomalies expose assumptions, reversals reveal mechanisms and unfamiliar contexts can illuminate what remained hidden at the centre.
Rethinking is therefore not a call to discard our theoretical heritage. It is an invitation to revisit it carefully — to learn from new evidence and contexts, to identify boundaries, refine mechanisms, connect perspectives and, where necessary, develop new explanations.
Conference scope
We particularly, but not exclusively, welcome research on:
- the boundaries, evolution and integration of established IB theories;
- internationalisation processes, trajectories and performance, including acceleration, interruption, reversal and re-entry;
- artificial intelligence, digitalisation and their implications for knowledge, location, business models and international strategy;
- geopolitical uncertainty, institutional change, political risk and the reconfiguration of global value chains;
- international entrepreneurship, SMEs, born globals, multinational enterprises and emerging organisational forms;
- institutions, networks, embeddedness, culture and cross-cultural management;
- knowledge, learning, innovation, capabilities and managerial cognition in international contexts;
- global strategy, governance, ownership, foreign direct investment, sourcing and international operations;
- sustainability, ESG, responsible business and environmental transitions;
- international marketing, consumer behaviour, people, leadership and diversity across borders;
- emerging markets, changing centres of economic and technological leadership, and underexplored geographical or institutional contexts;
- new theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches to International Business.
Contributions addressing other established or emerging areas of International Business are equally welcome.