Conference Agenda

The International Business (IB) discipline has the potential to make societal impact and help tackle grand challenges by providing and applying pertinent knowledge. This has sparked ongoing debates concerning the future research agenda in IB and the calls for closer coupling between IB research and practice. This paper aims to improve our understanding of the extent to which IB research has made a high-quality impact on IB practice. We present a comprehensive evaluation of Impact Case Studies (ICS) with an IB focus submitted to the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2014 (REF2014) and 2021 (REF2021), offering a unique avenue to evaluate the key characteristics and evolution of how submitting UK universities have presented their ‘best’ cases of high-quality impact connected to IB research. This evaluation enables the development of novel insights into key characteristics of high-quality impact from IB research that have policy implications for universities leaders aiming to understand and boost impact related work in their institutions, policymakers related to University-industry collaboration and future ICS authors

Embeddedness is an idiosyncratic concept closely related to and frequently researched in the cross-border business contexts. We conducted a systematic review of what has been done on embeddedness in international business (MNCs) and specifically international entrepreneurship to explore the concept and its dynamic roles. We unpack and clarify the overlapping concepts, the measurement, the mechanisms and the outcome related to embeddedness in structured proposed frameworks. Our finding shows that the complexity of embeddedness is under researched and the interaction between embeddedness, international entrepreneurs, and the dynamic environment requires consolidated study. We propose that embeddedness should be studied from a dynamic process perspective, how it originated, evolved and is leveraged. Using the entrepreneurial process lens, our review shows that embeddedness emerged through three entrepreneurial phases under different roles, from (i) cognitive form at the idea generation stage to (ii) actual business engagement in fund raising and (iii) as impactful outcome (internationalization and innovation) at growth stage. The multilevel of embeddedness including intensity, depth, and breadth can be modified via the entrepreneurial learning/unlearning mechanisms and leveraged to its highest value when integrating in a system orchestrating the dynamic of individuals, interpersonal, organizational, and societal attributes.

International business (IB) literature has extensively examined the internationalization processes of manufacturing firms, but museums have yet to receive much attention. This paper addresses this gap by exploring how Italian art and archaeological museums have internationalized and how the Covid-19 pandemic affected their internationalization initiatives. Based on interviews conducted in seven museums, the findings show that in addition to attracting foreign tourists, they actively cooperate with foreign museums (loans, temporary exhibitions) and research centers (joint research). The Covid-19 pandemic had mixed impacts on museums: the number of visitors decreased temporarily but has been restored, and the studied museums also accelerated their digitalization efforts to engage a global audience. This study offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics of museums’ internationalization. It highlights the importance of qualified staff, strong network ties, and efficient use of social media in facilitating internationalization. It also emphasizes museums’ challenges in balancing internationalization with retaining authenticity and navigating bureaucratic hurdles.

There has been a growth of English branded independent schools established by translocal educational enterprises (TEEs) outside the UK often in emerging markets based on borrowing the firm-specific assets (FSAs) of English independent schools. This reflects a denationalization process of English independent schools involving configuring flows and networks of FSAs, expertise, and money between the UK and different places outside the UK. This paper conceptualizes global-local networks through an analysis of this denationalization process that is configured around status, approval, and power. We reveal that while social actors organize global-local networks between the UK and different places outside the UK, the economic and non-economic actions and transactions are developed based on different types of legal contracts. This analysis is based on qualitative research involving 98 semi-structured interviews undertaken in the UK and eleven different countries.