A Research Agenda for International Business and Management

This chapter takes a futures-oriented perspective to International Business as a field of inquiry. The transitionary nature of complex dynamic systems challenges our understanding of the world and forces us to reconsider our explanations. As the world changes continuously and often in disruptive ways, we ask how to develop theories that can evolve with such changes and how this may enhance IB research’s utility. To increase relevance, we discuss how examples of mainstream IB frameworks, as widely shared reference points, can serve as a baseline to advance practice-oriented questions into research questions. We envision a critical-realist approach as a theorising vehicle that produces possible explanations for currently unfolding phenomena. </p

Value Generation Through Public Procurement of Innovative Earth Observation Applications: Service-Dominant Logic Perspective

This article investigates how the implementation of a national space strategy in partnership with supranational organizations affects the development of service ecosystems of Earth Observation (EO) applications. The subject is studied through the lens of a service-dominant logic perspective, a meta-theory that seeks to explain how economic value is cocreated in business-to-business markets. Qualitative empirical research was conducted in three emerging space countries-Slovakia, Latvia, and Estonia-to understand how value-creating resource integration processes involving space downstream companies and their potential end-users are affected by adding the European Space Agency (ESA) to the ecosystem. The study's findings showed that the catalytic procurement of prototypes of new EO applications through ESA is connected to multilevel institutional changes in relevant service ecosystems. ESA's involvement facilitates more intensive interaction between EO companies and their targeted customers in dyadic relationships. Value cocreation processes are influenced by micro-, meso-, and macrolevel institutions. The study highlights the linkages between ESA's involvement and the purposeful entrepreneurial efforts of EO companies to change prevailing institutional arrangements. This institutional work is aimed at reconfiguring institutional arrangement at the mesolevel to make it more supportive to value-creating resource integration activities between actors in a service ecosystem.</p

Business model innovation for resilient international growth

Our knowledge concerning the link between internationalization and business model innovation remains limited. This study investigates the change in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) searching for organizational resilience. It particularly focuses on discovering how SMEs innovate their business models when seeking organisational resilience through international growth. In order to answer this research question, we conducted a multiple-case study of three Finnish SMEs. The critical sources of resilience were digitalization, strategic collaboration, customer intimacy, agile use of resources/expertise, and an improved revenue model. For all the case firms, significant business model innovation was required for resilient international growth. Based on the study findings, a new concept is proposed for future research: SME international resilience.</p

Value Creation in International Business

When discussing the role of value creation in international business, the meanings and interpretations of value are essential in understanding its contextual manifestations. Somehow, it seems we know what value means, but if you try to use it in different processes and contexts, in relation to diverse actors, one might be surprised by the various interpretations given to it. Some equate value with the monetary equivalence of what people do or buy; others interpret it in a much broader sense as merit or worth, which can be either tangible or intangible, yet hard to define. Often, authors assume that either the reader knows what value is and discuss what affects it or how it is created, or simply explore it in a specific setting. Economics, accounting, strategic management, marketing, sociology, and various other academic disciplines have developed their specific interpretations and models of value that are embedded in the perceptions of the worth of subject matter (for a review of conceptualizations of value in relevant disciplines see Ahen 2015: 83–86).</p

Managing cultural specificity and cultural embeddedness when internationalizing: Cultural strategies of Japanese craft firms

When entering international markets, manufacturers of consumer products are expected to adapt their products in order to meet local consumption practices. Doing so is particularly challenging for producers of culturally-specific products —that is, products that are little known, understood, or valued outside theiroriginal cultural milieu—whose operations are often deeply embedded in local conventions and traditions. To examine how SMEs navigate tensions between the cultural specificity of products and the cultural  embeddedness of operations when expanding internationally, we conducted a multiple case study ofJapanese producers of heritage craft located in Kyoto. Our findings reveal three strategies available to address these tensions—namely, selective targeting, cultural adaptation, and cultural transposition—and highlight the pivotal role played by local distributors and foreign designers, serving as culturalintermediaries, in bridging systems of domestic and foreign cultural practices and meanings. Our findings portray product adaptation as an ongoing process that unfolds along with a firm’s international expansion, as producers and intermediaries explore ways to bridge cultural differences. They illuminate thelengthy processes of learning and unlearning, adjusting, and rethinking that underlie managers’ efforts to strike a balance between standardization and adaptation as they internationalize.</p

Emerging international compliance: Policy implications of a money laundering case

By conducting a qualitative single case study, we have depicted in this study a suspected case of international money laundering in Finland, and described its consequences in terms of policy changes. The case allowed us to investigate how new anti-money laundering policies emerge over time and thus advance knowledge relevant to formulating effective international business policies. Building on institutional heterogeneity and the co-evolutionary nature of change, we have proposed a new framework depicting emerging international compliance in order to promote understanding of this complex, yet dynamic phenomenon. The literature repeatedly highlights the role of formal policies in mitigating international money laundering, however, we have paid additional attention to unethical business practices and the moral aspect recognised to be important in terms of curbing the problem. This is particularly relevant for MNCs, as they can aid institutional change internationally by spreading ‘company best practices’. We also present the managerial and policy implications of solving moral problems related to money laundering from the perspective of governments, society and organisations. </p

Managing cultural specificity and cultural embeddedness when internationalizing : cultural strategies of Japanese craft firms

When entering international markets, manufacturers of consumer products are expected to adapt their products in order to meet local consumption practices. Doing so is particularly challenging for producers of culturally-specific products—that is, products that are little known, understood, or valued outside their original cultural milieu—whose operations are often deeply embedded in local conventions and traditions. To examine how SMEs navigate tensions between the cultural specificity of products and the cultural embeddedness of operations when expanding internationally, we conducted a multiple case study of Japanese producers of heritage craft located in Kyoto. Our findings reveal three strategies available to address these tensions—namely, selective targeting, cultural adaptation, and cultural transposition—and highlight the pivotal role played by local distributors and foreign designers, serving as cultural intermediaries, in bridging systems of domestic and foreign cultural practices and meanings. Our findings portray product adaptation as an ongoing process that unfolds along with a firm’s international expansion, as producers and intermediaries explore ways to bridge cultural differences. They illuminate the lengthy processes of learning and unlearning, adjusting, and rethinking that underlie managers’ efforts to strike a balance between standardization and adaptation as they internationalize