Author: Daekwan Kim

Call for Papers

Academy of International Business, Southeast USA Chapter

October 22-24, 2020

Panama City Beach, FL

Conference Theme

Beyond 2020: Developing IB Research & Education for a new decade

Submission Deadline: June 15, 2020

AIB-SE is excited to announce its 2020 annual conference with the theme: Beyond 2020: Developing IB Research & Education for a new decade. The last decade has been remarkable for the field of international business and the AIBSE chapter. Entering into the new decade, we may want to refresh our thinking about our work as researchers and educators in the area of international business. With some new trends happening in the IB world, such as population and demographic shifting, slower economic growth, speed of innovation etc., we may need to ask: what is the most interesting “yet to be answered” research question within the IB field? What is the biggest challenge still facing the international business community? Will current theories and theoretical frameworks still hold? Can more interdisciplinary research and research practices across disciplines be produced? Will any new research approaches to qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods emerge?

Since this new uncertain environment affects all areas of business, there is no special track devoted to the theme, rather we encourage submissions in their respective tracks that directly address conducting international business in the new environment. This year’s conference takes place in Panama City Beach, FL, in cooperation with Florida State University. Panama City Beach has a long tradition in retail, health care, and tourism. It has the world’s most beautiful, sugar sandy beaches, which makes it one of the most famous tourist attractions in Florida, an unparalleled vacation destination.

AIB-SE (www.aibse.org) is one of the largest and most active regional divisions of the Academy of International Business’s eighteen worldwide chapters. AIB-SE’s annual conference centers on the presentation of the newest ideas in international business to an international audience of academic scholars and business practitioners. The conference is characterized by a strong professional focus, providing participants with a supportive and collegial platform to discuss and develop their ideas, as well as opportunity for mentoring of authors to enhance their papers for publication. Over the past five years, AIB-SE has experienced significant transformation and growth becoming a reputable academic meeting of choice for around 250 participants from around the globe.

Conference Highlights

1. Professional Development – AIB-SE has traditionally had a strong focus on professional developme As in past years, the 2020 conference will feature consortia for doctoral students and all faculty, methodological PDWs, interactive and competitive paper sessions, opportunities for undergraduate students, and panels on cutting issues in international business. Details on each of these will be released over the coming months.
2. All accepted conference papers will be published as abstracts in the 2020 AIB-SE Conference Proceedings. (2) The best papers of the conference might be considered for publication in AIB-SE’s own journal, International Business: Research Teaching and Practice (IBRTP).
3. Conference Awards – Prestigious awards with cash prizes will be given for the conference Best Paper, Best Paper- Doctoral Student, Best Paper- Master’s / Undergraduate stude Consistent with the developmental focus of AIB-SE, we also recognize the best reviewer and the best student reviewer.
4. Keynote Speaker – We are thrilled that our keynote speaker will be Ahmet Bozer, who worked for The Coca-Cola Company for 25 years in various operating roles internationally and retired as Executive Vice President in March 2016. He is a business leader with proven ability to work effectively across many cultures around the world, a strong track record of performance and value creation. He remains active with a portfolio of non-executive roles in business and non-profit enterprises around the globe.

Paper and Panel Submissions

Paper and panel submissions for AIB-SE 2020 are organized under the following topical tracks. Each paper or panel proposal can only be submitted to one track via the online submission system. Please select the track that is the best fit for your submission from the list below:

1.      IB Theory, FDI, Trade and Entry Mode Strategies

This track seeks both conceptual and empirical submissions that advance our understanding of International Business theory from any disciplinary lenses. The submissions may include single- or multi-country studies that shed light on any international business phenomenon—including, but not restricted to: (1) IB theories/paradigms, (2) FDI and trade trends and their implications, and (3) entry strategies into international markets. We welcome a diverse range of topics within each of the above-mentioned themes. Papers highlighting emerging and developing markets are encouraged.

Track Chairs:

• Wlamir Xavier, Biola University & Chongqing Technology and Business University, wlamir.xavier@biola.edu;
• Ru-Shiun Liou, University of Tampa, rliou@ut.edu;

2.      Entrepreneurship, SMEs, and Born Globals

This track seeks submissions that advance our understanding of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), international entrepreneurship or comparative cross cultural entrepreneurship, family firms, business groups, and the unique format of the Born Global. Of interest are the papers that explore crucial insights into “born global” firms as they grow and mature over time, how some firms internationalize early than others, and how entrepreneurship, family owned, business groups, SMEs and born globals add value to international business scholarship.

Track Chairs: 

• Kaveh Moghaddam, University of Houston-Victoria, moghaddamk@uhv.edu;
• Malika Richards, Pennsylvania State University, mur12@psu.edu;

3.      Global Strategy, Value chains and Competitiveness of the MNEs

This track invites conceptual and empirical papers focused on global supply / value chains, MNC / MNEs global business strategies, logistics, and their impact on competitiveness and performance. We encourage submissions that examine the relationship between global value chains, strategies, institutional, political and regulatory factors and how these relate to institutional or economic changes in home and host countries.

Track Chairs:

• Amit Arora, University of the District of Columbia, amit.arora@udc.edu;
• Chun Zhang, The University of Vermont, chun.zhang@uvm.edu

4.      Governments, Institutions, Social Enterprises and Non-Profits, their roles in the New Economy

Papers that examine how the regulatory and/or political environments shape, influence and impact international firms, NGOs, and state owned enterprises. Appropriate for this track are papers dealing with institutional and political risk including regulation, policy and trade relations. Papers that offer conceptual and empirical insights on global issues, such as the impact of terrorism, climate change, health, and human rights are welcome as well.

Track Chairs:

• Johan Vögel, University of Pretoria, johan.vogel@up.ac.za;
• Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia, mgonza40@eafit.edu.co;

5.      International Marketing

This track invites papers that address international and global marketing issues in cross-national and cross-cultural environments such as consumer behavior, brand loyalty, relationships across borders, brand power, social media marketing, marketing analytics/metrics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability. How are international firms addressing these issues? How are mangers addressing new stakeholder demands and cross-border challenges? We welcome contributions focusing on traditional aspects of international marketing. For example, international marketing strategy, market selection/segmentation, marketing mix management. We also welcome contributions focusing on global branding, country-of-origin effects, consumer-related orientations and attitudes like animosity, global identity, global consumption orientation, consumer ethnocentrism, green marketing campaigns, and others provided there is a strong international marketing positioning of the paper.

Track Chairs: 

• Susan Forquer Gupta, Monmouth University, sgupta@monmouth.edu;
• Brittney Bauer, Loyola University New Orleans, bcbauer@loyno.edu

6.      International Accounting, Economics, and Finance

Accounting, Economics or Finance contributions (e.g. M&As, valuation, capital flows, international investments, international portfolio management, exchange rates, transfer pricing, international trade, international political economy, international economic development, international taxation, international auditing, convergence of financial accounting standards or global performance evaluation challenges, etc.) are welcome. Papers dealing with applied or theoretical economics and/or research methods in economics, including developing theory using the tools of economics, accounting and finance are invited for this track. Papers examining accounting, finance and economic research questions such as international portfolio management, international trade and development are also appropriate for this track.

Track Chair:

Wendy Ritz, Florida State University Panama City, writz@pc.fsu.edu

• Wesley Routon, Georgia Gwinnett College, prouton@ggc.edu
• Luis Torres, Georgia Gwinnett College, ltorres1@ggc.edu

7.      Culture, Organizations and Human Resources of the MNEs

This track seeks to explore ways in which MNEs operate across diverse international contexts, and how they configure themselves internally and externally. Novel forms of organization that cross geographic locations such as virtual teams, internal knowledge networks, diversity management and offshore divisional headquarters are welcome in this track. Moreover, we seek contributions that challenge conventional theories and knowledge on HRM in an international context, covering for instance Employee Relations, Expatriation, Team Management, Global Talent Management and Performance Management. Contributions may be empirical or conceptual, comparative or apply single country analysis.

Track Chairs: 

• Edward Akoto, Henderson State University, akotoe@hsu.edu;
• Luis Camacho, SUNY Empire State College, luis.camacho@esc.edu;

8.      The World of International Business Education

This track seeks to contribute to effective and innovative international business/international marketing teaching and learning at the classroom and curricular level. These empirical, conceptual, or case-based submissions may include, but are not limited to, topics such as managing classroom diversity, student research, simulations, case studies, role-plays, other technology-enhanced learning activities, essential IB coursework and competencies at distinct educational levels, study abroad programs, and accreditation processes.

Track Chairs: 

• David Baker, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, dbaker@louisiana.edu;
• Elizabeth Amanda Napier, University of Toledo, Elizabeth.Napier@utoledo.edu;

9.      Undergraduate/Graduate Students Research

All undergraduate and master’s level submissions regardless of the topical area should be submitted to this special track for non-doctoral student work. This track is a great option for faculty who would like to expose their students who are interested in academic or research careers to the dynamics of a scholarly conference.

Track Chairs:

• Anne Marie Zwerg-Villegas, Universidad de La Sabana, anne.zwerg@unisabana.edu.co;
• Anshu Arora, University of the District of Columbia, anshu.arora@udc.edu;

10.   Emerging Economies and Emerging Market MNEs

Emerging economies’ share of global GDP is increasing rapidly as their growth far outpaces the traditionally developed countries. This track welcomes theoretical and empirical papers that report novel explorations of issues related to doing business in an emerging market. Some examples might include research on city clusters, new business models, government-private sector cooperation, sustainability challenges, institutional weakness, varieties of capitalism or firms’ transitions from a culture of incremental innovation to a culture of breakthrough innovation. We are also interested in papers that aim to clarify to what extent emerging market multinationals can be considered unique and papers reporting work on foreign direct investment trends and strategies in and from emerging markets. Empirical papers exploring under-researched emerging markets beyond the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in Africa, Asia, Eastern European or Latin America are particularly encouraged.

Track Chairs:

• Daniel Rottig, Florida Gulf Coast University, drottig@fgcu.edu;
• Jun Yang, Fort Hays State University, j_yang54@fhsu.edu;

Conference Submission Instructions

All submissions will be handled through the AIB-SE online submission system. All manuscripts and proposals must be submitted by June 15, 2020. For up-to-date information about the conference, please see the conference website at http://www.aibse.org. Questions regarding this call for papers should be addressed to the appropriate track chair(s) or to the Program Chair.

• Competitive Sessions– Submissions of fully developed papers are appropriate for consideration for competitive sessions. Competitive papers must be fewer than 10,000 words inclusive of all materials, including appendices and references.
• Interactive Sessions–Shorter manuscripts or work-in-progress pieces that could benefit from informal feedback from other participants are appropriate for submission to interactive sessions. These sessions are held in roundtable discussion format that allows for interaction with other researchers with similar interests. Interactive papers should be 2,500 to no more than 5,000 words.

Please note that submitting a manuscript as a competitive paper does not necessarily mean it will end up in a competitive session. The best papers in each track will be placed into competitive sessions. Lesser-developed papers will be placed in interactive sessions.  The number of competitive papers we can accept for the conference is limited. Therefore, fully- developed papers, on occasion, may be placed in interactives session due to space constraints.

• Special Topic/Panel Sessions– We invite special topic/panel sessions, which can be in a variety of formats. Proposals for special sessions should describe the topic, session format, and its importance to international business research or education and identify all individuals (with their qualifications) who will formally participate. Panel proposals should be limited to no more than 5,000 words.  Selection of special topics/ panel sessions will be limited and according to the quality of the panel, and currency of the topic.  The panel sessions are also used for new topics that are important in the current IB environment where in-depth research is yet to be conducted. Proposals for PDWs in teaching or research may also be submitted under this format.

Submission Guidelines

All submissions must conform to the following guidelines:

• The document must be stripped of all identifying information: Do not include a cover page. The ‘File Properties’ for the documents should be cleaned to remove identifying information.
• Each manuscript should be accompanied by an abstract, not to exceed 200 words.
• Submissions must be formatted as follows: Letter sized page (8.5″x11″ or 216×279 mm), with one-inch (2.5 cm) margins, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font.
• The manuscript should preferably be saved in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format to ensure that reviewers see it in the intended way. However, Microsoft Word files will also be accepted.
• Please ensure all files are checked for viruses using updated anti-virus software before submission.

After Submission

Authors will be sent an automatic e-mail confirmation message upon successful uploading of their paper on the website acknowledging receipt of their submission. If you do not receive an acknowledgment within 24 hours of submitting your manuscript or proposal, please inform the conference chairs, Dr. Daekwan Kim, Dr. Jun Wu and Dr. Carri Tolmie. All manuscript submissions will be subject to a blind review process and will be evaluated based on interest to AIB-SE members, relevance to IB research, teaching and/or practice, analytical and conceptual rigor, quantitative and qualitative methods (if applicable), innovativeness, and significance of conclusions. Panel proposals will be evaluated based on interest to AIB members, relevance to IB research, teaching and/or practice, quality, innovativeness, fit with conference theme, and diversity of participants. A more detailed Call for Papers is available at the 2020 AIB – SE annual conference website.

Organizers

Daekwan Kim, Ph.D. 2020 Conference Co-Chair Florida State University dkim@business.fsu.edu	Jun Wu, Ph.D. 2020 Conference Co-Chair Georgia Gwinnett College Jwu1@ggc.edu	Carri Reisdorf Tolmie, Ph.D. 2020 Program Chair Elon University ctolmie2@elon.edu