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In this framing paper for the special issue, we map significant research on global production networks during the past decade in economic geography and adjacent fields. In line with the core aim of the special issue to push for new conceptual advances, the paper focuses on the central elements of GPN theory to showcase recent rethinking related to the delimiting of global production networks, underlying political-economic drivers, actor-specific strategies and regional/national development outcomes. We suggest that the analytical purchase of this recent work is greater in research that has continued to keep a tight focus on the causal links between the organizational configurations of global production networks and uneven development. Concomitantly, considerable effort in the literature has gone into expanding the remit of GPN research in different directions, and we thus engage with five domains or ‘constituent outsides’ that relate to the state, finance, labour, environment and development. We believe such cross-domain fertilisation can help realize GPN 2.0’s potential for explaining uneven development in an interconnected world economy.

Multinational enterprises are deeply engaged in nonmarket strategy (NMS), including both corporate political activity (CPA) and strategic corporate social responsibility (SCSR). In this review, we document the multinational NMS research according to contributions’ theme, method, context, theory, and level of analysis. We then develop an institutional multiplicity framework to organize our analysis of this large and fragmented body of literature. In so doing, we identify the most impactful contributions within three major themes – multinational CPA, multinational SCSR, and the integration of CPA and SCSR – and their respective subthemes, and call attention to limitations in the extant research. We also highlight promising avenues for future research, including expanding the scope of NMS to incorporate microfoundations research, integrating macrolevel scholarship on global institutions, placing greater attention on the interaction between CPA and SCSR, and incorporating multi-actor global issues and movements. Our review underscores the growing importance and missed opportunities of NMS research in the international business field.

Empirical studies of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) activity show substantial differences in specifications with little agreement on the set of included covariates. We use Bayesian statistical techniques that allow one to select from a large set of candidates those variables most likely to be determinants of FDI activity. The variables with consistently high inclusion probabilities include traditional gravity variables, cultural distance factors, relative labour endowments and trade agreements. There is little support for multilateral trade openness, most host-country business costs, host-country infrastructure and host-country institutions. Our results suggest that many covariates found significant by previous studies are not robust. Les études empiriques des déterminants des activités d'investissement direct bilatéral à l'étranger ont des spécifications substantiellement différentes et peu d'accord sur les variables co-reliées incluses. On utilise des techniques statistiques bayesiennes qui permettent de balayer un vaste ensemble de variables à la recherche de celles qui sont davantage susceptibles d'être des déterminants des activités d'investissement direct à l'étranger. Les variables qui se retrouvent de manière régulière dans la liste de haute probabilité d'impact sont les variables reliées à la gravité, les facteurs liés à la distance culturelle, les dotations relatives en facteur travail, et les accords commerciaux. Il y a peu de support pour des variables comme l'ouverture au commerce multilatéral, la plupart des coûts d'affaires, les infrastructures et les institutions dans les pays hôtes. Ces résultats suggèrent que plusieurs co-variations qu'on a jugées significatives dans les études antérieures ne sont pas robustes.

The emergence of digital platforms and ecosystems (DPE) as a venue for value creation and capture for multinational enterprises holds considerable implications for the theory and practice of international business. In this paper, we articulate these implications by considering the dual perspectives of cross-border platforms and ecosystems – as a venue for multifaceted innovation and as multisided marketplace – and focusing on three overarching themes at the intersection of DPEs and international business, that is, DPEs as affording new ways of internationalization, as facilitating new ways of building knowledge and relationships, and as enabling new ways of creating and delivering value to global customers. We explain specific DPE-related concepts and constructs that underlie these themes and discuss how they could be incorporated into existing IB theories in ways that would enhance their richness and continued relevance as well as their ability to better predict a multitude of emerging IB phenomena.

Over the past two decades, foreign banks have become much more important in domestic financial intermediation, heightening the need to understand their behavior. We introduce a new, comprehensive database, made publicly available, on bank ownership (including the home country of foreign banks) for 5,324 banks in 137 countries over the period 1995-2009. We document large increases in foreign bank presence in many countries, but with substantial heterogeneity in terms of host and banks' home countries, bilateral investment patterns, and bank characteristics. In terms of impact, we document that the relation between private credit and foreign bank presence importantly depends on host country and banks' characteristics. Specifically, foreign banks only seem to have a negative impact on credit in low-income countries, in countries where they have a limited market share, where enforcing contracts is costly and where credit information is limited available, and when they come from distant home countries. This shows that accounting for heterogeneity, including bilateral ownership, is crucial to better understand the implications of foreign bank ownership.

In our Decade Award-winning article from 2011 we argued that it is not possible to explain social phenomena without consideration of their contexts. However, a persistent assumption in international business (IB) is that theories should be context-free. This affects the methodological choices we make, favoring the inductive theory-building approach to theorizing from case studies. In 2011, we proposed an alternative – contextualized explanations – that in our view better utilizes the main strength of the case study: reconciling theory and context. In this Retrospective, we further develop our original argument that context is essential, and not a hindrance, to theorizing, as well as elaborate on how decontextualization impoverishes theoretical insights. In order to achieve contextualized explanation, we offer four alternatives: process research, historical research, the extended case method, and configurational theorizing. We argue that, for the IB field to take contextualization seriously, we need an open debate about what theory is and how we produce it. We hope this paper will broaden the scope of our discussion from the need for methodological pluralism to the need for theoretical pluralism, thereby setting a new agenda for future IB research.

We use data on the 48 largest multinational banking groups to compare the lending of their 199 foreign subsidiaries during the Great Recession with lending by a benchmark of 202 domestic banks. Contrary to earlier and more contained crises, parent banks were not a significant source of strength to their subsidiaries during 2008-09. When controlling for other bank characteristics, multinational bank subsidiaries had to slow down credit growth almost three times as fast as domestic banks. This was in particular the case for subsidiaries of banking groups that relied more on wholesale funding.

In this article, we review critiques of international business (IB) research with a focus on whether IB scholarship tackles \"big questions.\" We identify three major areas where IB scholars have addressed important global phenomena, but find that they have had little influence outside of IB, and only limited effects on business or government policy. We propose a redirection of IB research towards \"grand challenges\" in global business and the use of interdisciplinary research methods, multilevel approaches, and phenomena-driven perspectives to address those questions. We argue that IB can play a more constructive and vital role by tackling expansive topics at the business-societal interface.

Current techno-nationalism presents new risks in international business, amplifying volatility, uncertainty, and complexity for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This study explains how today’s techno-nationalism differs from its traditional form, the underlying theoretic logic, the damage it may cause to MNEs, and what MNEs can do to contain the potential harm. We elaborate on several points: (1) new techno-nationalism combines geopolitical, economic, national security, and ideological considerations, and is thus more complex and disruptive to international business than the traditional standpoint; (2) new techno-nationalism is underpinned by the realism doctrine, which portrays the world as zero-sum competition in which states leverage their power of economic coercion, and does not recognize the importance of technological interconnectivity, resource complementarity, open innovation, and positive-sum co-opetition; (3) techno-nationalism obstructs MNEs, especially those dependent on the global technology supply chain and on target country market contribution; and (4) MNEs can respond to techno-nationalism, defensively or offensively, contingent upon their exposure and ability to manage the risks associated with related policies.

The springboard view has become one theoretic lens to analyze emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) in the past decade. A decade after its first introduction in 2007, new developments offer keen insights on these firms and MNEs in general that aggressively engage in critical asset-seeking. We compare this view with other IB theories, highlighting their differences as well as complementarity. We articulate unique strengths and weaknesses of EMNEs, including their vulnerability and complexity caused in part by home country institutions. We discuss amalgamation, ambidexterity, and adaptation advantages that differentiate springboard MNEs from more established advanced country MNEs, and explain why and how springboard acts should be analyzed along with global competitiveness augmentation. We introduce an upward spiral concept to advance our understanding of linkages between springboard and post-springboard activities, and explain some critical crosscultural and human resource management issues in the process. To help continued research on springboard MNEs, we highlight macro-and micromanagement issues that are particularly worth exploring.