Book launch panel on "Megatrends in IB" at AIB-UKI conference 2022 at University of Reading. Batas, Spiros, Olli Kuivalainen, and Rudolf R. Sinkovics Eds. (2022), Megatrends in international business - examining the influence of trends on doing business internationally. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95527-4

1. Megatrends in international
business
Batas, Spiros, Olli Kuivalainen, and Rudolf R. Sinkovics Eds. (2022), Megatrends
in international business - examining the influence of trends on doing business
internationally. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95527-4
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2. Agenda
• Motivation and intro to the panel (OK/SB)
• There is no point to the book v. The book is the point! (FMcD)
• The megatrends theme
» Megatrends in the world, megatrends in IB without the label
» Organisation of the book
• Elevator pitches from chapters of the book
» Firm Internationalisation and Corporate Governance
» Artificial Intelligence of Things as an Accelerator of Circular
Economy in International Business
» IGOs and Entrepreneurship
» What Happens when Subsidiaries Go through a Change?
» Incorporating Home and Host Country Economic Growth Rates
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3. The value of the book - A
chairperson’s perspective
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4. 28 volumes published since 1996
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First volume 1996

5. The ‘value’ of book chapters?
• 26 volumes since 1996
• In a metrified publishing
landscape, books/book
chapters are increasingly seen
as an unnecessary distraction
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6. Scaffolding arguments in favour of book chapters…
• Developing stepping stones for work that has not (yet) chances
of getting published in more rigorous outlets
• First provision of publication experience to young/nascent
scholars and early career researchers
• Building up ‘portfolio of work’ that showcases expertise
• Although unlikely to be highly valued in the UK in many
European countries book chapters count – in CBS (I think) is 3
for high quality refereed journal, 2 for other journals and 1 for
book chapters
• Maybe better outlet than unranked (or rank 1) journals
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7. Some history
• AIB UK & I book based on conference papers has a long history
• In early days book sales were good as many university libraries
purchased at least one copy
• In early to mid 2000s many libraires stopped buying – long
debate about whether the book should be stopped
• Move towards more focused selection to get a more coherent
set of papers on well defined themes
• Move towards tighter editing to improve the quality of the
exposition of chapters
• Move to e-book
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8. Value of AIB UK & I chapter book
• Only AIB Chapter with a regular book from an established
publisher
• Good training ground for writing papers
• Mainly used by Doctoral and Master students – contributing to
enhancing the knowledge base of IB community
• Useful for introducing doctoral/ECR to world of publishing –
especially useful for those in home institutions with less
developed research culture – an important area of diversity in
our community
• Future – improve usefulness (especially to students and ECR)
improve dissemination of book to encourage wider readership
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9. Why the ‘megatrends’ title?
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10. Megatrends a definition: Tamer S. Cavusgil
• Megatrends refer to watershed events in the macro
environment that impact us globally. Triggers that give rise to
such remarkable events may be geopolitical, economic, or
natural causes. Megatrends are such extraordinary occurrences
that they tend to have lasting and enduring effects. They impact
business¸ economy, society, culture, our personal lives, research,
and public policies, and define our future world. Their impact is
persistent and far-reaching, defining the global order:
relationships between nation-states, societies, and economies;
firms and markets; and individuals.
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11. ‘Megatrend’ is catchy, but in IB has not caught on…
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12. Naisbitt’s megatrends: Which changes correspond to real global
changes over time?
Source: Slaughter (Futures, 1993) ”Starting points for dicussion”….?

13. Other megatrends?
• Factors shaping and shaped
by the environment:
» More heavily researched
(Coates, 1991; see also
Slaughter, 1993)
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14. Sitra’s megatrends (www.sitra.fi): understand the relationships
between trends
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15. Megatrends and IB
• Meyer, Li & Schotter, in their review article about MNE
subsidiary management (JIBS 2020), discuss research
opportunities arising from two mega-trends shaping IB:
technological paradigm shifts and disruptions in political and
institutional environments
» Note: focal megatrends were derived from the presentation of the
“non-academic”, i.e., Academy of International Business Executive
of the Year 2014 and then CEO of McKinsey, Dominic Barton
(2014).
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16. Organisation of the book
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17. Content
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18. Short chapter pitches (selection)
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19. Firm Internationalisation and Corporate Governance: A Longitudinal
Study on the Russian Federation
• Randolph Luca Bruno and Kirill Osaulenko
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20. Artificial Intelligence of Things as an Accelerator of Circular Economy
in International Business
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Malahat Ghoreishi, Luke Treves, and Olli Kuivalainen
• AIoT creates a smart, connected network of devices that make
faster, greater, and more efficient impact than ever, which in
turn will give businesses and governments the ability to
influence and shape not only domestic, but also international
business like never before (EY, 2020) through a heightened
awareness of the world, and smart tools that monitor and
react to changing conditions often without human input.

21. Artificial Intelligence of Things as an Accelerator of Circular Economy
in International Business
• AIoT provides more opportunities to use knowledge stemming from
various parts of the world (knowledge transfer)
• Integrating AI capabilities with IoT will increase reliability, efficiency, and
productivity processes (analytics, automation, reduction of middle-men
and ‘friction’)
• Trust-building (via e.g. related technologies like Blockchain, and ‘smart
contracts’), lower transaction costs, possibility for ‘just in time’
management
• AIoT data analytics enables businesses to learn more about, audit, connect
with their entire value chains, including their sub tiers and sub-sub tiers
where most disruptions and non-CE activities are likely to originate
(Sneader and Singhal, 2021).
• Data collected through these processes can be used by international
businesses to influence and shape consumer behavior in increasingly
precise and sophisticated ways (EY, 2020)
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22. Artificial Intelligence of Things as an Accelerator of Circular Economy
in International Business
• From an operational perspective, there are three distinct categories of Circular
Economy (CE) ecosystems: the flow of material and energy, knowledge flow, and
economic value flow, which would be like the flows in a networked multinational
• An example of an AIoT Circular Economy (CE) application is in the international
high-tech industry, which requires circular thinking to address issues like shorter
shelf lives, planned obsolescence, and changing customer preference. This leads
to tons of equipment to be discarded and replaced rather than repaired and
reused.
• AIoT can be a used a tool to shift this current trend and improve international
businesses circularity by enabling businesses and their extended supply chain
partners to track and identify products from cradle to grave by efficiently
managing products and components through secondary markets.
• This tracking also facilitates the development of new service-based sectors which
can use data collected through AIoT to identify, extract, refurbish and reuse
components that still have a useful lifecycle (SAS, 2019).
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23. IGOs and Entrepreneurship: Understanding the Impact of Policy
Compliance on Formal and Informal Entrepreneurial Activity
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Elizabeth M. Moore , Luis A. Dau , and Kristin Brandl

24. What Happens when Subsidiaries Go through a Change? Impact of Gaining an
R&D Mandate on Subsidiary Managers’ Activities and Subsidiary Innovation
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Noushan Memar, Ulf Andersson, and Edward Gillmore

25. Incorporating Home and Host Country Economic Growth Rates in
Predicting the Impact of MNEs’ Strategic Flexibility on Local Economies
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Walid Hejazi, Jianmin Tang, and Weimin Wang

26. How has the IB curriculum evolved?
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27. Evolution of IB curriculum
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• 1950s and 1960s (superior U.S. technology, marketing expertise, management)
(Dunning, 1989; Martin, Heppard & Green, 2011)
• 1970s (culture, consumer tastes and preferences, factor endowments -> optimal
organization of foreign operations) (Dunning, 1989; Martin, Heppard & Green, 2011)
• 1980s (currency fluctuations, FXR, technology, knowledge transfer and SA -> risk
sharing and economies of scale) (Dunning, 1989; Martin, Heppard & Green, 2011)
• IB educators need to design curricula with interdisciplinary focus (Martin, Heppard &
Green, 2011)

28. Editorial contact points
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