RESEARCH AREA	QUESTIONS FOR THE IB DISCIPLINE	MANAGERIAL TIPS
MULTINATIONALS (MNEs)	What roles do MNEs play in the evolution of society? How do they constrain or enable social change? How do MNEs need to change to address wicked problems within society, not just the big questions of our time? How does the changing nature of markets (i.e., boundaries, territoriality, disruptions, trends) impact the (traditional) roles played by MNEs? What does this mean in terms of the dual motivation within MNEs? How does the changing nature of dually-embedded subsidiaries explain the dynamics within MNEs and the roles of MNEs in and across markets?	Consider your organisation as a central agent for social change. Consider your stakeholders as social groups. Engage with your stakeholders based on traditional and non-traditional social categories and sources of social identity. When managing diversity within your organization, please consider intersectionality of identities – identities which intersect not transcend social categories and groups. In managing subsidiaries, consider not only what roles do they play for your organisation (i.e., the HQ), but also what roles they play for their host environments and its different social groups.
CULTURE	What are the various roles culture plays for individuals and groups (i.e., biological, psychological, economic)? How do we re-think at the ontological level culture in terms of those roles and advance our current outcome-focused understanding of culture? How do we link such roles to various levels of IB phenomena and how do we conceptualize and measure culture accordingly? What role should IB as a discipline assume in advancing the understanding of culture studies in other disciplines?	Think about the most appropriate “containers” of culture and push beyond nation-level understanding of culture. Think what the relevance and salience of social categories tells us about culture. Don’t just focus on managing “culture” differences, but also consider social identities and how they feed into identity politics (within organisations or countries). Balance diversity and equity approaches by emphasizing not just cultural differences but also social identities. Approach social identities as archetypes (specific patterns), not simply as different identity “profiles”. Approach culture as a dependent “variable”, not an independent or moderating variable. Explore the link between language and social identity. Incorporate a social identity perspective into your organisational language policies (i.e., use of gender-neutral pronouns).
CONSUMERS/ MARKETING	What roles does consumption play for individuals and specific social groups? What happens when such consumption transcends cultural boundaries or social groups? How do consumption and marketing influence the formation, salience, hierarchy and change of social categories? To what extent is consumption determined by social agency and to what extent based on purposeful individual agency of people?	Instead of who-are-they-type questions related to global-local consumer cultures and various corresponding dispositions towards foreign/domestic products, marketers should focus on what role and function does, for example, cosmopolitanism play in the process of individuals and groups interacting with/in the social world. When incorporating a SIT perspective to your marketing strategies, consider the specific motivational mechanisms related to SIT. Think about, for example, when does marketing draw on self-esteem mechanisms, optimal distinctiveness or reducing uncertainty? Think about when consumer attitudes towards foreign products are driven by out-group degradation and prejudice (i.e., product stereotypes, consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin effects) and when by in-group distinctiveness (i.e., supporting local producers during a recession).
GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT	What roles do multilateral institutions, nations, regions, markets, cultures and organizations play for individuals, groups and society? Are these roles the same for the social core (elites, groups in power), the semi-periphery (i.e., middle class) and periphery (i.e., minorities and marginalised groups)? Where have these roles come from? How and why are they changing? How can such roles help us better understand the changing global business environment and recent structural shifts (i.e., anti-globalisation, deglobalisation, (economic) nationalism)? How can the changing world order be understood through the optics of IT (i.e., What is the role of a global super-power, or the role of an emerging power and emerging markets?) and SIT (i.e., How can historical and political embeddedness help explain self-construal, social categorization, identity activation and salience?) How can the uncertainty reduction mechanism of SIT help explain the link between environmental volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity on the one hand and various types of extreme behavior (i.e., racism, xenophobia, extremism)?	Do not categorize individuals based on assumed social categories but inquire about sources of their social identities. Understand globalisation not as an economic and political interdependence among nations, but a changing interdependence in the nature, level and intensity of relationships among social actors. Consider that globalisation doesn’t just create inequality but can also create various types of identity crises. Understand that in times of higher uncertainty, individuals will seek to identify with distinct social groups and prototypical leaders, which makes them more susceptible to extremist groups and behavior.