Welcome to the first issue of AIB Insights for 2024. As we enter the third year of our term as journal editors, working closely with Managing Editor Anne Hoekman, we wanted to take this opportunity provide an update on the journal’s progress. Towards the end of 2023, we passed the three-year mark both as a peer reviewed journal and in using the Scholastica publishing system. As a result of these substantial changes, and others, we continue to see growth in the impact of AIB Insights. Statistics from the Scholastica portal for calendar years 2021, 2022 and 2023 are shown in Table 1, and demonstrate upward trends in various metrics during our three years as a peer-reviewed journal. Citations of AIB Insights articles have also increased substantially since we switched to the new journal portal, which allows all articles to be easily read and downloaded in an open access manner. Overall, the journal continues to develop in a positive direction.
2023 and Future Publications
In 2023, AIB Insights expanded from four to five issues per year; our goal is to eventually expand to six issues. We published two special issues during the year. The first was on “Geopolitics in International Business: Challenges and Insights”, with a truly global team of guest editors: Luciano Ciravegna, Christopher A. Hartwell, Srividya Jandhyala, and Ishmael Tingbani. The five articles in this special issue provide novel and actionable insights to guide multinationals and policymakers as they interact with a rapidly-shifting geopolitical environment. See Ciravegna et al. (2023) for an issue summary, along with three additional articles related to geopolitics in the second issue of 2023.
The second special issue echoed the AIB 2023 conference theme – “International Business and Societal Resilience in an Uncertain Global Environment” – with Guest Editors Luis Dau and Elizabeth Moore. The articles in this special issue aim to help multinationals and other stakeholders to better understand different types of resilience and how they can develop resilience capabilities. See Dau et al. (2023) for a summary of this issue.
In addition to the two special issues, we also expanded our annual issue featuring the finalists for the Peter J. Buckley and Mark Casson AIB Dissertation Award to include interviews with the recipients of the 2023 AIB Fellows International Educator of the Year, John Fayerweather Eminent Scholar, and International Executive of the Year awards. The issue provides insights into some of the most cutting-edge research in the international business field alongside overviews of three amazingly accomplished careers; see Newburry & Rose, 2023.
Looking to 2024 and future years, we have three special issues currently in the works: one in cooperation with the AIB Emerging Markets Special Interest Group (SIG) on “How Really Unique are Emerging Markets and their Firms?”, one on “Mental Models and Cognitive Frames in IB”, and one associated with the 2024 AIB Conference Theme of “Dynamics of International Business”. We are also working with the Teaching and Education SIG on an issue featuring papers authored by the finalists for the SIG’s Best Innovation in Teaching Award. These issues should ensure great content in the upcoming year and beyond.
Outreach Efforts
Supplementing our annual Paper Development Workshop (PDW) at the main AIB meeting, we continue to promote the journal in various forms (paper development workshops, stand-alone presentations, editors’ panels) at additional conferences. Recently, these included the AIB-MENA Chapter conference in December 2023 and the Indian Academy of Management (INDAM) conference in January 2024. We are also planning our first stand-alone PDW, which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, in conjunction with Strathmore Business School, in May 2024. We expect a special issue on Africa to be developed featuring papers from the conference (after going through our normal double-blind peer review process). Our PDWs over the past couple of years have been well-received, and a number of papers originally presented in the workshops have already been published in AIB Insights. We continue to work hard to get the word out about the specific expectations for publishing in an applied journal such as AIB Insights, and are delighted to see evidence that the quality of submissions is improving due to these efforts.
Issue Articles
Proceeding to review this issue’s articles, the first is titled “Reinventing International Business Education: Integrating the Power of Generative AI”, authored by Mamoun Benmamoun of St. Louis University, USA. Addressing a topic at the forefront of current discussions on IB education and research, Benmamoun examines pros and cons of Generative AI (GenAI) and how it can be incorporated into IB courses, developing actionable recommendations based on concepts of Engagement, Collaboration, and Academic Integrity. In terms of engagement, Benmamoun proposes methods for interactive learning and lesson engagement. In terms of collaboration, leveraging GenAI as a multifaceted tool is recommended, to enhance international teamwork and collaboration and cultivate cross-cultural and linguistic connections. In terms of academic integrity, Benmamoun outlines measures to prevent the misuse of GenAI and mitigate the inherent threats that it poses to academic integrity and assessment.
Heejin Kim (Tohoku University, Japan) and Anne-Wil Harzing (Middlesex University, U.K.) authored the second article in this issue, entitled “Applying IB Knowledge to IB Researchers: The Academic Capability Building and Knowledge Creation Process”. Using Nonaka’s organizational knowledge creation theory as a foundation, the authors suggest a framework of short-term and long-term activities to promote academic capability building and knowledge creation. Then, through an ex-post reflection on Kim’s recent international experiences, the authors further develop recommendations to improve academic capability building, based on the temporal nature of interactions and the intensity of interactions in academia.
Our third article is “Design Thinking Approach in International Markets: Implications for the Movie Industry”, by Shaphali Gupta (MICA, The School of Ideas, India), V. Kumar (Brock University, Canada), and B. Kandaswamy (Kavithalayaa Productions, India). This article was instigated by the AIB Insights call for papers on marketing in international business, organized by Guest Editors Brian Chabowski, Constantine Katsikeas, Saeed Samiee, and Attila Yaprak. The authors develop a design thinking-based movie internationalization framework built on three components: desirability, feasibility, and viability. These three components improve global audience engagement and box office revenue through the mediating variable of content relatability. Country culture, content genre, and the country environment further influence these relationships. Gupta et al. further provide several prominent movie examples illustrating the utility of the framework.
“Migrant Entrepreneurship: Turning Challenges into Opportunities”, by Roberto P. Q. Falcão and Bernardo Silva-Rêgo of Universidade do Grande Rio, Brazil, and Eduardo P. Cruz of Fluminense Federal University, Brazil, is the fourth paper of this issue. Within this article, the authors start from a position that migrant entrepreneurs might use liabilities of foreignness and outsidership as a basis for developing their marketing strategies. Falcão et al. then develop a typology of market opportunities for migrant entrepreneurs, based on whether they choose to target their ethnic communities or local customers not affiliated to their ethnic enclaves, combined with whether they supply ethnic or general undifferentiated products and services. Using the typology, the authors then identify four market opportunities for migrant entrepreneurs.
The fifth article in the issue is “Aging and Shrinking Populations in CEE Countries: Implications for Practitioners and Policymakers”, by Masud Chand of Wichita State University, USA. The article first notes that difficulties associated with an aging population are especially prominent in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where most countries’ populations are aging rapidly and large losses of working-age populations are projected. Chand generates insights for policymakers, managers, and multinationals on how to manage in this aging environment, including focusing on workplace productivity, building more inclusive workplaces, leveraging immigration as a strategic asset, possibly increasing the retirement age, and promoting natalist policies to boost fertility.
Once again, we hope that you enjoy this issue of AIB Insights. Please continue to submit your applied international business research to the journal!