European International Business Academy (EIBA) Conference 2012
ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies
Universität Bremen

Call for papers

Transnational firms, markets and institutions:
New challenges and opportunities for international business

For the international business (IB) community, the term transnational has come to be associated with a particular form of multinational enterprise (MNE) that is able to resolve the tension between local responsiveness and global integration. In other areas of social sciences and the humanities, the term transnational is used to designate actors or institutions that span across borders in a way that begins to challenge the existence and legitimacy of those borders.
 
The theme of this year’s conference explores the role of MNEs as transnational actors that mould and shape other actors and institutions in the global economy. At the macro level, this concerns for example questions regarding the political behaviour of MNEs when they join with national governments and international organizations to craft new regulations. It also includes examining the role of MNEs as both partners and adversaries of civil society organizations. In the legal realm, some key questions of interest concern the role of MNEs in generating a body of transnational private law in order to fill gaps or remove uncertainties in the established body of law. At the micro level, topics of interest include the role of MNEs in both promoting, and responding to, changing attitudes and values concerning globalization and the emergence of new transnational institutions.

While all of these topics deal with the contemporary global economy, historical analyses concerning the role played by MNEs in economic and social transformation in the past are also clearly relevant. By focusing on the processes of transnational influence and transformation, we hope to encourage the IB community to become more engaged with this discourse and the work that is being done in other social science fields. Since MNEs are important actors taking part in these processes, the IB community has a great deal to offer in this area, both in terms of identifying the managerially relevant implications, as well as formulating recommendations for public policy.
 
The submission deadline is Mon, July 15th 2013.
 
Download PDF: Call for Papers