Introduction from the Editors

Citation

Roberts, J. and Dörrenbächer, C. (2015), "Introduction from the Editors", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-09-2014-0042

Introduction from the Editors

Article Type: Editorial From: critical perspectives on international business, Volume 11, Issue 1

Welcome to the first issue of the eleventh volume of critical perspectives on international business. We are pleased to present another exciting collection of articles and reviews, with contributors from Australia, Europe and North America, and we continue to fulfil our commitment to producing an international journal. Moreover, this issue covers topics as varied as human and social capital, language and translation, branding, business and the environment, and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This issue begins with “The impact of social and human capital on individual cooperative behaviour: implications for international strategic alliances”, in which Gjalt De Jong suggests that the international business literature has largely overlooked social and human capital as individual-level drivers of cooperations. The author hypothesizes the effects of various forms of capital on the cooperative behaviour of individuals and goes on to empirically test the model advanced. This is followed by “Localize or local lies? The power of language and translation in the multinational corporation”, by Minna Logemann and Rebecca Piekkari. The authors contribute to research on an intraorganizational power in MNCs by showing that a subsidiary manager may use language and acts of translation to resist control from headquarters and to (re)define power positions in a headquarters-subsidiary relationships. Additionally, they reveal the interplay between natural languages and “company speak” as a specialized language. In the next article “Branding from emerging countries: how to compete internationally?”, Claude Chailan and Francis Ille examine the branding options available to emerging countries companies when expanding internationally, and they go on to formulate a framework with four brand management options of particular relevance to such companies.

In the fourth article in this issue entitled “Making the business case? Intercultural differences in framing economic rationality related to environmental issues”, Petra Molthan-Hill questions the assumption prominent in the Anglo-American context that the objective of a business is to increase its profits and that managers have to make “the business case” to implement environmentally sounder solutions or to take account of other sustainability issues in their business decisions. She argues that these assumptions are not presented as a human construction or agreement, instead they are treated as though they are a given – prerequisite to a business system. Dealing with related themes, in the final article “Critical perspectives on strategic CSR: what is sustainable value co-creation orientation? ” Frederick Ahen and Peter Zettinig integrate corporate responsibility into corporate strategy by problematizing existing notions of traditional CSR. They provide a theoretical and empirical basis for the proposition that the bridge between corporate responsibility and corporate irresponsibility is the embeddedness of strategic decisions in ethically oriented corporate practices towards sustainable value co-creation.

This issue concludes with two reviews. The first by Ian Towers and Anabel Ternès is of the book Managing Global Organizations: A Cultural Perspective by Rabi S. Bhagat, Harry C. Triandis and Annette S. McDevitt. The second review, by George M. Cairns, is of Utopia, a documentary film by John Pilger.

Sadly, Professor Heather Höpfl, a leading expert on organizational theory and women in management, died in September 2014. As a member of the journal’s editorial advisory board, she was highly supportive of the critical perspectives on international business project. In remembrance of her life and contribution to the management community, we dedicate this issue of the journal to Professor Heather Höpfl (1948-2014).

Roberts Joanne

University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, and

Dörrenbächer Christoph

Faculty of Business and Economics, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, Germany