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This chapter complements the one that appeared as “History of the AIB Fellows: 1975–2008” in Volume 14 of this series (International Business Scholarship: AIB Fellows on the First 50 Years and Beyond, Jean J. Boddewyn, Editor). It traces what happened under the deanship of Alan Rugman (2011–2014) who took many initiatives reported here while his death in July 2014 generated trenchant, funny, and loving comments from more than half of the AIB Fellows. The lives and contributions of many other major international business scholars who passed away from 2008 to 2014 are also evoked here: Endel Kolde, Lee Nehrt, Howard Perlmutter, Stefan Robock, John Ryans, Vern Terpstra, and Daniel Van Den Bulcke.

In the academic field of business management, several potential theories were established during the last decades to explain companies' decisions, organizational behavior, consumer patterns, and internationalization, among others. As a result, businesses and scholars were able to analyze and decide based on theoretical approaches to explain the current conditions of the market. Secondary research was conducted to collect more than 36 management theories. This chapter aims to develop the most famous theories related to business applied in the international field. The novelty of this chapter relies on the compilation of recognized previous research studies from the academic literature and evidence in international business.

I am delighted to be here today to honor the work of Alan Rugman. Alain Verbeke (Calgary) and I will discuss Alan's contributions, with me focusing primarily on his contributions to the field of international business (IB); Alain, his contributions to international management (IM).

This research volume honours Alan M. Rugman, who is the L. Leslie Waters Chair in International Business (IB), Professor of Management and Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. The work contains a set of essays developed to celebrate the Academy of Management's (AoM) recognition of Professor Rugman as the ‘Booz Allen Hamilton Strategy and Business Eminent Scholar in International Management’ at the AoM 2004 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Booz Allen Hamilton established this award to recognize eminent scholars whose research and writing have contributed significantly to international management scholarship and whose work has had an effect on the practice of international management. This great honour was not the only one Professor Rugman received in 2004. The European International Business Academy (EIBA) organized a special panel honouring Professor Rugman's 25-year old landmark study on international diversification and the multinational enterprise (MNE) at its 2004 Annual Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The 10 chapters included in this volume were presented at one of these events or written as a direct result thereof.

In evaluating Alan Rugman's work on MNE environmental strategies, the subject of this chapter, it is too tempting not to start with a 2×2 matrix. Fig. 1 is meant to roughly indicate four different types of work that might characterise an academic's research portfolio. Obviously, all the well-known caveats of such a scheme apply, and perhaps more than usual. However, the main purpose is, by way of introduction, to situate Alan's output on environmental issues and the MNE, compared and related to other topics. While the horizontal axis of Fig. 1 refers to a regular division into theoretical and empirical work, the vertical axis differentiates main foci of research from other, more sideline, areas. Applied to Alan Rugman's research portfolio, the latter category characterises his work on environmental strategies of MNEs best, particularly quadrant 2, although some of it (generally more exploratory work) can be placed in quadrant 4 as well.

I think it would be fair to say that explaining the geography of multinational enterprise (MNE) activity has never been a major part of Alan Rugman's scholarly research and writings. Nevertheless, over the last 25 years, he has provided us with several useful nuggets of understanding and empirical evidence about the territorial expansion of firms, and its impact on their global competitiveness.

Alan Rugman, in the course of his professional career, has not shied away from controversy, whether the issues were international diversification versus internationalization, internalization versus use of the external market, double diamonds versus single diamonds or global multinational enterprises (MNEs) versus regional MNEs. Whatever was the bone of contention, he has formulated strong hypotheses and then engaged in empirical work to provide evidence for his position. He has taken the issues to a wide audience – scholarly, government and business. To each group he has hammered the ideas home until he was associated with a position on the issues. In fact, Alan seems to have relished being in the middle of storms of controversy as he beat the drums furiously for what he saw as right regardless of whether he offended others taking an opposite view. The result has been that he has had a huge impact on the field of international strategic management and an influence on government policy and business activity.