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The purpose of this study is to build a proposal for an integrated analysis / evaluation / decision / implementation framework to suit entrepreneurial companies intending to redefine their strategic behaviours and their competitive schemes in the global environment.

A conceptual approach, based on theoretical perspectives relating to globalisation-based management and decision-making of entrepreneurs, is adopted.

The paper presents a conceptual framework useful for supporting entrepreneurial decisions for global strategies, drawing on an integrated analysis of external environment and internal components, with a specific focus on the entrepreneur's characteristics in terms of cognitive and emotional profiles. It is suggested to adopt a logical process aimed at identifying which strategic levers are available for entrepreneurial players to implement their strategies.

Entrepreneurial decision-making may benefit from an integrated framework which helps entrepreneurs, who aim to compete in the global marketplace, to explore and exploit all the key factors useful to defining their strategies.

There is a lack of decision-making frameworks that put the entrepreneur at the centre and, at the same time, present a potential balance between the external factors (globalisation drivers and local opportunities) and the resources and competences required to manage risks and difficulties of the global environment (internal factors). The originality of the proposed framework consists in filling this gap. Moreover, this framework can be useful for “re-born global” or “global-again” firms that are currently a neglected typology of studied firms.

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through.

The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories.

The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks.

Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.

This paper aims to analyze different brand clarity levels (BCLs) of local, global and glocal types of brands in fast-moving consumer goods from the consumer's perspective. The study also intends to identify whether the consumer's previous experience with such brands may impact BCL.

Twenty-eight global and local brands were used to test the hypotheses by conducting a survey with 400 consumers in the emerging economy of Iran. The authors applied a quantitative technique of brand classification, previously proposed in the literature. After categorizing the brands as local, global or glocal, one-way ANOVA, Tukey post hoc and t-test analyses were performed to identify whether the different types of brands had different BCLs.

The results showed that brand clarity was significantly higher for local bands than for global or glocal brands and that it was higher for glocal bands than for global brands. Furthermore, the consumer's prior experience with a brand had no impact on BCL for different types of brands.

For global brand managers, it is essential to know that local brands in Middle Eastern emerging markets may have more brand clarity than global brands. Therefore, if global brands intend to enter these markets, adopting a glocal positioning appears to be a helpful strategy. Besides, the results suggest that managers should analyze brand categorization from the consumer's perspective, i.e. from a subjective instead of an objective perspective.

This was the first study analyzing the BCL of local, global and glocal brands and identifying significant differences in their BCL.

The authors discuss a dominant logic as the main idea behind a global marketing logic (GML) of an MNE and investigate how local stakeholders’ influence the feasibility of applying the GML in emerging markets. The aim of the paper is to enhance the understanding of the factors that influence the local stakeholders' acceptance of the MNEs' GML and the different activities of MNEs that may increase the acceptance.

The authors apply a qualitative case study method investigating three Swedish MNEs and their activities while implementing a GML in the big emerging markets. The authors study their relationships with business, political and social stakeholders.

The authors identify three persistent contents of the GML: (1) a consistent value chain role across markets, (2) standardized, premium products/services and promotion strategies, (3) a corporate brand-based identity. The development of trust, commitment, legitimacy and power within local stakeholders’ relationships influences the approval. The acceptance of the MNE's GML by local stakeholders strengthens its market position.

The authors extend the knowledge by investigating the nature of a GML and explain to what extent it may help MNEs to gain a competitive position. The authors also discuss how global and local activities may influence local stakeholders' acceptance. This study contributes towards a better understanding of how and to what extent a GML can be successful.

This paper aims at investigating the contemporary trend toward regional consumption from the perspective of consumers’ search for brand authenticity. In particular, the paper joins literature on brand authenticity from the marketing literature and literature on the local food movement to investigate consumers’ response to authenticity claims in the competition of local and global food brands.

The paper engages in a series of three experimental studies; one of which uses a Becker–DeGroot–Marschak lottery to assess individuals’ willingness to pay for authenticity claims of (non)global brands.

Findings show that authenticity perceptions lead to higher brand value independent of brand globalness; while global brands can mitigate competitive disadvantages in localized consumer markets by actively authenticating their brand image.

This paper reveals the usefulness of authentic brand positioning for global beverage brands when competing with local beverage brands to overcome the liability of globalness. To sustainably benefit from the local food movement, local brands thus will require to build up brand images beyond associations of mere authenticity.

China’s globalizing Internet describes a situation where China is using the Internet as a tool or medium to transmit its voice on the world stage and enhance its influence over the global Internet governance system and the global digitalization process. Several concerns, however, exist regarding China’s globalizing Internet strategies. This paper aims to respond to these concerns and enhance the understanding of China’s globalizing Internet strategies.

This paper will use content analysis to trace the policy development trajectory of China’s globalizing Internet, including policy vision, policy-making agencies and policy tools.

The Chinese government has issued a considerable number of policies to regulate and promote the development of the Internet since 2014. The key trend that emerged from the analysis of China’s globalizing Internet policy is the cooperation among different agencies. Existing policies have comprehensively used the supply-oriented tools, the environment-oriented tools and the demand-oriented tools; and the last two tools have been used more frequently in recent years.

The analysis results contribute to understanding how China uses digital technology to enhance its influence over the global Internet governance system.