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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.

This study focuses on home country institutions as sources of variation in the level of foreign investment into India. Our findings support the idea that institutional voids found in India are less of a deterrent to investments from home countries with high levels of institutional development than from home countries with similar institutional voids. Overall, foreign investments in India are found to be significantly related to the strength of institutions within home countries. The levels of both approved and realized foreign direct investment (FDI) are strongly influenced by economic factors and home country regulative institutions, and weakly influenced by home country cognitive institutions. When considered separately, the cognitive institutions and regulative institutions within a given home country each significantly influence the level of approved/realized FDI into India. However, when considered jointly, only the strength of regulative institutions is predictive of FDI inflows.

This study draws upon the interorganizational imitation theory and endorsement literatures to explain the entry mode decisions of emerging-market firms (EMFs) into developed markets. Specifically, the study argues that EMFs entering developed markets pay differential attention to the prior actions of reference groups – by type of country of origin (whom to follow?) and by entry mode (how to imitate?). We test our hypotheses with a sample of 591 entries by EMFs investing in the United States over a 10-year period. The results support an isomorphism-based framework with different influences across reference groups by country of origin and entry mode. We find a dominant form of isomorphism, even after controlling for transaction costs and resource-based explanations.

Explicit barriers to international trade, investment, technology, and financial flows have been reduced considerably. As a result, “macro-liberalization” of international economic transactions has largely run its course. Now, attention needs to shift from international rules for governments to international rules dealing with the various aspects of the international operations of firms – what are called “micro-issues” in this chapter; these include, by way of example, cross-border mergers and acquisitions and international bankruptcies. Such international rules for the principal actors in international production and markets would complement (or replace) the unilateral rules that exist at the national level. International rules would set the direct parameters for certain aspects of the international activities of firms and hence provide the global governance for operating in the global production and trading spaces. This chapter exemplifies for a number of areas the state of rule-making for some micro-issues, analyzes the nature of this rule-making, and suggests a way forward. Developing international micro-regulatory frameworks of rules of the road for the various aspects of the international operations of firms in the globalizing world economy should be the new frontier of international commercial diplomacy.

First, AIB conference themes have reflected the issues thought to be important during its 50 years of operations, and the Fellows have regularly staffed Plenary Sessions devoted to these yearly themes (e.g., Eden & Lenway, 2001 on globalization).

Jagdish N. Bhagwati is professor of economics and law at Columbia University and one of the most prolific scholars on globalization. He has a BA in economics from Cambridge and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as an external advisor to the director general of the World Trade Organization, as a special policy advisor on globalization to the United Nations, and as an economics policy advisor to the director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Before moving to Columbia University he was professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Bhagwati currently serves on the Academic Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch (Asia) and on the board of scholars of the Centre for Civil Society. He is senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Crises are often studied in international business (IB) research as the external “context” for business strategies, but firms can also be active participants in the unfolding of crises. The study of crises in IB could benefit greatly from studying the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) as active participants, rather than as mere passive actors, responding to exogenous events. History shows that IB crises typically unfold partially as exogenous processes, and partly as the result of MNE strategies. A multilevel and longitudinal approach to studying crises in IB is clearly necessary. This chapter considers the extent to which smaller events that preceded the present crisis – since 1989 – point to systemic problems in global governance. It also defines five overlapping lenses through which future IB studies can further create relevant insights on how to deal with crises: historic, macro, meso, micro and exogenous. The chapter finally serves as an introduction to the whole Progress in International Business Research volume by indicating the relevance of all parts and chapters that follow.