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The purpose of this paper is to deal with the Eurocentric conceptualisation of “risk” which reinforces rent-seeking language, culture and practices of doing business that are alien to non-European societies. This paper also attempts to engage with Eurocentric methods and strategies that sustain hegemony in international business by promoting “risk” and perpetuating “uncertainty” within the non-European business culture. Such territoriality within basic conceptualisation of in international business is central to manufactured “risks” that reinforces crisis, while state deals successfully or fails to deal with it, the global corporations extract resources and expand their capital and market base in non-European societies while doing business. This paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents the philosophical basis of risks and its historical foundations and the second part deals with the neo-colonial business methods, languages, cultures and strategies which are Eurocentric by nature. This paper argues that manufacturing risk is the Eurocentric business strategy.

This paper draws its methodological lineages to nonlinear historical narrative around the concept and construction of the idea and language of “risk” and “uncertainty”. This paper follows discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which the Eurocentric concept of risk was exported and incorporated within the language of international business in non-Western business traditions. While engaging with conceptual discourses, it focusses on the power of language in the process of conceptualisation where “authority comes to language from outside” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 109). As a result of which the concept does not reflect the objective reality of non-European business culture and its uniqueness while assimilating it within the Western European theoretical traditions of “risk and uncertainty” in international business practice.

The understanding of risk in business within the non-European context needs new ways of conceptualising risk. The updated version of Eurocentric theories, languages and methods of international business and associated risk narrative can never be a starting point. The duality of philosophy in which “economic growth” and “backwardness” measures progress and reduces human experience and objectives of business to seek and expand profit. The starting point of any theoretical analysis on risk in doing business in non-European societies must acknowledge the specificities of their context in terms of local ideas, knowledge, history, language and methods of business practice which is different from Europe.

This paper outlines the Eurocentric conceptualisation of “risk” which reinforces rent-seeking language, culture and practices of doing business that are alien to non-European societies. It engages with the Eurocentric methods and strategies that sustain hegemony in international business by promoting “risk” and perpetuating “uncertainty” within the non-European business culture. Such territoriality within basic conceptualisation of in international business is central to manufactured “risks” that reinforces crisis; while state deals successfully or fails to deal with it; the global corporations extract resources and expand their capital and market base in non-European societies while doing business. This paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents the philosophical basis of risks and its historical foundations; the second part deals with the neo-colonial business methods, languages, cultures and strategies which are Eurocentric by nature. This paper argues that manufacturing risk is the Eurocentric business strategy. This paper argues for a new language, a new method and a new strategy of doing business by decolonising the discipline of international business.

This chapter proposes a framework which relates the Firm Specific Advantages (FSAs) of the multinational enterprise with the timing of entry in VUCA-type host environments, characterised by high volatility (V), uncertainty (U), complexity (C), and ambiguity (A), and which have become extraordinarily high risk. Drawing on historical evidence, in particular on Geoffrey Jones’ research - to whom this volume is dedicated - on the evolution of international business, it shows that in extraordinarily high-risk environments multinational enterprises need to have additional FSAs beyond those considered in the traditional FSAs/CSAs (country specific advantages/firm specific advantages) framework. The proposed framework distinguishes between prevention, mitigation, avoidance and withdrawal strategies carried out before and after entry in host markets that have become of extraordinary high risk.

Political‐legal risk perception is just as important a consideration in dealing effectively with the threats exposed by international enterprises. This research emphasizes how important it is to integrate the perception of risk factor into the analysis. This is an essential factor when catastrophic risks are involved. Relatively, nevertheless, little work has been done to explore the concept of political‐legal risk as it applies to international commercial and business applications. The purpose of this research is to first examine the perception of Kuwaiti executives to political‐legal business environment while conducting outward investment and where a number of recent events like those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen illustrate that the rise of enterprises onto the world stage will not necessarily be entirely without risk and second, to explore the correlations between the executives' perceptions of political‐legal variables and enterprise‐specific characteristics.

A review of the literature relating to risk in international business in both developed and emerging markets is provided. The empirical research was conducted via a questionnaire survey. In line with the research aim, questionnaires were distributed to the entire target population of Kuwaiti international enterprises. Nonparametric statistics were used to analyze the findings.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been shaken like never before. The recent events of the uprising in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya and the regional reverberations of the upheaval are unfolding, inter alia, concerns about rising exposure to more risks and the instability in the MENA have reached a fever pitch. Findings of this research suggest that the political‐legal related risks associated with enterprises' activities pose a threat to the majority of executives and the vulnerability to these risks are not related to any enterprise's‐specific characteristics.

The research on international enterprises states that some parts of the globe have remained detached. Given its economic and political importance, the most obvious omission is the Middle East. To date and despite that the region has garnered its fair share of coverage in current news, little is known on management practices by enterprise in the region. This research, therefore, provides empirical evidence of executives' perception of political‐legal business environment in an emerging market context: Kuwait. Furthermore, most recent literature omits oil‐producing nations. Focusing on this oil‐rich region is an attempt to fill this void.

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.

The macroenvironment constitutes a widely acknowledged source of firms’ risk in international business. A substantial body of research on macroenvironmental risks encapsulates a variety of measurement approaches, antecedents, and managerial consequences. However, a review of established macroenvironmental risk measures reveals that these measures strongly focus on the quality of the macroenvironment, assuming a rather static perspective and mainly excluding dynamic aspects. Building on prior research on macroenvironmental risk as well as on environmental dynamism, we argue that macroenvironmental dynamism – i.e. the frequency, intensity, and predictability of macroenvironmental variation – is a pivotal source of risk in international business, which so far only received limited attention. Moreover, we suggest that macroenvironmental dynamism influences firms’ risk management activities, a measure we use to empirically investigate firm implications of macroenvironmental dynamism. We explore this effect using primary survey data on risk management activities from 158 foreign subsidiaries in six emerging countries and secondary data on the macroeconomic context in these countries. We find evidence that macroenvironmental dynamism, if compared to macroenvironmental quality, exerts a strong influence on firms’ risk management activities. Our findings enhance the understanding of the dynamic nature of macroenvironmental risk in international business as well as provide a concept to more comprehensively measure macroenvironmental dynamism that future research can build upon.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opening experience that put to the test our crisis management competencies across many institutions, including those offered by institutions of higher education. This study aims to review the literature on international business (IB) risks and IB education (IBE) to question whether business graduates are equipped to make decisions in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) marketplace.

While the IB literature has discussed the importance of various sources of risks on global business operations, IBE did not effectively adopt an integrative approach to building the needed risk management competencies related to those risks into our education. The authors argue that this integrative approach to teaching IB is critically needed to prepare future global managers for addressing crises, like that of the pandemic and others. Specifically, this study proposes that this integrated risk management competency can be developed through the building of “synergistic mindsets”.

This study presents a conceptual framework for the components of the synergistic mindset, with intelligence that directly links to present IB risks. These components are cultural intelligence (CQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), public policy intelligence (PPQ), digital intelligence (DQ) and orchestration intelligence (OQ).

Insights related to IBE effectiveness in addressing today’s VUCA market demands and IB risks are discussed.

There is an extensive research stream devoted to evaluating host country political risk as it relates to foreign investment decisions, and in today’s geopolitical climate, this type of risk is becoming increasingly salient to business leaders. Despite notable advancements related to understanding the importance of government-related risk, inconsistent conceptualizations and findings remain. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of how host country political risk has been conceptualized, measured and studied in relation to multinational enterprises' (MNEs’) investment decisions. After reviewing the relevant literature, five major aspects of non-violent (government type, public corruption, leadership change) and violent (armed conflict, terrorism) political risk were identified. The organization and review of each aspect of political risk provide insights on fruitful directions for future research, which are discussed.

To identify research articles on political risk and foreign investment, 13 leading management and international business journals were searched using relevant keywords (January 2000 to January 2023). Moreover, reviewing articles from these journals led to locating and reviewing additional relevant articles that the authors cited. Keyword searches were also conducted on Google Scholar and Web of Science in an effort to identify relevant articles outside of the 13 targeted journals.

Both violent and non-violent aspects of host country political risk have been studied in relation to MNEs' investment decisions. Specifically, five major aspects of host country political risk were identified (government type, public corruption, leadership change, armed conflict and terrorism). Although the general consensus is that risk related to the government often creates obstacles for MNEs, conceptualizations, measures and findings in prior research are not uniform.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of host country political risk and foreign investment. In doing so, the aspects of political risk are identified, organized and overviewed.

This chapter seeks to conceptualize a new approach to the identification of the factors influencing the adoption of a political risk assessment (PRA) function. By making use of firm value maximization and risk aversion and considering the rationale for risk management activities, a number of determinants are identified which can be deployed in future PRA studies. A model for predicting the PRA adoption decision is proposed. Geographical contextualization in one or more emerging markets (EMs) provides a further dimension of originality as well as reflecting an increasingly important international business phenomenon. Political risk (PR) and political risk assessment (PRA) are of increasing importance in the context of the growth and development of emerging markets (EMs). The latter provide opportunities for inward investment from more developed economies. There has also been a rapid growth in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging markets to other economies. This chapter adds to the current understanding of PRA by examining this issue in emerging markets (EMs) through the model developed here.

In this chapter we chart the evolution of the theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE) from Buckley and Casson’s original depiction to Buckley’s conceptualization of the global factory. Within that context we consider the issues of risk and uncertainty which continue to challenge firms in the international context. Indeed, despite the explosion in access to greater wealth of digital sources of information and knowledge, risk, uncertainty, volatility, complexity, and ambiguity remain constraints on the ability of firms to function effectively in the international arena. Theoretical development around the nature of the MNE must deal with such enormities, but also other demands in the global context. The evolution of the global factory has been recognized as the disintegration of the MNE through the externalization of many of its previously core activities, including parts of production and marketing, but this form of the MNE will not be the end-game. Ultimately, it may be questioned whether the MNE is becoming, or has become, just a global super-manager of value activities orchestrating the internationalization of production.