The world has seen a radical set of social and structural shifts in the last three years, which few policy makers, academics, and social commentators predicted. The Brexit vote in the United Kingdom; the revocation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the pressures against NAFTA by the Trump administration in the United States; massive migration and social dislocation in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; and the rise of more populist and strictly politically-controlled governments across the globe have put pause to any belief that:
(a) globalization is viewed as uniformly positive by the bulk of the global population,
(b) the economic and social benefits of globalization are likely to win out over other political or societal issues, and
(c) we can study international business without accounting for the global socio-political issues that involve a deeper understanding of topics that fall outside the normal realm of historic international business research.
The 2019 EIBA conference will be an opportunity to look at broadening the impact and footprint of international business through integration with research in other social sciences. The goal is to investigate the lessons to be learned from the turbulent environment of the past several years. The fact that the conference will be in the UK just before the country’s technical exit from the EU presents a unique opportunity to hold this discussion in an environment currently living through one version of that turbulence.
The conference theme will be operationalized via a collection of tracks that cover traditional topics in international business and a parallel set of specialized tracks that relate to how we can integrate new ideas from the social sciences, policy, and business. In line with this view, we particularly encourage interdisciplinary panel submissions that involve scholars outside of our traditional fields, and panels and submissions that bring in policy makers, business leaders, and those focused on social activism or the integration of non-market stakeholders. We are looking not only for new perspectives on studying old problems, but also new and existing perspectives on issues and phenomena arising from the turbulent environment of the past several years.