Over the years several EIBA members have been and are active in the Academy of International Business. Udo Zander was Vice President of AIB and was Programme Chair of the Conference in Monterey, California a few years ago. This time John Cantwell, who was EIBA President in 1992, will be in charge of the Milan Conference as Vice President of AIB and Programme Chair. This will only be the 5th time that AIB will meet in Europe: London (1986), Brussels (1992), Vienna (1994) and Stockholm (1998). John wrote this special announcement and invitation to the AIB Milan conference for the EIBA members. (Danny Van Den Bulcke)

by John Cantwell

EIBA members will be pleased to learn that next year, in 2008, the AIB conference will be held in Europe for the fifth time (following in the footsteps of London, Brussels, Vienna and Stockholm), and it will take place in Italy for the first time. It will be in Milan, where the local organisers are from Bocconi University - and the meeting itself will be held in Bocconi. The conference will be from June 30th to July 1st, so the timing in the summer should make it feasible to attend both the AIB and EIBA conferences in Europe in the same year.

I will be the Program Chair for the conference, and you will find further information from the conference website at:

http://aib.msu.edu/events/2008/

The conference website will be open for online submissions (all submissions of papers and panel proposals must be made online) from December 1st, 2007. The submission deadline is January 15th, 2008. Some of our track chairs that are also EIBA members include Torben Pedersen, Mats Forsgren, Rebecca Piekkari, Lucia Piscitello and Simon Collinson. The theme for the conference will be: Knowledge Development and Exchange in International Business Networks. Some further explanation of this theme follows. I hope to see you all there!

Until quite recently, research on international business was mainly about the multinational corporation (MNC), as a firm. An early focus in the international business field was on why previously purely national firms established subsidiaries abroad, and thus became MNCs. Subsequently, this led international business researchers to concentrate on the theoretical question 'why does the MNC exist?'. To answer this question more readily, a clear and sharp distinction was drawn between the apparently purely hierarchical coordination of economic activity within the firm (by the MNC, across national boundaries), and the apparently purely non-hierarchical coordination of activity between firms or between firms and other actors, at arm's length through market relationships. More recently, attention shifted to the role of the MNC as a continuous creator of knowledge, both at home and in its foreign operations. Partly as a result of this work on international networks for knowledge creation or innovation, it has become apparent that such international business networks frequently need to be comprised and to connect both internal MNC networks (usually, across national borders) and various kinds of inter-firm networks (often within some local or regional geographical area).

A key theme of the conference is to shed further light on both intra-firm and inter-firm networks for knowledge development and exchange, and the sometimes complex and potentially conflictual relationships between such intra-MNC and inter-firm knowledge networks. This theme relates to quite a wide variety of issues. One issue is the emergence and gradual spread of a wider range of local internal subsidiary creativity, and how this affects the relative roles of knowledge exchange within the MNC's own international network, and exchange with other actors in the subsidiary's local network. In the case of the MNC's own international network this may include managing the challenges posed by the cross-country coordination of knowledge creation and exchange, as well as those raised by an increased potential for inter-subsidiary competition for mandates. Another issue is the rise of so-called vertical specialization in some industries, with its implied shift towards inter-firm network relationships, and whether this has been associated with a decline in the unitary pyramid-like structure of organizational hierarchy in the coordination of activity in the MNC. A further related issue is the role of entrepreneurial flagship firms in initiating and crafting market-based inter-firm networks (of subcontractors, suppliers and distributors), and not just in planning and coordinating economic activity within the auspices of the firm itself considered in isolation.

A further set of issues refer to the changing nature of knowledge creation and exchange as such. These include the increasing complexity and interdisciplinarity (cross-field character) of systems for knowledge creation, and the implications for the more intensive business-to-business cross-licensing of knowledge as a necessary complement of internal knowledge creation within the MNC. With respect to the MNC's own activity there is an interest in the increasing role of knowledge-seeking and competence-creating knowledge search or exploration activities as a goal in internationalization processes. These issues are surely not confined to MNCs in manufacturing industry, but include (among others) those in knowledge-intensive services such as banking. Contributions that address these issues are especially encouraged as submissions for the conference.

Special Issue Call for Papers
Offshoring & Outsourcing: The Organizational and Geographical Relocation of High-Value Company Functions
 

Submission Deadline: June 15, 2008

Most companies have traditionally performed the bulk of their high-value functions within their home nation in which the parent firm is located. It was believed that the competitive advantage of a firm resided in its "core" activities, and that these should be kept in-house in order to foster future capabilities and to protect key knowledge from leakage to competitors. Examples of core or "high value" functions include Research and Development (R&D), critical IT designs, and proprietary processes. Companies are now considering the relocation of even more types of high-value activities to (a) foreign locations ("Offshoring") and/or (b) to external service providers or alliance partners ("Outsourcing"). A JMS Special Issue seeks to identify the factors that determine the mix, or spread, of global high-value operations over in-house versus external vendors - and in geographical terms, the proportion of home nation activities, versus those undertaken in foreign countries.

Types of Papers for the Special Issue
Both empirical as well as theory-building papers will be considered. As this topic lies at the intersection of several scholarly domains, papers can draw from several fields, such as Organization Theory, Strategy, International Business, and Technology & Innovation Management. However, aspects of the phenomenon can also encompass other areas such as Entrepreneurship, Operations Research and Organizational Behaviour.

Guest Editors
Farok J. Contractor (farok@andromeda.rutgers.edu) Rutgers University
Vikas Kumar (vikas.kumar@unibocconi.it) Bocconi University
Sumit K. Kundu (kundus@fiu.edu) Florida International University
Torben Pedersen (tp.smg@cbs.dk) Copenhagen Business School

Guidelines and Timeline
All manuscripts should be prepared according to JMS guidelines for authors (See www.blackwellpublishing.com/jms ). Submissions will be double-blind reviewed following the journal’s normal review processes and criteria.
Please submit manuscripts in electronic form to jms.smg@cbs.dk

Deadline for papers for JMS Special Issue: June 15 2008
Final decision on acceptances for JMS Special Issue: August 15 2009

For the full call for papers, visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/jms

Conference at SDA Bocconi, April 23 – 24, 2008
A conference on this theme will be held at SDA Bocconi, Milan, on April 23 and 24, 2008. For further information please contact ConferenceApril2008@Business.Rutgers.edu
or visit http://business.rutgers.edu/default.aspx?id=1482

The JMS Special Issue and the conference are not related. Attendance at the conference is neither required in order to submit papers for the Special Issue, nor will any additional consideration be given to conference participants.

Submissions to the JMS Special Issue will be treated entirely independently, in accordance with JMS guidelines and will be subject to the normal blind refereeing process.

Fifth Annual JIBS Paper Development Workshop
Academy of International Business Annual Meetings, Milan, Italy
Monday, June 30, 2008

The Fifth Annual JIBS Paper Development Workshop (PDW) will be held in Milan, Italy, from 7:30 am to 1:00 pm on Monday, June 30, 2008, as part of the pre-conference program for the AIB annual meetings. The PDW organizer is Laszlo Tihanyi (Texas A&M). The Workshop is being sponsored by the Texas A&M and South Carolina CIBERs and the Academy of International Business.

The purpose of the workshop is to provide participants with detailed feedback on their work prior to submission to the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and other journals that publish high-quality international business research. Almost 40 JIBS editors and members of the Consulting Editors Board (CEB) and Editorial Review Board (ERB) have already agreed to participate --  the largest group of JIBS editors ever assembled for a Paper Development Workshop.

We are inviting original papers from junior faculty members who have not previously published in JIBS. While papers from advanced doctoral students are also welcome, the workshop is primarily designed for junior faculty. In particular, we hope to attract papers from junior scholars who are:

• Located in universities in emerging/transition economies, or in universities that that offer limited support for international research, or where international business studies has limited support; or
• Trained in other disciplines (e.g., political science, organizational behavior), but would like to reorient themselves so they can conduct and publish international business research.

Because of the location of the 2008 AIB Meeting, we particularly want to attract submissions from scholars in the European Union and surrounding countries that are underrepresented in JIBS and AIB.

The PDW will be structured to provide feedback to authors of two types of papers: Advanced Papers and Paper Ideas. The program will start at 7:30 am with an introductory session for everyone led by the JIBS editorial team (http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/editors/editors.html#eden-l). The participants will then split into two groups. Authors of Advanced Papers will be paired with ERB and CEB guest editors for two rounds of one-on-one discussions where the guest editor will provide the author with comments on improving his/her paper.  At the same time, authors with Paper Ideas will attend a panel led by JIBS editors on successful publication strategies. After a break, all participants will split into multiple small-group sessions consisting of JIBS editors, guest editors and authors. In each session, authors of Paper Ideas will each briefly present their idea and receive feedback from their group. The workshop will conclude with a wrap-up session for everyone, led by the JIBS editors, and followed by a lunch for all the participants. The PDW will conclude at 1 p.m.

We expect to include 30 Advanced Papers and 20 Paper Ideas in the workshop. Both types of papers should be submitted electronically to Deanna Johnston, JIBS Editorial Assistant (jibsae@mays.tamu.edu) with “PDW submission” in the subject line.  The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2008.  Advanced Papers must be less than 10,000 words in length, and follow the JIBS Style Guide (http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/style_guide.html).  Please include three keywords that best describe your paper.  Paper Ideas should be about two pages in length and include a theoretical framework, propositions and proposed research design. Participants will be notified about the acceptance of their submission no later than March 1, 2008.  Authors will need to confirm their participation and submit final papers by March 31, 2008. All papers will be posted online for downloading no later than three weeks before the PDW.

Please note:

• The JIBS PDW is not open to registrants for other pre-conference AIB programs running simultaneously with the workshop, including the AIB Doctoral and Junior Faculty Consortia. This restriction applies to both authors and guest editors. 
• All participants must be present for the whole PDW (7:30 am-1:00 pm) on Monday June 30.  If you are flying from North America, you will need to leave June 28 in order to arrive in Milan on June 29 so you can attend the Workshop on June 30. Please make your hotel accommodations and flight arrangements with these dates in mind.
• Because the PDW ends at 1:00 pm, participants will have the afternoon open for other activities (sightseeing, meeting with co-authors). The regular AIB conference activities begin late afternoon.

We believe the Fifth Annual JIBS Paper Development Workshop will provide intensive and useful feedback for authors, and facilitate networking between authors and the JIBS editors and guest editors. We hope to see you there!

Please address any questions to:

Laszlo Tihanyi
JIBS PDW Organizer
Associate Professor
Dept of Management
TAMU 4221
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4221
ltihanyi@tamu.edu

Lorraine Eden
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of International Business Studies
Department of Management
TAMU 4221
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4221
editor-in-chief@jibs.net