Editors
- S. Tamer Cavusgil, Georgia State University
- Marleen Dieleman, IMD Business School
- Md. Tareq Hossain, Thammasat University
- Ruey-Jer Bryan Jean, National Taiwan University
- Destan Kandemir, Georgia State University
- Suntichai Kotcharin, Thammasat University
- Hussain Rammal, Adelaide University
Description
Southeast Asia has emerged as one of the most consequential yet under-theorized regions in contemporary international business. The ten ASEAN economies collectively form the world's fifth-largest economic bloc, attracted record FDI inflows of approximately US$ 230 billion in 2023 and 2024, and are projected to add roughly 140 million new consumers by 2030. The region has become a critical site for phenomena that strain or extend prevailing IB theory: it is simultaneously a primary beneficiary of China-plus-one supply chain reconfiguration, a launchpad for a new generation of regional multinationals, and a laboratory for institutional heterogeneity, where ten countries with widely divergent political systems, regulatory regimes, religious traditions, and stages of development cooperate without monetary union or labor mobility.
Despite this empirical importance, Southeast Asia remains underrepresented in top international management journals, where research on emerging Asia continues to be dominated by Chinese and Indian contexts and where the theoretical voice of scholars based in the region itself is frequently filtered through Western co-authorship and Western analytical frames. This Focused Issue invites contributions that take Southeast Asian phenomena as theoretically generative rather than merely empirically illustrative, and actively encourages submissions led by scholars based in the region. The issue aims to advance international management theory beyond the BRICS-centric vocabulary that has shaped emerging-market IB research, and to surface concepts, mechanisms, and boundary conditions that the region's distinctive configuration of family capitalism, ethnic-Chinese business networks, state-linked enterprises, hyper-digital consumer markets, and ASEAN-level institutional layering uniquely reveals.
Potential topics
- The Rise and Internationalization of Southeast Asian Multinationals - Theory-building work on springboard, asset-augmentation, and catch-up strategies of ASEAN-origin MNEs; internationalization trajectories compared to Chinese and Indian counterparts; asset-augmentation versus ownership-advantage-based theories of FDI; platform architecture in cross-border expansion of digital-native champions; internationalization of state-linked enterprises under dual commercial and political principals
- Supply-Chain Reconfiguration, Maritime Connectivity, and Regional Supply-Chain Governance - Integration of Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines into reorganized global value chains; upgrading dynamics and co-location strategies with Chinese MNEs; port competitiveness and hinterland connectivity; maritime logistics resilience; multimodal transport-corridor integration; dual-sourcing and supply-chain resilience strategies; digital logistics platforms; ASEAN's role in global production-network reconfiguration
- Cross-Border Trade, Geopolitics, and the Middle-Power Firm - How Southeast Asian firms hedge between US, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and European spheres of influence; non-market strategy under strategic ambiguity; role of Singapore as neutral coordination hub; strategic ambiguity and hedging among ASEAN-based firms; locational advantages of neutral coordination hubs; non-market strategy navigating US-China technology restrictions; implications of middle-power diplomacy for firm internationalization
- Indigenous Theorizing and Methodological Innovation from the Region - Submissions drawing on Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, languages, or fieldwork methods; indigenous concepts such as gotong royong, kreng jai, and bayanihan as theoretical resources; multi-language qualitative research designs and epistemology of translation; postcolonial perspectives on knowledge production; methodological pluralism including ethnographic, historical-archival, and participatory approaches