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

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

Timeline

• March 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Jonas Puck, WU Vienna

Srividya Jandhyala, ESSEC Business School

Vera Kunczer, Copenhagen Business School

Harald Puhr, University of Innsbruck

Michael Wolfesberger, WU Vienna

Rising national security concerns, populist politics, and societal pressures have produced fragmentation, i.e., the coexistence of overlapping, conflicting, or weakly coordinated rules and pressures across national, supranational, and societal spheres. MNEs must navigate the triality of home, host, and supranational institutions in cross-border business. Multilateral frameworks that could shape MNE sustainability initiatives, such as the UN SDGs and the Paris Agreement, face domestic resistance in some countries and are part of the legal basis in others. Such tensions between supranational frameworks and nationalist movements or policies can create conflicting institutional logics and institutional schisms. While international institutions shape firms' assessments of their domestic environments, in adapting to these fractured environments, MNEs may also amplify institutional pluralism through local responses.

This focused issue seeks to advance understanding of how MNEs strategize in fractured environments and the resulting stakeholder pressures. Papers may address the proposed areas of focus or other relevant areas related to MNE responses to fragmentation and stakeholder pressures. The issue welcomes interdisciplinary submissions that complement business perspectives with approaches from other disciplines, particularly political science. Both conceptual and empirical papers are welcome, including contributions focused on methodological advances, theory testing, and theory development.

Potential topics

• What drives the exposure of MNEs to institutional fragmentation and fracturing?
• When and how do MNEs integrate market- and non-market strategies across global markets in response to fragmented stakeholder and institutional pressures?
• How do MNEs manage and organize their response strategies across different markets?
• How do institutional fragmentation and geopolitical tensions shape interactions within firms?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• November 2, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

In the 2020s, the business environment is changing faster and more profoundly than at any time since the middle of the previous century. Many of these trends increase the exposure to systemic risks for business, endangering their thriving, growing, and successful integration in their societies.

What are the implications of these trends for the private sector? Do companies need to worry about these changes? More academic research is needed to better understand the impact of the outlined trends on business.

Timeline

• October 6, 2025: Submission Deadline

C. Michael Hall, Massey University

The crisis in the Middle East marked by the Israeli and United States attacks on Iran, Israel attacks on Lebanon and Palestine, and attacks by Iran and their proxies on Israel and Middle East and Gulf states represents the greatest crisis for international tourism since COVID-19. The direct effects of the war on tourism in the Middle East and Gulf states is clearly substantial however it is also having broader effects throughout the global tourism system because of the significance on Gulf aviation hubs for international tourism as well as restrictions in airspace for Asia-Europe travel and shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. Moreover, Iran has directly threatened to expand its retaliatory attacks to include recreational and tourist sites worldwide.

Indirectly, the effects of the Middle East crisis also have enormous broader impacts on the cost of oil and gas, and therefore tourism aviation and transport, as well as on national and regional economies. According to the head of the International Energy Agency, the depth of the problem facing the globe because of the war on Iran is very serious, more so than the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, and more serious than the gas crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. From a tourism perspective, aviation schedules are already being revised considering potential fuel shortages while the cost of petrol has implications for domestic tourist travel. The cost aviation fuel and travel uncertainty has hit the economics of the airline industry leading to concerns over the collapse of carriers. Moreover, in the longer term the crisis has implications for the sustainability of carbon-based transport networks and tourism infrastructure and may lead to further development of renewable energy-based tourism infrastructure or new energy trajectories given the geopolitical risks attached to carbon dependent tourism.

Given the significance of the crisis for international and domestic tourism worldwide and the associated economic, policy, destination and environmental effects, Current Issues in Tourism calls for contributions to a special issue on tourism and the Middle East crisis in international, regional, national, and destination contexts in order to provide the latest research on the crisis' impacts and government, industry, destination, and consumer responses.

Potential topics

• The effects of the Middle East crisis on international and domestic tourist attitudes, behaviour, decision-making, and flows
• The impacts of the Middle East crisis on destinations, attractions and businesses and policy and industry responses
• The Middle East crisis and destination image
• Resilience, adaptation, and vulnerability in tourism considering the Middle East crisis
• The geopolitics of tourism and the Middle East crisis
• The Middle East crisis and the aviation sector
• Energy futures for tourism
• Foreign policy and tourism
• The future of tourism in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean
• Substitute behaviour because of the Middle East crisis and the cost of energy
• Policy learning and the Middle East crisis
• The international and regional architecture of tourism governance and the Middle East crisis

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Digital technologies are increasingly shaping the conduct of individuals, businesses, and societies. Particularly disruptive digital technologies include artificial intelligence, the internet of things, additive manufacturing, robotics, business analytics, cloud-based computing, and blockchain. Although digital technologies may appear geographically unanchored, they are physically situated in specific locations and connected through infrastructure such as underwater cables. The spatial embeddedness of these infrastructures has become intertwined with geopolitical competition and strategic rivalry, with control over critical assets such as undersea cables, semiconductor production hubs, cloud service locations, and digital standards increasingly contested between leading powers, notably the US and China.

These geographically rooted infrastructures shape MNE strategy and create location-specific opportunities and risks. Digital tools can enhance visibility into global value chains and enable new forms of cross-border coordination. However, complete automation and contracting skilled labor in developing countries may have unintended implications. The accelerated digitalization of the workplace has reduced barriers for firms to develop fully functioning digital workplaces, allowing many office-based jobs to be offshored to less costly locations. Greater interconnection also heightens exposure to cyber intrusions, surveillance, and politically motivated disruptions to data flows, placing digital security and control firmly on the geopolitical agenda.

The transformative effects of digital technologies in different regions and countries are multifaceted, entailing both opportunities and challenges. These effects can influence the locations of businesses, institutional configurations, industrial leadership, cross-border competitive dynamics, and the global structure of value chains and the digitalized economy. As digital infrastructures and capabilities are deeply embedded in national security strategies and geoeconomic competition, international business increasingly unfolds within a fragmented and politically contested digital landscape.

Emerging economies such as China and India have taken extraordinary technological leads, presenting a starkly different picture from the conventional view that technological leadership resided predominantly in North America and Europe. Governments and policy makers in emerging economies have been catalysts of rapid digital technology development. Many governments have created large markets for local firms through procurement and rolled out programs to increase adoption of new technology. China has emerged as a global leader through government collaboration with technology firms on AI commercialization. India has implemented a make in India policy with strong technological components. Malaysia has formed digital free trade zones. These national initiatives represent responses to geopolitical pressures and strategic positioning in techno-nationalist competition.

Various emerging economies have introduced policies for stimulating startups, R&D, and global competitiveness in digital technologies. Malaysia's mydigital blueprint envisions a digitally driven, high-income nation with investments in data centers, cloud, and innovation ecosystems. Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh have developed national programs to expand digital access, strengthen innovation ecosystems, and support firm-level digital capability building. Such initiatives shape how these countries align with or hedge between competing global digital ecosystems and standards, influencing their room for maneuver in international negotiations.

Although major digital initiatives have resulted in shifts in technological dominance, many emerging economies continue to find themselves at the peripheries of the global digital transformation process. This may have long-lasting strategic and competitive consequences. While digitization can potentially increase multidirectional investment and information flows, it can also promote de-globalization. The establishment of decentralized regional manufacturing centers or patterns of dominance by digital leaders such as China and the US may cement the global digital divide irreversibly.

Questions about changing spatial patterns of production, investments, and division of labor due to digitization are currently much discussed in the context of global value chains. However, it remains unclear whether digital technology in emerging economies will generate and thrive through network externalities or lead to greater concentration or dispersed operations. It is also unclear how digitalization will affect current investment patterns and whether emerging economies will benefit or become further marginalized as a result of technological and business transformations and accompanying geopolitical contestation.

At the regional level, digital business activities play an increasingly central role in shaping competitive positioning, innovation pathways, and regional integration. Digitization offers opportunities for SMEs through increased ICT-enabled connectivity and creates employment through gig-work. There is co-development and co-evolution between institutional, technological, and economic environments, which can provide advantages to countries not locked into existing technological paradigms. However, strategic and governance-related challenges have emerged, including changing geographies of production due to digitalization, which has accelerated reshoring and automation-driven job losses in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors.

The widening digital divide between regions affects how countries and firms participate in global value chains. The rise of platform-mediated gig work raises concerns about precarious labor conditions, algorithmic control, and transfer of power from traditional employers to digital intermediaries. The absence of appropriate regulations to safeguard digital transactions and growing political control efforts can lead to distinct realms of digital governance with implications for economic activities. For MNEs, regulatory divergence complicates cross-border data governance, increases compliance and coordination costs, and constrains ability to integrate operations across subsidiaries and value chain partners.

These developments contribute to the emergence of fragmented digital spheres of influence in which different groups of states and firms compete to set standards, control data, and shape digital market evolution. This fundamentally alters the strategic landscape of international business. Given the transformational nature of digital technology on the world economy, it is imperative to consider these technologies as a business and policy challenge to established IB theories developed in an analog era of a different global business environment.

Potential topics

• Digital platforms and MNE innovation strategy
• Digital technology and MNE subsidiaries
• Digital infrastructure and firm internationalization
• Digital ecosystems and MNEs
• Digital sovereignty and MNE strategy
• Role of proximity in MNE innovation in emerging markets
• Impact of digital transformation on MNE subsidiary roles and structures
• Digital capabilities and internationalization pathways
• Navigation of competing digital standards and regulatory regimes
• Geopolitical tensions and MNE location decisions
• Data governance and regulatory compliance in fragmented digital landscapes
• Platform-mediated business models and global value chains
• Technological leadership in emerging economies
• Regional digital initiatives and their implications for MNEs

Timeline

• January 7, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission