Amid external crisis, cost-based strategies have become a growing concern for practitioners and an increasingly important area of scholarly inquiry. This is particularly true for frontier exporting firms from less advanced emerging markets (Pakistan), which often adopt cost-led strategies to succeed in the highly competitive and distinct environments of advanced economy markets. Despite its importance, the role of international marketing capabilities in driving these cost-based strategies has been largely overlooked in the existing literature. This study examines a sample of Pakistani exporting firms and demonstrates that international marketing agility, as a meta-dynamic capability, exerts both direct and indirect effects on business model innovation (BMI) through the mediation of cost leadership strategy when targeting advanced economy markets. Furthermore, environmental pressures positively moderate these relationships. The findings contribute to the dynamic capabilities perspective and highlight the crucial roles of international marketing agility and cost leadership strategy in supporting the BMI of exporting firms managing the complex and competitive environments of advanced economy markets. Additionally, the study provides valuable insights for emerging market exporting firms seeking to adapt and innovate their business models in response to the environmental pressure.

What does ‘success’ mean for entrepreneurs in different institutional environments? Drawing on institutional theory, we explore how the success perceptions of entrepreneurs are shaped by their interpretations of the institutional environment across countries. Based on 87 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with digital start-ups in China, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK), we find that success perceptions differ substantially across institutional contexts. Our findings suggest that success perceptions balance the individual preferences of entrepreneurs and the need to adapt to the institutional environment. We contribute to understanding on differences in entrepreneurship across countries by examining how institutions can influence entrepreneurial response strategies and outcomes. In addition, we provide a novel perspective on the role of entrepreneurial agency in the context of strong institutional influences.

In this editorial for the Special Issue of International Business Review, we examine research on born global firms (BGs), international new ventures (INVs), and international entrepreneurship (IE). This issue marks the 30th and 20th anniversaries, respectively, of the seminal works by Oviatt and McDougall (1994) and Knight and Cavusgil (2004). BGs and INVs represent enterprising firms that begin internationalizing at or near their founding. IE emphasizes proactive, innovative, and risk-seeking behaviours that identify and exploit international opportunities to achieve superior international performance. After examining research on BGs, INVs and IE since 1994, we explore how recent phenomena have altered the international business (IB) environment and the impact that these shifts have had on early internationalizing firms. We then introduce and summarize the articles in this special issue. We conclude by proposing potential themes and theoretical perspectives for future research in this distinctive area of IB.

Recent advances in technology (e.g., the Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Cloud Services, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain), the shift towards digital products, and the increased use of digitalisation by firms have enhanced consumers’ experience and transformed how companies operate, create products/services, and offer value to multiple stakeholders on a global scale. These technological innovations have led to the phenomenon known as the Metaverse. The Metaverse does not refer to any one type of technology but is a broad (and often speculative) shift in how we interact with different technologies in the same space. In the context of International Business (IB), the recent emergence of Metaverse appears to make geographical, sectoral, and operational barriers less relevant, raising complex questions about how current IB theories can explain the world-spanning, sectorally fluid, and centrifugal behaviour of firms in the era of digital globalisation. In this paper, we obtain a critical understanding of the important opportunities and challenges that the Metaverse and the fluidity of digital technologies bring to the IB field. Specifically, we discuss how traditional theories can be effectively utilised to explain firms’ internationalisation, and adapted to reflect the new technological era. We propose a framework for new approaches to IB research to help advance research on Metaverse and IB, which can provide important opportunities for future work in this field.

When expanding abroad, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) experience various constraints, especially the liabilities of small size and foreignness. In this study, the authors examine postures, capabilities, and strategies related to international brand marketing that help SMEs overcome such challenges, establish a brand presence, and attain superior performance in foreign markets. Framing the investigation in the internationalization and capabilities perspectives, the authors employ multimethod approaches in a two-phase study among internationalizing SMEs based in Taiwan. In the first phase, they undertake an extensive literature review and then conduct case studies to formulate a conceptual model. In the second phase, the authors validate the model and associated hypotheses using survey data from a large sample of SMEs that target their products to markets worldwide. Results point to critical roles for these key constructs—international entrepreneurial orientation, international social media capability, and international market knowledge capability—as key antecedents to international branding capability and international brand strategy, in SMEs’ international performance. The authors discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings, highlighting the role of the critical constructs identified previously in driving superior international performance in resource-constrained SMEs.

Despite the increasing importance of social innovation, research seeking to illuminate how firms engage in social innovation in emerging markets is limited. Utilizing survey data from 143 Pakistani micro-multinational firms operating in other emerging markets, this study examined how these firms undertook social innovation practices in host emerging markets. The findings indicate that the social innovation practices of these firms in host emerging markets are influenced by dynamic marketing capabilities. Furthermore, this influence is mediated by social embeddedness in the host market. Moreover, this mediated influence is positively moderated by a socially supportive culture of the host market. The impact of marketing capabilities on value creation in host emerging markets involves the serial mediation of social embeddedness and social innovation practices. The study demonstrates how resource-constrained emerging-market micro-multinational firms can generate value in host emerging markets, thereby validating the efficacy of dynamic marketing capabilities in the context of social innovation in emerging markets. The study also discusses practical and policy implications.

By the 1980s, many young companies began to undertake early and rapid internationalization, due in part to factors related to globalization and advancing technologies. Upon observing such trends, we developed a research program on what came to be known as 'born global firms'. Our research coalesced in the development of an article that appeared in the 2004 edition of the Journal of International Business Studies. As of June 2022, the article has generated more than 4200 citations at Google Scholar. We defined born globals as entrepreneurial start-ups that, from or near their founding, seek to derive substantial revenue from the sale of products in international markets (Knight and Cavusgil 2004). They are akin to the 'international new ventures' (INVs) investigated around the same period by Oviatt and McDougall (1994), who defined such firms as businesses that, from inception, seek to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries.

A born global is a company that undertakes international business at or near its founding. Such firms may do business in twenty or more countries. International expansion typically occurs within three years after company founding. Managers in “born globals” typically have a strongly international orientation to business. Given their young age, born globals are usually small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) with relatively limited resources. The emergence of born globals is intriguing because, historically, international business was dominated by large companies. Today, however, most international firms are SMEs, and many of them internationalized within a few years of their founding. The rise of born globals was fostered by globalization and the emergence of information and communications technologies. Born globals may internationalize due to export pull or export push. The born global phenomenon is associated with the emergence of a new academic field—international entrepreneurship.

Due to their direct and indirect network effects, platform firms play a significant role in the global economy. These firms have disrupted the innovation value chain by creating and capturing value from the scaling up of their business activities. Despite the role they play in disruptive innovation, we know relatively little about the ways in which platform firms engage with their institutional and other stakeholders through non-market corporate political activities and social strategies. This special issue on ‘non-market strategies and disruptive innovation in the platform economy’ aims to contribute to the current literature which has examined the rise of platform firms and their value creation. It also intends to capture drivers of value creation by drawing insights from the non-market strategies literature developed in the context of traditional firms. This introductory article and the papers included in this special issue provide important insights into non-market strategies and platform firms, and highlight potential topics suited for future research.

This chapter presents a novel analytical framework that explores the potential role of Circular Economy (CE) strategies in promoting social upgrading within global value chains (GVCs), primarily situated in the global South. The framework is grounded in the affordance perspective, which recognizes that the adoption of the CE paradigm does not guarantee improvements in the working environments of participating firms. This is because the CE often prioritizes environmental goals and may overlook social considerations in its strategies focused on industry and products. The framework emphasizes the need to bridge the gap between CE and GVC domains to enhance working conditions in participating firms. The framework integrates the affordances of the CE model, based on the 9R CE strategies, with the five key themes for decent work identified by the International Labour Organization, while considering the influence of institutional enablers and barriers. To support its propositions, the study includes several examples. This research contributes to the literature on CE and GVCs by providing a fresh perspective on the intersection between the CE and social upgrading within GVCs. It highlights the challenges in realizing social improvements when the CE paradigm primarily focuses on environmental goals. Additionally, the study sheds light on the influence of the institutional context on delivering social upgrading in CE implementation.

We examine the 2022 JIBS Decade Award article by Ioannou and Serafeim (J Int Bus Stud 43(9):834–864, 2012) and review the literature since 2012 to clarify research developments in corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance (CSP) in the multinational enterprise, articulating key themes, findings and antecedents. We present a general framework that highlights unique traits and processes of CSP for MNEs. To advance scholarly progress, we delineate how new theoretical perspectives, such as organizational identity and strategic choice, can be blended with the IB literature to deepen theorization of the topic. We also discuss how new global dynamics, such as geopolitics, digitization, and activism, may shape CSP strategies and activities for MNEs and how future research can tackle these issues.

Despite the considerable importance of the services sector in international marketing, scholarly research in the area is limited and unsystematic. This article examines the domain and literature of international services marketing in 41 academic journals from 1999 to 2018 and provides a future research agenda. The investigation reveals 942 published articles, or approximately 2% of all articles published in the journals during the period. Research in the area is under-represented, particularly in premier journals. Scholarly use of theories, models, and other theoretical perspectives is relatively sparse. We devise an integrative summary of thematic areas and contrast this with the revealed literature. After identifying the top publication outlets for recent research, we highlight the most salient theoretical perspectives and thematic areas. This article identifies gaps in the literature, proposes a research agenda, and specifies avenues for advancing scholarship in international services marketing.

We examine the role of ‘marketing communications’ in emerging markets. We sought to understand if ‘marketing communications’ holds the same relevance and meanings to managers in emerging markets as to those in advanced economies. Initially we conducted a series of case studies with managers in Vietnam, to evaluate the applicability of marketing approaches in emerging markets and understand the nature of relevant constructs and relationships. We then conducted a second study to deepen knowledge on ‘marketing communications’ in the two types of economies. Initially we developed a collection of hypotheses based on the earlier case study findings and on extant literature. We then utilized large-scale empirical data collected from exporting firms to assess the hypotheses and compare the role of ‘marketing communications’ across emerging markets and advanced economies. Findings confirm the applicability and importance of ‘marketing communications’ in emerging markets and generally show support for the hypotheses. We offer discussion and implications for managers.

We investigate the international marketing implications of the international trade policies of US Presidents Ronald Reagan (‘Reagan’) and Donald Trump (‘Trump’). Today, in international trade, tariffs are low, averaging about 3% in the advanced economies and 10–15% in the emerging markets. Average tariff across all goods worldwide is about 6%, down from 18% in 1990. Meanwhile, world trade has increased consistently. China is the most important trading partner of the US. China is a huge supplier of many products, and a huge market. In the 1970s, a goods trade deficit emerged in the US, and persists to the present day. In our research, we found that the administrations of both presidents sought to reduce the US trade deficit, and defend and enhance the international marketing performance of US firms. In the early phase of his administration, trade policy under Reagan was restrained but became more assertive. Reagan focused on the trade deficit with Japan and on enhancing international market opportunities for US firms. But Reagan’s policies fell short of their goals. Today, the US faces a much larger trade deficit, primarily with China. Trump adopted policy goals similar to those of Reagan. Trump’s approach has been more assertive. Like Reagan, however, Trump’s policies have fallen short of achieving the intended goals. In this paper, we provided empirical background, and discussed the policies and outcomes of the policies of Reagan and Trump. We highlighted implications for firms’ international marketing efforts and performance, and as well as directions for future research. We pointed to research opportunities for scholars. Research might investigate better, smarter trade policy, and examine benchmarking by reviewing various trade policy approaches, of the US and other nations, and then examining those successful in achieving intended goals. Scholars might seek to identify appropriate strategy and tactics for enhancing performance, of nations and of firms. Implications suggest that companies need to increase their competitive advantages in global trade. The US needs to increase it national competitive advantages by improving national factors of production and implementing smarter economic policies that promote US business. Public policy makers should emphasize investing in infrastructure, for example, in communications technologies that can increase the effectiveness of the management of firms’ value chain operations. Broadly, firm strategy and public policy should aim to improve performance on in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation, and productivity, in order to make US companies more competitive in the global marketplace.

We seek to complement and extend the article by Welch, Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki, and Paavilainen-Mäntymäki (J Int Bus Stud 42:740–762, 2011), winner of the 2021 JIBS Decade Award, which advanced knowledge on case-based theory development in international business (IB). Similarly, we examine dimensions of scholarly inquiry across qualitative and quantitative research, using inductive and deductive approaches. Recent years have featured unprecedented growth in the volume and availability of data from diverse national contexts, offering novel opportunities for innovative research. Accordingly, we build on the logic of Welch et al. (2011) not only to elaborate on but also to call for a more pluralistic view of data and methodology. We advocate using a wider range of data and advanced methods in IB research, framed at the appropriate stage of theory development. We examine the interplay among theory, research design, data, and analytical technique, highlighting the role of data in methodological pluralism. While IB scholars have favored confirmatory approaches in deductive theory building, we argue for more exploratory research using both qualitative and quantitative data. We develop a contingency framework that highlights the stages of theory development, across the nexus of exploratory/confirmatory and qualitative/quantitative approaches, to guide empirical scholarship. We conclude by calling for triangulation and adopting the most appropriate combination of theory, research design, data, and analytical technique, to develop theory in IB research.