Frontline IB: Conversations With International Business Scholars

Lilac Nachum

Lilac Nachum’s current research interests include global supply chains and value creation in a global world, emerging market MNEs, and the relationship between firms, society and governments as they shape the international strategies of firms. Her research in these areas and others appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, and the Journal of International Business Studies, among others, and was awarded several recognitions, most recently the AIB 2017 Best Paper Award of the Research Method Division. Her book on value creation and distribution in global supply chains will be published by Edward Elgar in 2021.
Lilac is a Fulbright Scholar to Africa in 2021-22. At various periods, she has served on the editorial boards of the leading journals in strategy and international business, as a board member and a consulting editor. She has held visiting positions at universities around the world and consulted with firms and governments on issues related to globalization and multinational companies. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of International Business.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/lilac-nachum/  for the original video interview.

Ravi Madhavan

Ravi Madhavan is a Professor of Business Administration and the Alcoa Foundation International Faculty Fellow at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996, and served on the faculty of Business Administration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 1995 to 2001. Prior to his Ph.D., he spent eight years as a manager in the information technology industry, gaining experience in consulting and leadership roles.
Ravi’s research and teaching interests focus on alliances, Mergers & Acquisitions and venture capital as strategic avenues to growth, innovation and the development of complex capabilities. In particular, he is interested in how networks function as carrier waves of capability diffusion in strategic industries – e.g., a current project tracks the evolution of systems integration capabilities through a comparative case study of China’s investments in the nuclear power and large commercial aircraft sectors. Ravi has published papers in premier journals including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Marketing, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and Strategic Management Journal. He has also served as Director of the International Business Center at the University of Pittsburgh and as Executive Director and Editor of the working paper series at the Industry Studies Association. Ravi’s research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the POSCO Research Institute, among others
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/ravi-madhavan/ for the original video interview.

Klaus Meyer

Klaus Meyer is a Professor of International Business at Ivey Business School, London, Ontario, Canada. Until 2017, he spend six years at China Europe International Business School, where he was the Philips Chair and Professor of Strategy and International Business. Previously he has also been full-time faculty member at Copenhagen Business School, the University of Bath, England and University of Reading, England, and held visiting appointments at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and at National Cheng-chi University, Taipei.
Professor Meyer is a leading scholar in the field of international business conducting research on the strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs), especially foreign entry strategies, in emerging economies, especially Eastern Europe and East Asia. A central theme of his research is the influence of local contexts on the strategies and operations of MNEs operating in emerging economies. His theoretical contributions apply and in particular institution-based theories in the realm of international business. Recent work is investigating the strategies of MNEs originating from emerging economies, in particular China, and how their origins shape their international growth strategies.
Professor Meyer has been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB) in 2013 and in 2015 he received the JIBS Decade award for the most influential paper published a decade ago. In 2012-2014, he was the Vice President of the AIB, and in this function he chaired the 2014 AIB conference held in Vancouver. Since 2016, he serves as an area editor for the Journal of International Business Studies.
He has published over 80 articles in leading scholarly journals, in particular in Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Management Studies, and he published eight books, including the textbook International Business (with Mike Peng, published by Cengage Learning, 3rd ed., 2019) and the Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets (co-edited with Rob Grosse, OUP, 2019). Prof. Meyer holds an MSc from the University of Göttingen and a PhD from London Business School.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/klaus-meyer/ for the original video interview.

Gabriel Benito

Gabriel Robertstad Garcia Benito (PhD, NHH Norwegian School of Economics) is Professor at BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway: www.bi.edu. He has extensive international experience from research, teaching, and academic community service. He has held visiting positions at Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), University of Melbourne (Australia), Henley Business School/University of Reading (UK) and University of Valencia (Spain).
Gabriel is Co-Editor of Global Strategy Journal and Consulting Editor of Journal of International Business Studies, and a member of the Editorial Boards of, among others, Academy of Management Perspectives, International Business Review, Journal of World Business, Management and Organization Review, and Management International Review.
Gabriel has studied the internationalization dynamics of businesses for three decades, with a focus on the governance, strategy and organization of multinational enterprises, headquarter-subsidiary relationships, and foreign operation mode decisions. His research has appeared in many books and journals, including Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Management Studies. His books include Foreign Operation Methods (w/L. Welch and B. Petersen, 2018, 2nd edition), and Multinationals on the Periphery (w/R. Narula, 2007).
Gabriel was President of EIBA (European International Business Academy) in 2005, and member of its Board from 1997 to 2007, and has served in various roles in AIB and Strategic Management Society. He organized the 2005 EIBA Conference and was Co-Chair of the 2018 Strategic Management Society Special Conference in Oslo. He was elected Fellow of AIB in 2015, and Fellow of EIBA in 2017.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/gabriel-benito/ for the original video interview.

Helena Barnard

 Helena Barnard completed her PhD at Rutgers University, and then returned to South Africa. She has been working at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), the Johannesburg-based business school of the University of Pretoria since then, and is a full professor and director of the doctoral program there.
She is interested in how knowledge (and with it technology, organizational practices and innovation) moves between more and less developed countries, particularly in Africa. She researches both organizational mechanisms (notably emerging multinationals and internet-enabled businesses) and individual mechanisms such as scientific collaborations, doctoral training and the diaspora. She has published in the Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Research Policy, Journal of World Business and others.
She was the 2018-2019 Dunning Fellow at University of Reading, and was VP (Administration) for the AIB from 2017 to 2020. She is an editor at the Journal of International Business Policy (JIBP), AIB Insights and the Africa Journal of Management. As special issue editor, she co-edited an issue on migration and international business with Vaaler, Mudambi and Deeds for JIBP (2019). She is leading a special issue for Management and Organization Review on Chinese investment in Africa with Ado, Manning, Ping and Witt and is supporting a special issue on gender and entrepreneurship in Africa for the Journal of African Business with Chrystostome and Ika.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/helena-barnard/ for the original video interview.

George Yip

George Yip is Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Strategy at Imperial College Business School. He has also received the following professional titles and distinctions: Distinguished Visiting Professor at D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University; Fellow of the Academy of International Business; Thinkers50 Hall of Fame; Editorial Advisory Boards Member of California Management Review and MIT Sloan Management Review; Chair of Research Advisory Committee of SKEMA Business School (France).
His previous academic positions include Professor of Strategy and Co-Director of the Centre on China Innovation at China Europe International Business School; Dean of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University; and Harvard, Georgetown (visiting), UCLA, Stanford (visiting), Oxford (visiting), Cambridge Judge (Beckwith Professor of Marketing and Strategy), London Business School (Professor and Associate Dean, MBA), and Lead Senior Fellow of the UK’s Advanced Institute of Management Research. His previous business positions include VP and Director of Research & Innovation at Capgemini Consulting, senior manager at Price Waterhouse (USA), manager at Unilever, and various boards. He has authored an co-authored a number of texts, including Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Change Makers and Underdogs: Lessons From China’s Innovators (2019), China’s Next Strategic Advantage: From Imitation to Innovation (2016), Strategic Transformation (2013), Managing Global Customers (2007), Asian Advantage: Key Strategies for Winning in the Asia-Pacific Region (1998), and Total Global Strategy (1992 and 2012). In total, he has over 100 publications and 12,000 citations.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/george-yip/ for the original video interview.

Mauro Guillén

Mauro F. Guillén is one of the most original thinkers at the Wharton School, where he holds the Zandman Professorship in International Management and teaches in its flagship Advanced Management Program and many other courses for executives, MBAs, and undergraduates. An expert on global market trends, he is a sought-after speaker and consultant. He combines his training as a sociologist at Yale and as a business economist in his native Spain to methodically identify and quantify the most promising opportunities at the intersection of demographic, economic, and technological developments. His online classes on Coursera and edX have attracted over 100,000 participants from around the world. He has won multiple teaching awards at Wharton, where his presentation on global market trends has become a permanent feature of over fifty executive education programs annually. 
 His research, teaching, and speaking incorporates both numerical assessments of trends and illuminating examples from business, politics, and everyday life. He shows in accessible terms that one can accurately forecast trends by systematically following the babies and following the money into the future. His research has earned him many distinctions, including Fulbright, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim fellowships, a membership in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and prizes from the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, the Social Science History Association, and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. He is an elected member of the Sociological Research Association and the Macro Organizational Behavior Society, and a winner of the Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Award. 
His research, op-eds, and commentary have been featured in numerous outlets, from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to The Economist, and the Financial Times. He has appeared on radio and TV shows such as NPR’s Marketplace and Radio Times, CNBC’s Mad Money and Squawk Box, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. He is a seasoned public speaker at conferences, conventions, forums, and corporate events organized by industry associations and Fortune 500 companies. He serves or has served on several advisory groups, boards of directors, and nonprofit boards of trustees. 
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/mauro-guillen/ for the original video interview.

Chuck Kwok

Dr. Kwok is Research Professor of International Business at the University of South Carolina. From 1996-2017, he was a Distinguished Business Partnership Foundation Fellow and Professor in the International Business Department. He received a Ph.D. degree with a major in International Business from the University of Texas at Austin. His research concentrates on international finance and international business education. He is one of the pioneers conducting interdisciplinary research on how national culture influences various financial practices around the world. His articles appear in journals such as Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), Academy of Management Journal, Review of Finance, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Business Ethics and so forth. His academic papers have received a number of research awards, including the Moskowitz Prize, given by the Center for Responsible Business, University of California at Berkeley. A research note published in JIBS in 2017 ranks Dr. Kwok as #4 worldwide among the most published authors in the Journal of International Business Studies, the flagship journal of the Academy of International Business, during the period of 1970-2016. In June 2019 at the 50th Anniversary of the Journal of International Business Studies, Dr. Kwok was given the Golden Award for being one of the most published authors in the Journal of International Business Studies.
Dr. Kwok was the President of the Academy of International Business from August 2018 – January 2020. He was the AIB Vice President-Administration in 1995-1996. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business. He has served on various journal editorial boards, including the editorial board of the Journal of International Business Studies. Dr. Kwok has been teaching various international finance and China business courses at both master and doctoral levels at the University of South Carolina since Fall, 1984. Besides teaching at the University of South Carolina, he has been consistently invited as a visiting professor at universities around the world, including the Peking University (Beijing University, PRC), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, PRC), Jiaotong University (Shanghai, PRC), Wirtschaftsuniversitat Wien (Austria), and the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM, Mexico). Through the years, he has received numerous teaching awards from different universities in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/chuck-kwok/  for the original video interview.

Africa Ariño

Africa Ariño is Professor of Strategic Management at IESE Business School, University of Navarra (Spain), where she holds the Joaquim Molins Figueras Chair of Strategic Alliances. She received her Ph.D. in Management from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At IESE, she has served as Deputy Dean for Faculty, Head of the Strategic Management Department, and Director of the Ph.D. Program. Currently President of the Strategic Management Society (SMS), she was elected Fellow of the SMS in 2015.
Africa’s research focuses on the governance and management of interorganizational relationships, particularly on strategic alliance design and dynamics, and it has been published in leading journals including Global Strategy Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. She was a founding Associate Editor of Global Strategy Journal, and of Academy of Management Discoveries, and served in that position at the European Management Review. A current member of the editorial board of Strategic Management Journal, in the past she served on the boards of Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, and Journal of Management Studies, among others. Africa served in the Executive Committee of the Business Policy and Strategy Division, Academy of Management (2008–2010), and on the Board of Directors of the Strategic Management Society (2011–2013; 2014–2016). She was the Chair of the 2014 Annual International Conference of the SMS. That same year she was Visiting Professor at Lagos Business School, Lagos, Nigeria, and at Strathmore Business School, Nairobi, Kenya.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/africa-arino/ for the original video interview.

Julian Birkinshaw

Julian Birkinshaw is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School.  He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of International Business, and the (American) Academy of Management.  He has PhD and MBA degrees in Business from the Richard Ivey School of Business, Western University, Canada, and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Durham, UK. He was awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Stockholm School of Economics in 2009 and Copenhagen Business School in 2018.   
Professor Birkinshaw has published widely on the strategy of multinational enterprises, and in particular on HQ-subsidiary relationships, ambidexterity, management innovation and the role of the corporate HQ. His research has been published in top journals such as JIBS, AMJ, AMR and SMJ.   He is also the author of fifteen books, including Mindtools for Managers (2018), Fast/Forward (2017), Becoming a Better Boss (2013), Reinventing Management (2010), Giant Steps in Management (2007),  Inventuring: Why Big Companies Must Think Small (2003), and Entrepreneurship in the Global Firm (2001). 
 Professor Birkinshaw is currently ranked as one of the “Thinkers 50” top thought leaders in the field of Management. He is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Bloomberg Business Week and The Times. He is a regular keynote speaker and a consultant to many large companies, such as BP, Dell Technologies, Roche, Tata Group, BMW, Unilever, Enel, and Orsted. 
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/julian-birkinshaw/  for the original video interview.