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Vth Medici Summer School- 9-14 June 2013
Internationalization strategies: old questions, new contexts
We are pleased to announce the organization of the 5th edition of the Medici Summer School in
Management Studies for doctoral students and young researchers which will be held in Florence,
June 9-14, 2013. The school is organized and sponsored by Alma GS (University of Bologna), HEC
Paris (Society and Organizations Research Center and the HEC Foundation), and Stern School of
Business (New York University).
Mission
The Summer School is designed to promote doctoral education and research in management studies
and contribute to the development of enlightened practice in the management of business
organizations. The Medici Summer School advocates a special focus on cross-fertilizing research
across North American and European traditions. The Summer School is a unique educational program
for qualified doctoral students interacting with thought leaders in the management field who have
shared their knowledge and wisdom on frontier research topics.
The Medici School combines lectures and research seminars by prominent international scholars with
an active engagement of participant students. Every day of the one-week program is scheduled to
end with the presentation of students’ work related to the topic of the School, with a panel of senior
faculty providing feedback. There is no fee to participate. Selected candidates will be fully covered in
their accommodation expenses provided that they stay the full week. Note that transportation is not
covered by the organizers.
The Summer School will begin on Sunday June 9th with a welcoming reception and will conclude the
afternoon of June 14th.
Theme
The program of “The 2013 Medici Summer School in Management Studies” will focus on
internationalization strategies. After discussing the current state of research on internationalization
and the advantages it accrues to firms, we will examine future research directions related to new
phenomena, new settings, and the increasingly prominent role of multinationals as social, besides
economic, actors. To that end, our goal is to draw from, and attempt to reconcile, different
theoretical traditions and levels of analysis that researchers have studied to tackle this topic.
Internationalization refers to the process through which firms increase their international
involvement by undertaking commercial activities and investments in foreign countries. Research on
internationalization has tackled numerous issues such as firms’ decisions of the location and mode of
their investments, knowledge transfer, resources and capabilities development, and the influence of
firms’ numerous stakeholders. This research has evolved dramatically since the time of the most
traditional studies on the topic, which appeared in the 60s. At that time, due to the prevalence of the
triadic markets (US, Europe and Japan) as the main sources of FDI, most studies focused on large
companies from developed countries. That was the case of both Vernon’s (1966) product life cycle
theory and of Hymer’s (1976) discussion on the additional costs borne by international firms, what
were later called liability of foreignness. Both these studies have focused on economic reasons that
drive companies to expand internationally.
On the other side of the ocean, scholars from the Nordic countries developed a theory of
internationalization that focused on cultural aspects and on learning, in what has been coined as the
Uppsala school of internationalization. The seminal work by Johanson and Vahlne (1977) contends
that internationalization, particularly of companies from countries with small domestic market, is
undertaken in a gradual fashion, both in terms of augmenting psychic distance between home and
host-countries as well as of increasing resource commitment to a specific host country. The whole
process would be guided by the growing levels of knowledge firms develop about a specific foreign
market, and about doing business internationally in general.
However, despite decades of research and a significant number of studies on internationalization, its
performance consequences remain elusive. Studies examining the link between the degree of
internationalization – or multinationality – and performance have not reached a definitive
conclusion, and still generate discussions about the role of firm specific advantages (FSAs) as
mediators or moderators to this relationship (see for example Contractor (2012) and Verbeke and
Forootan (2012)). Therefore, we will begin this Medici Summer School with a provocative question: Is
there really such a thing as THE internationalization advantage? How do we account for the
endogeneity of the internationalization decision on firm attributes? Can we really link competitive
advantage to firms’ choice of whether, when, and how to expand? Is this advantage sustainable in
the current fast-changing business environment? And to what extent are internationalization
advantages amenable to replication in other geographical regions?
Besides the unresolved issue of how internationalization is linked to performance advantages, the
current state of the world (of business, but not only) gives rise to some other burning questions that
we intend to explore in this year’s Medici Summer School. With the advance of globalization and new
information technologies, the current context of internationalization is markedly different from that
which provided the basis to develop the aforementioned theories. Not only large size is not a
prerequisite for internationalization, as the research on born globals and on the internationalization
of small and medium companies can testify, but also companies from emerging and developing
countries are trying, often successfully, to undertake international investments. These developments
lead scholars and practitioners to a new series of questions such as: Do we need new theories to
understand the internationalization of emerging market MNCs? How is the process of their
internationalization different than that of their counterparts from developed economies? What
determines the choice of location and mode of entry for these companies? And what are the
performance consequences of these strategic choices for them and their competitors? At the same
time, firms from industrialized countries continue to expand into new markets and geographical
territories. But what are the new places where economic activity is shifted to? Which productmarkets and populations do multinationals engage with, and which ones are left unaddressed?
The latter questions speak not only to the implications of internationalization for firms and
industries, but also to the role of MNCs within the broader society. It is now more than ever evident
that, in addition to their role as economic actors, multinational firms shape and are shaped by the
social and political environments in which they are embedded. Firms all over the world interact with
numerous stakeholders including employees, governments, consumer associations, NGOs, and the
civil society in general. This is especially critical for multinational firms, as they have to cope with
different – and sometimes conflicting - institutional demands, shift their attention between different
audiences, or manage complex supply chains in the face of increasing pressures to conform to social
and environmental standards. Thus, in addition to economic explanations and the rather static
conceptions of cultural distance, we welcome research on how changes in firms’ institutional
environments, such as in the role, resources and prominence of non-market actors, can influence
firms’ internationalization choices and outcomes. Another goal is to see how scholarship in this area
can go beyond the traditional focus of management research and begin to address the societal
impact of the interplay between multinational firms and non-market actors. Some relevant questions
could be: How do governments encourage internationalization, and what is the role of national
champion MNCs in international politics and globalization? How do conflict or cooperation between
multinationals and NGOs have an impact on the ground? And what is the overall role of MNCs in
society, given that they are present in some industries, but not others; some countries, but not
others; targeting some consumers, but not others? We contend that outcomes such as employment
opportunities, technological progress, poverty reduction, sustainable development, and income
distribution could be considered by students of internationalization, in addition to the usual firm- and
industry-level dependent variables.
In order to investigate these topics, and faithful to the Medici Summer School tradition, we will use a
sequential approach. Starting on day 1 from an economic view of the firm as an isolated entity whose
strategies are defined according to efficiency issues, we will gradually move on to discuss firms’
management of partnership relations, and eventually take a more socio-organizational perspective of
the firm as embedded in institutions and as part of a complex environment that includes different
types of stakeholders.
Although our goal is to be broadly inclusive, we especially encourage interdisciplinary treatment of
internationalization strategies. Research drawing on the newest findings in areas as diverse as
international business, industrial economics, political science, sociology, organization theory, strategy
and others could advance our understanding of internationalization, and potentially even contribute
to these same theories by emphasizing the specificities of the international arena. Research of
internationalization in new settings, such as countries not frequently examined as receptors of FDI,
or research investigating internationalization in unconventional fields, such as studies of contested
industries or even illegal transnational economic activity, are also particularly welcome.
Program
The goal of the Summer School is to bring together leading strategy, organizations, and international
business scholars to explore these and other issues during the week we will be together. A typical
day will feature a faculty member presenting the gist of the research during the morning and working
with student participants in the afternoon to flesh out and develop key questions, both theoretically
and empirically. This will be done by:
1. Exposing students to the cutting edge of research in this area.
2. Sharing with students some of their own recent work on related topics.
3. Offering their best advice on how to tackle complex questions of both theory and research
on internationalization.
Part of each day will be devoted to student presentations of their own ideas and relevant research
projects so that feedback from peers and from faculty can be elicited. Each faculty member will be in
residence at the School for several days, allowing ample time for one-to-one sessions, knowledge
sharing, and networking opportunities.
The five days of the Summer School will be tentatively organized as follows:
Day 1. Old questions, new contexts: Drivers and consequences of internationalization. Steve Tallman,
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor in Business, University of Richmond.
Day 2. Organizing International firms: Going inside the MNC. Torben Pedersen, Professor of Business
Administration, Department of Strategic Management & Globalization, Copenhagen Business School.
Day 3. Interfirm relations and international expansion: Managing partner relations. Xavier Martin,
Professor of Strategy, International Business and Innovation, Tilburg University.
Day 4. Contextual embeddedness of MNCs: Dealing with cultural and institutional differences. Tatiana
Kostova, Buck Mickel Chair and Professor of International Business, Moore School of Business,
University of South Carolina.
Day 5. Unpacking the context: The interplay between MNCs and societal stakeholders. Sinziana
Dorobantu, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, Stern School of Business, New
York University.
Application procedure
The School will admit 20-25 student participants. Applications for these slots are welcome from
current Ph.D. students in Management and related disciplines from universities worldwide. Students
for the Summer School will be selected in accordance with the quality of their doctoral curricula,
research interests, and application materials.
There is no application or participation fee. Student participants will be responsible for covering their
own travel expenses to and from Florence, but the Summer School will cover all accommodation and
board expenses during the week of sessions provided that students attend the entire week.
Applications should include:
a. A simple statement declaring that the applicant is interested in being considered for admission to
the Summer School together with the applicant’s contact information: email address, telephone, and
mailing address. All of this should be in the body of an email sent to the address below.
b. Updated curriculum vitae listing educational background, Ph.D. program, nationality, etc.
c. A motivation letter (no longer than 1 page) clearly indicating the applicant’s current research
activities and his/her specific interest in the topic of the 2013 Summer School.
d. A brief recommendation letter from a member of their dissertation committee.
e. Applicants are also encouraged (but not required) to submit an extended abstract or discussion
note that they will present during the Summer School. The Selection Committee will evaluate the
relevance of this paper to the 2013 School theme.
All application materials should be sent by April 1st 2013 exclusively via email to the following
address: [email protected] with application Medici Summer School in the object of the email.
For any specific inquiry
[email protected]
or
clarification
please
contact
Panikos
Georgallis
at:
The deadline for applications is April 1st, 2013. Admitted candidates will be notified by April 15. A
waiting list of other candidates will be established.