Mays Brings Together Global Researchers on International Business Issues

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School is advancing International Business research around the world through co-hosting the Research Spotlight Series (RSS). These events, which are coordinated through Mays’ Center for International Business Studies (CIBS) and Michigan State University Eli Broad College of Business’ Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), bring together current and aspiring International Business scholars in an online forum to create a discussion on cutting-edge topics regarding research and publishing.

Mays CIBS’ role in organizing the series increases Texas A&M University’s global visibility and helps solidify Mays as a global leader in the field of International Business scholarship. Hosting this series also is part of the school’s efforts to become the preeminent public business school in the United States.

The RSS builds upon Texas A&M’s long history as a leader in the study of International Business. “Texas A&M University’s Lorraine Eden served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Business, which is the premier journal in International Business and a publication of the Academy of International Business (AIB). She is currently the Dean of the Fellows of the AIB, a select group of distinguished International Business scholars,” said Mays CIBS Associate Director of Research Dr. David A. Griffith. “Texas A&M’s faculty–both past and present and within Mays and outside of Mays–have made significant contributors to the International Business discipline.”

The RSS, which began in 2021, was a result of a confluence of factors. “The COVID pandemic opened the whole domain of webinars, allowing scholars to begin to connect pertaining to common interests without the need for travel,” said Griffith, who holds Mays’ Hallie Vanderhider Chair in Business. “In 2020, Ahmet Kirca became the director of the Michigan State University’s CIBER, which really opened the door for us to establish this joint effort. We saw the need as well as the opportunity before us—and we both concluded that leveraging webinar technology to advance International Business research would complement the activities of our CIBERs.”

The RSS addresses leading-edge International Business topics in areas such as exporting, global sales management and global supply chain management, as well as research methods, such as survey research and the measurement of cultural distance in international business research. These sessions are attended by both well-established scholars as well as next-generation researchers.

The virtual seminars already have a strong international following. For example, a September 2022 webinar on global supply chain management had registrants from Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, France, India, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey.

The most recent webinar, held in November 2022, focused specifically on research publication, and built on a previous RSS webinar, which featured journal editors from Management International Review, the Journal of World Business, and the Journal of International Marketing.

The November webinar hosted four editors who are part of the incoming editorial team for the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), the premier journal in the field of International Business. Each panelist offered insights about the decision-making process in selecting manuscripts to publish in their respective JIB area. The session also gave over 250 participants the opportunity to ask questions about JIBS’ processes.

Griffith believes the RSS webinars can assist International Business scholars in developing more impactful IB research. The Mays professor of marketing noted, “Through participation in the webinars, participants are able to hear from leading scholars about emerging research topics and state-of-the-art methods – which can be invaluable for developing their own scholarship.”

The next webinar in the series is planned for February 2023 and will focus on best practices for the use of meta-analysis in international business research. Meta-analysis is a research method for statistically combining the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analytic findings are considered the most trustworthy source of evidence in the scientific discipline.

Interested in learning from these leading global researchers about International Business topics?  You can access previous webinars from this series here.