Julian Birkinshaw, Ivey Business School

Valérie Duplat, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Saeed Khanagha, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Oli Mihalache, Athabasca University

Shaker Zahra, University of Minnesota

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how multinational enterprises and international new ventures compete globally. This special issue seeks research exploring how AI technologies—particularly generative AI—enable new competitive strategies, from building proprietary AI capabilities to deploying AI tools for market analysis and decision-making. The call welcomes papers examining AI's impact on firm competitiveness, internationalization strategies, organizational transformation, and resilience in volatile environments.

The issue addresses three core dimensions through which AI influences global strategy. First, it considers how firms develop AI-centric capabilities that serve as sources of competitive advantage across borders. Second, it explores how organizations strategically deploy AI to interpret global markets and make faster, more informed decisions. Third, it examines how firms must redesign governance structures and navigate complex international regulatory frameworks to effectively harness AI across multiple countries and institutional contexts.

Appel publié par Global Strategy Journal. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• How do proprietary generative-AI capabilities influence entry mode choice in different host-country contexts?
• What factors affect location for AI-centric MNEs and INV founders seeking global scale?
• How do AI-centric firms calibrate the balance between global standardization of models and local adaptation to institutional and cultural distance?
• How do AI-centric INVs build and scale proprietary capabilities to compete globally, and how do these digital-born assets challenge traditional views on firm-specific advantages and gradual internationalization?
• How do AI-centric MNEs and INVs manage international scaling of generative-AI capabilities, and what role do global knowledge-transfer mechanisms play in enabling rapid diffusion across subsidiaries?
• How do AI-centric MNEs manage cross-border complementarities between firm-specific data and host-country capabilities to build sustainable competitive advantage?
• To what extent do open-core versus fully proprietary model strategies shape the boundary decisions (make, buy, ally) of AI-centric firms in different regulatory environments?
• How do AI-centric firms mitigate liability of foreignness in AI ethics and bias by embedding local data and diverse cultural inputs into their global model-training pipelines?
• How can AI-enabled research methods be leveraged by firms to better understand foreign market reception and inform internationalization strategies?
• How do MNEs use generative-AI tools to refine entry-mode strategies (i.e., exporting, licensing, or FDI) by dynamically assessing host-market demand and regulatory complexity?
• Under what conditions can AI-driven scenario planning replace or complement traditional market-selection frameworks (e.g., CAGE) for entering new countries?
• How do firms leverage generative-AI-enabled localization (e.g., product design, marketing copy) to navigate cultural distance and strengthen local responsiveness in global integration strategies?
• What capabilities must regional subsidiaries develop to interpret and act on AI-generated market insights, and how does this reshape subsidiary autonomy versus headquarters control?
• How does generative AI affect the integration-responsiveness trade-off in global operations under geopolitical or natural-disaster shocks?
• In what ways do AI-mediated customer-interaction platforms alter traditional service subsidiary roles and the governance of cross-border service delivery?
• How do firms combine human judgment and AI recommendations in cross-border new product development alliances to balance exploration and exploitation?
• How do AI-enabled INVs sense and respond to global market signals differently than incumbents, and how do AI tools help them to overcome limited experience in culturally or institutionally distant markets?
• In what ways do AI-driven analytics of cultural signals and media content reshape how MNEs and INVs interpret foreign consumer preferences and adapt entry strategies?
• How can methodological advances in AI-based content analysis contribute to more fine-grained monitoring of cultural distance and liability of foreignness in real time?
• How do MNEs structure global AI governance bodies to balance headquarters-led oversight with subsidiary-level discretion across divergent institutional environments?
• What alliance governance mechanisms (joint ventures, co-development agreements) best facilitate GDPR-compliant data-sharing for generative-AI co-creation between European and Asian partners?
• How do emerging global AI regulations reshape MNEs' decisions on center-of-gravity for model deployment (cloud vs. on-prem) across host countries?
• How do entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging markets influence the design of cross-border data trusts and co-governance structures for INV-led AI initiatives?
• How do platform partnerships with regional software ecosystems (e.g., Midjourney in European design suites, Eleven Labs in Asian media platforms) alter inter-firm governance and value-capture?
• In what ways do pre-competitive data trusts and industry consortia mitigate institutional voids and enable co-governance of domain-specific generative models in emerging markets?
• How must performance metrics and incentive systems evolve to reward cross-border AI collaboration while managing moral-hazard and knowledge-leakage risks?
• What role do board-level AI oversight committees play in enforcing a cohesive global AI ethics framework amid diverse local legal and cultural norms?
• How can AI-based methods be leveraged to examine how firms navigate cross-border governance and regulatory environments?

Timeline

• September 15, 2026: Submission window opens
• October 15, 2026: Deadline for submissions

Associate editors

• Qian (Cecilia) Gu, Georgia State University

Most management research has been developed in Western contexts, leaving significant gaps in understanding leadership and organizational practices in emerging, developing, and transition economies—regions that now generate nearly half of global economic output. These economies operate under distinct institutional conditions where formal institutions are incomplete or unevenly enforced, requiring firms to rely on alternative coordination mechanisms and making context a primary determinant of business strategy and performance.

This special issue addresses this literature gap by centering emerging, developing, and transition economies as objects of theoretical inquiry rather than control variables. It invites studies across governance, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and leadership that examine how management practices evolve, adapt, or are translated when formal rules and infrastructures cannot be taken for granted. The call welcomes quantitative surveys, experiments, qualitative ethnographies, mixed-methods research, and conceptual work, particularly comparative studies spanning regions or contrasting different institutional settings.

Appel publié par Baltic Journal of Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• How and with what consequences do firms substitute private or community governance for missing or unreliable formal institutions, and which mechanisms make these substitutes durable or fragile?
• Which configurations of resources, networks, and legitimacy enable opportunity discovery and scaling in thin or nascent markets, and how do founders and top managers navigate uncertainty and institutional gaps across growth stages?
• Under resource constraints and uneven enforcement, what capability bundles allow firms to align environmental initiatives with competitive outcomes, and how do local cultural or state priorities shape these trajectories?
• How do reporting, budgeting, and control systems adapt when enforcement is uneven, and what are the implications for investment, innovation, market signals, and stakeholder trust in emerging markets?
• How do contextual communication and power structures condition the effectiveness of leadership, employee voice, engagement, and performance systems in transition settings, and what are the boundary conditions for transferability?
• How do commitments to learning and open innovation translate into performance when institutions are in flux, and which organisational routines, such as bricolage, mediate these effects?
• How do political ties, state ownership, or party networks shape strategic decision-making, board dynamics, and accountability in firms and hybrid organisations operating under volatile or contested regulatory regimes?
• How do gender, ethnicity, and other social cleavages intersect with institutional voids to shape leadership careers, informal influence, and patterns of inclusion and exclusion inside organisations?
• In conflict-affected, fragile, or post-disaster settings, which leadership practices and governance arrangements enable organisational resilience, continuity of services, and recovery, and what trade-offs do they imply?
• How do regional, cross-border, or diaspora networks among managers, professionals, and researchers mediate the transfer, translation, and contestation of management ideas and leadership models across institutional contexts?

Timeline

• January 12, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• January 4, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Ilan Alon, Ariel University

Marcin Wątorek, Cracow University of Technology

Aušrinė Šilenskytė, University of Vaasa

Ziaul Haque Munim, University of South-Eastern Norway

Organizations increasingly manage distributed decision-making and systemic complexity through blockchain technologies that function as operating systems by embedding governance mechanisms into digital infrastructures. These systems are being advanced with artificial intelligence to monitor and shape behavior. Despite blockchain-based operating systems being adopted in platforms, supply chains, and decentralized autonomous organizations, their implications for organizational administration, governance, and control remain poorly understood.

This special issue invites research that advances administrative and organizational understanding of blockchain-based operating systems with AI-enabled complexity. The call welcomes theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous contributions including empirical studies and theory-building papers that offer clear organizational insights and engage meaningfully with blockchain and AI as organizational infrastructures.

Appel publié par Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l Administration. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Blockchain as an organizational operating system and potential of AI advancements in it
• Public, private, and hybrid organizations adopting blockchain OS with AI advancements
• Integration of AI on Blockchain OS in crowdsourcing platforms, crypto exchanges, fintech firms, energy management, and transport services etc.
• Organizational decision-making in blockchain-based and AI enabled systems
• AI's role in administrative functions embedded in smart contracts and protocols
• Token-based incentives as administrative and managerial mechanisms
• Strategic control and accountability in decentralized platforms with AI-enabled advancements
• AI integration in governance, coordination, and control without centralized authority (DAOs)
• Complexity, emergence, and adaptation in blockchain-based and AI enabled organizations
• Organizational legitimacy, regulation, and institutional alignment in AI and blockchain OS integrations
• Ethical, responsible, and sustainable administration of blockchain systems, especially those advanced with AI

Timeline

• November 15, 2026: Submission Deadline

Academy of Management Perspectives seeks manuscripts that prioritize relevance to managerial practice and policy. The journal explicitly rejects papers that are primarily theory-driven or that repurpose work rejected by other journals by adding managerial implications as an afterthought. Papers must be managerially motivated from inception, addressing specific issues that inform how organizations are managed.

Beyond relevance, AMP demands rigorous original analysis using evidence-based findings rather than opinions or philosophical arguments. This rigor may emerge from empirical research or robust conceptual frameworks, comparable to standards at elite journals.

AMP papers must be relevant, rigorous, and readable. They simultaneously address important managerial issues, employ original scholarly analysis, and communicate findings accessibly to practitioners through plain language and concise presentation.

Appel publié par Academy of Management Perspectives. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Papers that inform managerial practice and policy
• Studies addressing issues of importance to managers and policy makers
• Work demonstrating how organizations can be better managed and governed
• Research providing evidence to drive reconsideration of managerial practices
• Papers bridging scholarly analysis with practitioner insights
• Studies avoiding theory-driven approaches disconnected from practice
• Conceptual or empirical analysis grounded in real-world managerial challenges

Timeline

• January 31, 2027: Submission Deadline