Prelims

Half Title Page

WALKING THE TALK?

Series Page

PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH

Series Editors: The European International Business Academy (EIBA)

Recent Volumes:

Title Page

PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH – VOLUME 18

WALKING THE TALK? MNEs TRANSITIONING TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE WORLD

TRIBUTE VOLUME TO ALAIN VERBEKE

Edited By

ROB VAN TULDER

RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

BIRGITTE GRØGAARD

BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

AND

RANDI LUNNAN

BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Rob van Tulder, Birgitte Grøgaard, and Randi Lunnan.

Individual chapters © 2024 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83549-118-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-117-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-119-5 (Epub)

ISSN: 1745-8862 (Series)

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Preface: A Tribute to Professor Alain Verbeke

This Progress in International Business Research (PIBR) volume is a tribute to one of the most influential international business (IB) scholars, Professor Alain Verbeke. Professor Verbeke’s scholarship transcends four decades where he has successfully advanced IB theory and ensured that scholars remember the importance of managerial relevance. His impact in the IB community is clear. His scholarly work is highly cited by other scholars both within and outside the IB community. His legacy is also clearly visible through his active involvement in the IB community including formal and informal service to the academic community and IB journals. Professor Verbeke is currently a distinguished fellow of European International Business Academy (EIBA) as well as the Academy of International Business and has edited 11 past volumes of PIBR. He recently stepped down as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), after serving in this role for two consecutive terms.

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, our decision to make this volume a tribute to Professor Verbeke, is based on his pioneering work related to sustainability and his tireless efforts to support and encourage other scholars to contribute to this field in research, teaching as well as practical engagement. During the 2022 EIBA conference, scholars discussed if firms are really walking the Talk and developing necessary capabilities and collaborative efforts to move toward a sustainable world. Verbeke and co-authors made significant advances to this conversation over 25 years ago. One example of this is their distinction between compliance to environmental policies and developing green capabilities (Rugman & Verbeke, 1998b). Professor Verbeke was also an early and influential contributor linking sustainability issues to IB through research on topics including (but not limited to) collaboration between governments and firms, environmental strategies and stakeholder management, and the effects of environmental policies and taxation (Buysse & Verbeke, 2003; Rugman & Verbeke, 1998a, 2000; Verbeke & Coeck, 1997). His pioneering article on proactive environmental strategies and stakeholder management in the prestigious Strategic Management Journal (Buysse & Verbeke, 2003) contributed to bridging IB and sustainability research, and remains his most cited publication to date.

Alain Verbeke’s prolific teaching activities have spanned a long period, covering many IB relevant topics, but mostly focused on the strategic management of multinational enterprises (MNEs). He has taught in or has been associated with a large number of prestigious academic institutions (including Dalhousie University, University of Toronto, Université Catholique de Louvain, Tilburg University, Erasmus University, University of Reading, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Skolkovo Institute for Emerging Market Studies, China Europe International Business School, Nanyang Technical University, and University of Antwerp) in the role of associate professor, visiting professor, or MBA program director (Solvay Business School, Vrije Universiteit Brussel). For his teaching activities, he received the PhD Supervisor Excellence award at the University of Calgary in 2018.

Professor Verbeke’s societal engagement has involved active participation in projects with stakeholders – for instance, port clusters. He has been a member of the European Science and Technology Assembly, the highest advisory body to the European Commission on the future of European scientific and innovation policy and has served on the board of directors of various educational and scientific research institutions.

Professor Verbeke early recognized the challenges of energy transition, the role of renewable energy, and the importance of integrating sustainability into strategic thinking (Illegems & Verbeke, 2003; Yuan et al., 2011). In the role of editor of JIBS, Verbeke co-organized a special issue on the long-term energy transition with the British Journal of Management, emphasizing the importance of actionable research addressing global grand challenges (Verbeke, 2021; Verbeke & Hutzschenreuter, 2021). This special issue is merely one of many examples where Verbeke has championed the importance of making IB research actionable and relevant for business, particularly related to sustainability. Through his exemplary scholarship and service, he continues to support the IB community with a passion and genuine interest to ensure that IB research makes an impact (Santangelo & Verbeke, 2022). This will be increasingly important to support firms, governments, and societies in transitioning toward a sustainable world.

His personal contribution to this volume (Chapter 2) illustrates his continued passion and concern about the relevance of IB scholarship and the critical role played by MNEs as well as by societal stakeholders in creating a more sustainable world. To quote his words:

Our role as IB scholars is to describe and explain the value creating and value distributing processes put in motion by entrepreneurial parties with complementary resources, willing and able to establish and to nurture business linkages across borders. Acknowledging the role of parties not directly involved in establishing and operating international activities but with some type of decision rights in this realm, is clearly critical. However, an objective and evidence-based analysis is unlikely to conclude that more can and should “obviously” be done by all internationally operating firms beyond their present role in creating and distributing economic value. International entrepreneurial behavior emerges because economic actors chase attractive business opportunities and this opens them up to a wide spectrum of vulnerabilities, which explain the relative absence of global MNEs.

We cannot agree more!

The editors

➝ Photo of Alain Verbeke

2001 – selected McCaig Chair in Management (with wife Juliet)	2020 – with R. Edward Freeman