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Dear Colleagues, Please find below the contents of the latest issue of critical perspectives on international business. The editorial introduction is included after the table of contents. Best wishes. Joanne. --------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial Title: Introduction from the Editors Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=NonArticle&contentId=1891311 (See below) Article Title: Informal networks as "global microstructures": the case of German expatriates in Russia Authors: Gabriele Wagner, Uwe Vormbusch Article Type: Research paper Keywords: Expatriates, Germany, Globalization, Multinational companies, Russia, Social interaction Pages: 216-236 Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1891307 Article Title: On the meanings of structure in the international business discourse Authors: Ray Griffin, Thomas O'Toole Article Type: Research paper Keywords: International business, Metaphors, Multinational companies, Organizational structures Pages: 237-255 Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1891308 Article Title: Global responsibility through consumption?: Resistance and assimilation in the anti-brand movement Authors: Isleide Arruda Fontenelle Article Type: Conceptual paper Keywords: Brand awareness, Consumer behaviour, Consumers, Social responsibility Pages: 256-272 Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1891309 Article Title: TNCs as embedded social communities: transdisciplinary perspectives Authors: James R. Faulconbridge Article Type: Viewpoint Keywords: Corporate identity, International business, Regulation, Transnational companies Pages: 273-290 Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1891310 Book reviews Mythologies of Organizational Everyday Life Chris Land Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=NonArticle&contentId=1891312 Transnational Corporations and Development Policy: Critical Perspectives Hugo Radice Link to Page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=1742-2043&volume=6&issue=4&articleid=1891398&show=abstract Introduction from the Editors From: critical perspectives on international business, Volume 6, Issue 4 Welcome to the final issue of critical perspectives on international business (CPoIB) for 2010. This brings to an end another busy and exciting year for CPoIB. The new editorial team, announced at the beginning of the year, is now well established and is already having a significant positive impact on the development of the journal in terms of geographical scope, disciplinary reach and the quality of article submissions. Together with our new editorial team, and the continued efforts of our publishers, we have succeeded in reaching out to new audiences through promoting the journal at a wide range of conferences, workshops and seminars and more broadly through our diverse networks. In this way, we are building on CPoIB's success to date and seeking to develop its standing as one of the top international academic journals offering innovative, rigorous and relevant contributions to debates concerning all aspects of international business. The efforts of all involved in CPoIB are helping to build the journal's reputation as a valuable outlet for research and source of quality papers for scholarship and teaching. The journal's increasing number of downloads provide evidence of its growing reputation with 23,974 article downloads in 2009 and almost 16,262 downloads in the first six months of 2010. In addition, CPoIB retained its place in the UK Association of Business Schools' journal quality ranking list despite a reduction in the number of journals included in the list by approximately 20 percent. In 2010 CPoIB gained important recognition by winning Emerald's Best New Journal Award. This award is an acknowledgement of the efforts invested in CPoIB by the editorial team, contributors and reviewers since its inception in 2005. In addition, last year's special issue on "Reflections on a global financial crisis" (Vol. 5, No. 1/2) has been recognised with Emerald's Outstanding Special Issue Award. As one of the first edited collections to consider the global financial crisis of 2008, this special issue continues to attract a strong readership. Moreover, the special issue was the source of CPoIB's outstanding and highly commended paper awards for Volume 5: 1. Outstanding paper: Allen, R.E. and Snyder, D. (2009), "New thinking on the financial crisis", critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 5 Nos. 1/2, pp. 36-55. 2. Highly commended papers: * Riaz, S. (2009), "The global financial crisis: and institutional theory analysis", critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 5 Nos. 1/2, pp. 26-35. * Wong, L. (2009), "The crisis: a return to political economy?", critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 5 Nos. 1/2, pp. 56-77. * Aalbers, M.B. (2009), Wrong assumptions in the financial crisis, critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 5 Nos. 1/2, pp 94-97 In recognition of their regular high quality reviewing activity Rahim Quazi, Prairie View A&M University, USA, and Laurence Romani, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, both received CPoIB outstanding reviewer awards in 2010. Additionally, for a third year CPoIB sponsored the best international business paper prize in the Critical Management Studies Division of the Academy of Management Conference. This prize was awarded in Montréal in August to Rafael Alcadipani and Alexandre Reis Rosa, both from EAESP-FGV, Brazil, for their paper entitled: "The researcher as the other: a post-colonial interpretation of the Brazilian Borat". Our congratulations go to all those receiving CPoIB awards in 2010. Turning to the current issue, we are pleased to present another stimulating collection of articles considering a range of issues, from informal networks as "global microstructures" and the meaning of structure in international business discourse to resistance and assimilation in the anti-brand movement and transdisciplinary perspectives on transnational corporations (TNCs) as social communities. In addition, two book reviews are included. The first research paper by Gabriele Wagner and Uwe Vormbusch, entitled "Informal networks as 'global microstructures': the case of German expatriates in Russia", focuses on the conflicts and contradictions in the implementation of global strategies, an area that has received little research attention at the micro level. To address this neglect, Wagner and Vormbusch provide a micro level examination of the contribution of expatriates in their interactive role as facilitators and managers, and, in their informal social networks. Drawing on the concept of "global microstructures" the authors find that expatriates must balance the conflicts and contradictions that surface from the three-way relationship between head office, branch office, and the market. Since conflicts and contradictions cannot be resolved within the formal organizational structures, they are transferred to the level of interpersonal interaction or to informal networks. The findings draw attention to the contradictory demands confronting expatriates in their everyday activity. While Wagner and Vormbusch's piece provides important insights into the relationship between the formal and informal structures of relevance to multinational corporations (MNCs), in the second research paper, entitled "On the meanings of structure in the international business discourse", Ray Griffin and Thomas O'Toole question the very nature of structure in international business. By examining the meaning and nature of the structure metaphor in the social sciences, Griffin and O'Toole reveal the consequent implications for the academic activity of describing and substantiating new structural forms of MNCs in the international business discourse. Contrasting generalist work in the social sciences on structure with a close reading of the foundational texts on structure in MNCs, together with fieldwork that deconstructs stories from actors within MNCs, the authors find that the set of new MNC structures could, perhaps, be better understood as a criticism of using the structure metaphor to describe the MNC. The focus moves from the structure of MNCs to the consumer and anti-brand movements in the third research paper entitled "Global responsibility through consumption? Resistance and assimilation in the anti-brand movement". In this paper Isleide Arruda Fontenelle questions the possible reach of anti-brand movements and shows how the assimilation of resistance has occurred through debates about empowerment and consumer accountability and the development of the "responsible consumption" discourse. Fontenelle points to the social risks of attributing a large degree of accountability to individuals for consumption. James Faulconbridge provides a position paper for this issue, entitled "TNCs as embedded social communities: transdisciplinary perspectives", which, through its focus on social communities, has connections with the research reported in Wagner and Vormbusch's research paper. By considering how economic geographers' work on the affects of institutions on firms can be brought together with organizational sociologists' work on identity regulation to generate new lines of enquiry about the role of transnational identity regulation in firms, Faulconbridge demonstrates how conceptualizations of transnational corporations as embedded social communities can be advanced through dialogues between two broadly defined scholarly communities. The author advocates collaboration between researchers from related paradigms so as to generate new questions for research. This issue also includes two book reviews. In the first, Chris Land reviews Monika Kostera's three volume edited collection on Mythologies of Organizational Everyday Life: Organizational Olympians: Heroes and Heroines of Organizational Myths, Organizational Epics and Sagas: Tales of Organizations and Mythical Inspirations for Organizational Realities. In the second book review Hugo Radice considers Transnational Corporations and Development Policy: Critical Perspectives edited by Eric Rugraff, Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and Andy Sumner. With contributions from authors in the Brazil, Germany, Ireland and the UK this issue, illustrates our commitment to producing a truly international journal. Recent data on the journal's usage shows the international scope of CPoIB's readership. For instance, the top 20 countries by downloads in June 2010 were as follows: the UK, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, the USA, People's Republic of China, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, India, Iran, New Zealand, Kenya, Finland, Lithuania, Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, Switzerland and Denmark. We would like to see this diversity in the readership reflected more closely in the range of contributions, so we take this opportunity to underline our openness to submission from across the globe. We hope that you will enjoy reading this issue of CPoIB, that it will provoke further critical discussion about key issues of relevance to international business and, importantly, that it will stimulate further responses in the academic community, in the classroom and in the wider context of global society. In the current era of economic uncertainty, journals like CPoIB offer an important space for critique of contemporary capitalism and investigation of alternative theoretical and empirical understandings of international business as well as exploration of practical means to achieve a better world for all. As governments across the globe struggle to repay debts incurred in the recent global financial crisis, in many countries public spending is being cut on an unprecedented scale with consequences for citizens, workers, consumers and businesses. Yet, bankers continue to receive enormous bonuses despite their role in bringing the global economy near to collapse in 2008. Such contradictions raise many questions about the nature and impact of international business, questions that we encourage scholars to engage with through reading, and contributing to, this journal. We welcome academic paper submission, viewpoint pieces, reviews and review essays as well as suggestions and proposals for special issues. As we conclude volume six of CPoIB we would like to thank all contributors to the journal, including authors, reviewers, and editorial advisory board members. We would especially like to thank our new group of associate editors whose efforts are already having a major impact on the success of the journal. Thanks also go to our team at Emerald, in particular, our publisher Martyn Lawrence and assistant publisher Jessica Davis for their diligent work throughout the year. Finally we welcome Rudolf Sinkovics from the University of Manchester, UK, to the Editorial Advisory Board. We look forward to a very exciting 2011 during which the editorial team will continue to develop the journal through various projects, including special issues, conference streams and workshops. For instance, several members of CPoIB's editorial team are working with others to co-convene a stream on "Conflicts and Resistance in International Business" at the Critical Management Studies Conference to be held in Naples from 11-13 July 2011. A special issue of CPoIB will be attached to the stream (for further information see: www.organizzazione.unina.it/streams/5.pdf). We look forward to meeting readers, contributors, and reviewers at such events over the coming year. Joanne Roberts, George Cairns ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Professor Joanne Roberts Newcastle Business School Northumbria University City Campus East Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0) 191 243 7528 Mobile: +44 (0) 777 150 1121 Email: [log in to unmask] Co-founder and co-editor of critical perspectives on international business **Winner of Emerald's Best New Journal Award 2010** http://www.emeraldinsight.com/cpoib.html Editor of Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cpro