Submission Deadline: January 24, 2005 (extended)

Political and administrative devolution of power to local and provincial authorities, nearly everywhere in the world, is leading to a revival of local roots. At the same time the world economy is increasingly integrated, and the world polity increasingly interdependent. This leads to a growing duality and sometimes conflicts, between the desire to reaffirm local identities, and develop local economies, and the globalization of trade, investment, knowledge, and workforces. How to both maintain and grow local roots, and participate successfully in the world economy, by fostering global links is the theme of the AIB 2005 Annual meeting.

Québec, as the site of this year's conference is particularly appropriate for this theme. It is a place, in the history of North America, where that duality is particularly salient. As a small French speaking local community in a primarily Anglo Saxon and Hispanic continent, Québec feels this duality more than most other provinces, cities or states around the world. Its history is a constant pull between provincial identity and cosmopolitanism, between being in the world and maintaining its uniqueness, between looking to the future, and being caught in the past.

Yet, perhaps in more muted form, the duality of local roots and global links is of great relevance to all of us around the world. While some issues, like the delocation of professional services activities, or the resurgence of migratory flows have received much popular attention, a number of themes that grow out this duality require attention from international business researchers.

Among these figure prominently:

• The globalization of services and its impact on the local and global polity and on the competition among local ecologies and among global firms
• The role of migration, and the recent security restrictions imposed by some countries (mainly the US) on knowledge workers' and other professionals' immigration as well as on foreign students
• The regional and global integration of economic, political, financial and cultural systems and the interaction of such integration with local economies and societies
• The role of MNCs is both exploiting and eroding diversity across locations, and the way their managers make location decisions.
• The potential for MNC location decisions that foster diversity.
• The challenge to root clusters, or hubs, of knowledge-based activities and of transforming them into hard-to-replace or -delocate local knowledge and innovation ecologies.

• The development of "global cities" as magnets of knowledge creation, the risk of weakening and impoverishing other cities and peripheral regions, and the risk of local megacities.
• The role of extended enterprises, alliances, coalitions, and knowledge networks in growing local roots and fostering global links
• The internationalization of R&D activities and the co-evolution of local capabilities and MNC investment
• The emergence of global e-communities and other movements, as possible substitutes to local communities.
• The collective regulation of the global polity.

Paper and panel submissions for AIB 2005 are categorized into eight tracks. Each paper or panel proposal must be submitted to only one track. Please select the track closest to your proposal from the list below.

1. The Context of Global Business - International relations, political economy, demographics and migration, institutions and economic transitions, business history, the world's polity, sustainable development and the environment.
   Track Chair: Sushil Vachani, Boston University -
2. Forging Global Links - Global supply chain partnerships, extended enterprises, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, coalitions, networks, and constellations.
   Track Chair: Jeff Reuer, University of North Carolina -
3. Growing Local Roots - Clusters, global cities, megacities in the world economy, regional and urban development, spillovers and MNCs.
   Track Chair: Dave Mc Kendrick, University of Durham -
4. International Economics, Finance, Taxation, Regulation
   Track Chair: Harvey Arbeláez, Monterey Institute of International Studies -
5. Innovation, Marketing, Internationalization of R&D, Location Choices of Knowledge Intensive Activities by MNCs
   Track Chair: John Cantwell, Rutgers University -
6. Internationalization of Services - Trade in services, globalization and delocation of service activities, mobility of knowledge workers, management of global service operations.
   Track Chair: Yair Aharoni, Tel Aviv University -
7. Managing Across Borders - Strategy, Organization and Management Processes in MNCs
   Track Chair: Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School -
8. Managing People Across Cultures - Individual, group, organizational and national cultures, organization behavior and leadership, human resource management.
   Track Co-Chairs: Davina Vora, University of Texas at Dallas - and Tomasz Lenartowicz, Florida Atlantic University -

In addition to these conference tracks, a number of pre-conference workshops and roundtables will also be held in Quebec City, including the repeat of the very successful AIB/JIBS Paper Development Workshops.

Submissions for the conference will take place through AIB's online submission system. The submission system opened on December 8, 2004. All manuscripts and proposals must be submitted by January 24, 2005 (extended). Please refer to the detailed submission instructions for further information.

For up-to-date information about the conference venue, events, and various deadlines, please visit http://aib.msu.edu/events/2005/ . Any questions regarding this call for papers should be submitted to the track chairs or the Program Chair, Yves Doz, at

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to seeing you in Quebec City!

Dr. Yves Doz

Program Chair, AIB 2005 Annual Meeting
INSEAD University