Centre of International Business Strategy and Decisions

The Centre for IBSD investigates research phenomena of international importance for individuals, groups, organisations, cultures, and nations. Global challenges and opportunities ask for interdisciplinary international collaborations to find solutions regarding global sustainability (from nutrition to microfinance), sustainable cultures (migration, cultural adaptation, decision-making), multinational corporate strategies and transnational entrepreneurship decisions. Our Centre explores new avenues with a diverse set of theories and methods (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed) to identify configurations and reconfigurations in international business settings.

The Centre focusses on four research themes with theoretical and empirical investigations.

International Business Strategies and Decisions (Prof. Ursula F. Ott):

• International Business Strategies: International Strategic Alliances, International Negotiations strategies, Market Entry strategies; Supply Chain approaches to strategy and operation of international business-to-business relationships
• International Business Decision-Making: Human Decision-making, Decision-making in MNEs, SMEs and Entrepreneurship, Heuristics, Rationality assumptions
• Sustainable Cultures: Cultural Adaptation and Migration: Diaspora research, Global heritage

Global Sustainability (Prof. Usha Ramanthan):

• Waste management, Circular economy value chains, Sustainable production, Food/Nutrition, Climate Change
• Sustainable mobility, stakeholder ecosystems,
• Sustainable Informal Savings groups – Microfinance;

Behavioural Science and Culture (Prof. Thorsten Chmura):

• Experimental Research into cultural behaviour, corruption, and trust

International Entrepreneurship (Prof. Marina Dabic):

• Innovation and Knowledge Transfer

Each area is headed by a Professor and has academics at various levels of their careers included from Early Career Researcher to Associate Professors. WE integrate Doctoral Studies as an integrated part of our research.

The Centre welcomes PhD students fitting into our Research Themes.

International Business Strategies and Decisions (Prof. Ursula F. Ott):

• International Business Strategies: International Strategic Alliances, International Negotiations strategies, Market Entry strategies; Supply Chain approaches to strategy and operation of international business-to-business relationships (Dr. Michael Zhang, Dr. Weixi Han)
• International Business Decision-Making: Human Decision-making, Decision-making in MNEs, SMEs and Entrepreneurship, Heuristics, Rationality assumptions (Dr. Marco Furlotti, Dr. Elaine Chen)
• Sustainable Cultures: Cultural Adaptation and Migration: Diaspora research, Global heritage (Dr. Wendy Chapple, Dr. Olu Aluko, Dr. Juliana Siwale)

Global Sustainability (Prof. Usha Ramanthan):

• Waste management, Circular economy value chains, Sustainable production, Food/Nutrition, Climate Change etc (Dr. Wendy Chapple)
• Sustainable mobility, stakeholder ecosystems (Dr. Michael Zhang)
• Sustainable Informal Savings groups (Dr. Juliana Siwale)

Behavioural Science and Culture (Prof. Thorsten Chmura): Experimental Research into cultural behaviour, corruption, trust

International Entrepreneurship (Prof. Marina Dabic): Innovation and Knowledge Transfer; (Dr. Olu Aluko)

• Cross Cultural Research Platform: with insights into cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, international business characteristics (X-culture platform and industry collaborations)
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Global Sustainability; UN75 Dialogue Platform – 75^th Birthday Anniversary for the UN, partner universities, CIBSD members present their research to ‘Living Securely: Transnational Experience’
• International Business Research Methods SIG – Academy of International Business Research Methods SIG Webinar Series – Contribution to Annual Conferences with Workshops and Webinars
• EU-UK Future Relationship – Post Brexit Relationships
• Migration Platform collaborations
• International Negotiations Research

VUKICEVIC, J., FALLON, G. and OTT, U., 2021. A theoretical and empirical investigation into investment activities of technologically intensive Chinese state-owned enterprises in the UK, International Business Review, Forthcoming

SIWALI, J. and KIMMITT, J.  2020. The Failure of Hybrid Organizations: A Legitimation Perspective, Management Organization Review

ODUSANYA, K., ALUKO, O. and LAL, B., 2020. Building consumers’ trust in electronic retail platforms in the Sub-Saharan context: an exploratory study on drivers and impact on continuance intention. Information Systems Frontiers: Journal of Research and Innovation. ISSN 1387-3326

AIKINS, E. and RAMANATHAN, U., 2020. Key factors of carbon footprint in the UK food supply chains: a new perspective of life cycle assessment. International Journal of Operations and Production Management. ISSN 0144-3577

RAMANATHAN, U., MAZZOLA, E., MOHAN, U., BRUCCOLERI, M., AWASTHI, A. and GARZA-REYES, J.A., 2020. How selection of collaborating partners impact on the green performance of global businesses? An empirical study of green sustainability. Production Planning and Control. ISSN 0953-7287 (forthcoming)

GUTIERREZ-HUERTER O, G., MOON, J., GOLD, S. and CHAPPLE, W., 2019. Micro-processes of translation in the transfer of practices from MNE headquarters to foreign subsidiaries: the role of subsidiary translators. Journal of International Business Studies. ISSN 0047-2506

OTT, U.F. and GHAURI, P.N., 2019. Brexit negotiations: from negotiation space to agreement zones. Journal of International Business Studies. ISSN 0047-2506

FURLOTTI, M. and SODA, G., 2018. Fit for the task: complementarity, asymmetry, and partner selection in alliances. Organization Science. ISSN 1047-7039

DE AVILLEZ, M.M., GREENMAN, A. and MARLOW, S., 2019. Ethical judgments about social entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa: the influence of spatio-cultural meanings. Journal of Business Ethics. ISSN 0167-4544.

The CIBSD works in line with the Research Themes and the projects and collaborations consider aspects of the research directions in their funding bids. For collaborations, please have a look at the topics below:

Prof. Ursula F. Ott addresses Cultural Adaptation of Global Managers which was funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Grant and is currently enlarged into Sustainable Cultures and Migration. Furthermore, EU-UK Future Relationship is based on the Brexit Negotiation publications and collaborations and this strand of research focusses on  the future agreements and negotiations.

Prof Ramanathan has secured funding from GCRF QR fund 2020-21 to run a global sustainability project in India ‘Preparation for Socio-Economic partnerships to achieve the goal of sustainability: Educating and upskilling local community’.

Prof Ramanathan is representing NTU as a communication lead in Interreg North West Europe & ERDF Project (www.reamit.eu). REAMIT is improving Resource Efficiency of Agribusiness supply chains by Minimising waste using Big Data and Internet of Things Sensors.

Dr. Olu Aluko and Dr. Juliana Siwale secured GCRF funding titled: Entrepreneurship education and youth unemployment and poverty: How are African universities making a difference? The project centres on the UN SDG goals 1, 2 and 4 which are No poverty, zero hunger, Quality education respectively, to reduce poverty and inequalities through university entrepreneurship education in Zambia and Nigeria.

Mr Emmanuel Aikins secured a seed corn fund from NTU 2020-2021 to conduct a research on food waste management and sustainability in Ghana food supply chains.

Olu Aluko ,(Migration, Entrepreneurship, Nigeria)

Su Beesley (International Entrepreneurship, innovation, social entrepreneurship)

Wendy Chapple (Cultural Values, ASEAN countries)

Elaine Chen (Human decision-making)

Maria De Avillez (Emerging Markets, Market Entry)

Marco Furlotti (Strategy, Decision Making)

Shaun Gordon (Strategy)

Weixi Han (Supply chain approaches to the strategy, and operation of international business-to-business relationships)

Emil Helienek (Culture, Eastern Europe)

Ofelia Palermo (Cultural Values, Leadership)

Juliana Siwale (Emerging Market, Microfinance, Zambia)

David Smith (Internatioanal Business and Innovation)

Ugbede Umoru (Emerging Markets, Strategy)

Jelena Vukocevic (Chinese FDIs, Emerging Markets)

Michael Zhang (Emerging Markets, Trust Building, China)

Research Fellow:

Alena Pivavarava: International Business Strategy and Decisions, Big Data expertise

PhD/DBA topics:

Meshkat Akanda: International Compensation Schemes

Emmanuel Aitkins: Global Sustainability

Kehinde Olafare: Food Waste Sustainability

Paul Duckworth: International Negotiations

Anh Luong: Internationalisation of UK SMEs to Psychic Distant Countries in ASEAN