Our perspectives on International Business\nare constantly evolving and broadening as we accept that the world is more\ncomplex than what a narrow perspective on the \u2018international success and\nfailure of the firm\u2019 can explain. The global business environment is composed\nof systemic force fields where events forming initial conditions can produce a\nmultitude of new phenomena and outcomes in very short time. It is the dynamic and complex\ninterconnectedness, interdependencies and interactions of political, economic,\nsocial, technological and environmental systems, among others, that we call\nglobalization, which has brought to us unprecedented wealth, but also new\nproblems, and of course also potential solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, sitting in Finland looking out of the\nwindow, how skewed is our perception of the big wide world really? According to\nHans Rosling\u2019s (Rosling et al., 2018) book, Factfulness, we tend to believe\nthat the world is poorer, less healthy and more dangerous than it really is and\nthat the way we perceive global events through media biases our shared picture\nof the world. One current example is the recent novel Corona Virus outbreak in\nWuhan, China. When following the news coverage and discussions in social media,\nthis provides a very good case of globalized systems and how events very far\naway arrive, by plane or media, and affect the way we go about our daily lives,\naffecting stock markets and threatening the functioning of value chains. Or a\nspeech of a Swedish teenager who requests to do something about a looming\ncatastrophe is sending shock waves around the political and corporate\nestablishment is another example of the interconnectedness and\ninterdependencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there is an array of topics that\nusually are on a blind spot, at least where we are sitting and that should\ninterest us as much as many other topics. We have started to discuss these\nunder the label \u2018the dark side\u2019 of international business, some time ago. It\nconsists of topics that seem very far from our perception and are nevertheless\npart of the systems we live in. For instance, having recently reviewed an\narticle on Modern Slavery<\/em> was a\nrevelation. According to the International Labor Organization and the Walk Free\nFoundation (2017) for every 1000 people in the world 5.4 are considered victims\nof modern slavery, being exposed to the effects of another person having\ncontrol over one, being in a relationship suffering structural power or\nphysical violence with the objective of being economically exploited. Some of\nthe global value chains that produce many of the products and services we might\nconsume daily are using questionable practices. These require more attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the past years, our research interests have turned towards these less popular but hugely important issues. TSE has made business ethics and critical engagement key strategic organizational values that should partly define who we are as an organization. As a result, we have many researchers who have been investigating these kinds of topics. For instance, Salla Laasonen (doctoral defense 2012) has written about stakeholder dialogue as a tool for corporate responsibility and accountability. Frederick Ahen (doctoral defense 2015), critically examined the corporate social responsibility narrative in the context of global health urging to make responsibility a key strategic dimension rather than a public relations activity. Irfan Ameer (doctoral defense 2019) has been investigating the broader social context of institutionalized bribery in developing countries and he discussed corruption practices of Multinational firms. Emilia Isolauri (current doctoral student) investigates the sources, mechanisms and outcomes of international money laundry and Isabella Galvis (current doctoral student) researches the competing pressures under which social enterprises in different institutional contexts have to balance their goal attainments. These are just a few of many examples and we can see that critically engaged international business scholarship is an important movement, which is further taken up in numerous Masters theses and which is increasingly becoming a strong integrated part of our courses in the Bachelor and Masters programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal is to include other than mainstream topics in international business to form some of the important foundations when the next generations of graduates join the constituencies they choose to serve and eventually one day steer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Peter Zettinig<\/p>\n\n\n\n University Research Fellow<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adjunct Professor in International Business<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our perspectives on International Business are constantly evolving and broadening as we accept that the world is more complex than what a narrow perspective on the \u2018international success and failure of the firm\u2019 can explain. The global business environment is composed of systemic force fields where events forming initial conditions can produce a multitude of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}