International Marketing in the Fast Changing World – Introduction to Volume 26

Some 25 years ago, S. Tamer Cavusgil organised an informal meeting of scholars interested in international marketing research at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. This meeting marked the birth of the Consortium for International Marketing Research (CIMaR). At that time, none of the small number of participants foresaw how rapidly the globalisation of business would proceed over the next quarter of the century. And of course, none of the participants could envisage how fast the world has been changing and how important international marketing research would become in a fast changing and complex global business environment.

The fast changing world has posed numerous challenges to international marketing researchers and demanded close collaboration among them across the globe. Responding to the challenges, CIMaR in the last 25 years has evolved into an effective networking community for scholars across the world and an annual forum for exchanging cutting-edge research in international marketing. The latest CIMaR meeting was hosted on the brand new campus of WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business) in May 2015, and attracted leading IM scholars from more than 20 countries. Some of the best papers that have been presented at that conference, as well as other regularly reviewed papers, are showcased in this volume of Advances in International Marketing (AIM).