Prelims

THE CHANGING GLOBAL POWER BALANCE

PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH

Series Editors: The European International Business Academy (EIBA)

Recent Volumes:

PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH – VOLUME 19

THE CHANGING GLOBAL POWER BALANCE: CHALLENGES FOR EUROPEAN FIRMS

TRIBUTE VOLUME TO JOHN CANTWELL

EDITED BY

ROB VAN TULDER

RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

NUNO FERNANDES CRESPO

University of Lisbon, Portugal

VÍTOR CORADO SIMÕES

University of Lisbon, Portugal

AND

CÁTIA FERNANDES CRESPO

Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2025

Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Rob van Tulder, Nuno Fernandes Crespo, Vítor Corado Simões, and Cátia Fernandes Crespo.

Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.

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ISBN: 978-1-83662-765-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83662-764-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83662-766-1 (Epub)

ISSN: 1745-8862 (Series)

Rob van Tulder is Full Professor of International Business-Society Management at RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam and Academic Director of the Partnerships Resource Centre. He is Co-founder of the Department of Business-Society Management, one of the leading departments in the world organizing research and education on the way business can create value for society either alone or through cross-sector partnerships. He advises international organizations, governments, multinational enterprises and international NGOs on issues of sustainability. His latest books include: Principles of Sustainable Business. Frameworks for Corporate Action on the SDGs (2022); Getting All the Motives Right (2018); and Skill Sheets: An Integrated Approach to Research, Study and Management (2018).

Nuno Fernandes Crespo is Professor of Entrepreneurship and International Business at ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon, and he is an integrated member of Advance (Centre for Advanced Research in Management – ISEG). He served as President of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) in 2023, was also Chair and member of the Program Committee of the EIBA Conference in the same year and is the National Representative of Portugal in the EIBA Board since 2021. His research interests mainly focus on international entrepreneurship, international business and strategies to react to crises. His research has been published in several journals such as International Business Review, Journal of International Management, Journal of Business Research, European Management Journal, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Business Research Quarterly, or European Journal of International Management.

Vítor Corado Simões has served for many years as professor at ISEG – Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (University of Lisbon), until his retirement in April 2020. His research addresses two main fields: International Management and Innovation Management. He has published in Portuguese and international journals. Professor Simões served as President of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) in 1993, and as Co-organiser and member of the Program Committee of the 2023 EIBA Conference in Lisbon, under the lead of Nuno Crespo. Vítor is now Fellow of EIBA. Together with John Cantwell and Philippe Gugler, he led the research project on the History of EIBA. One of the outcomes of this project is the book The History of EIBA: A Tale of The Co-Evolution Between International Business Issues and a Scholarly Community, co-authored with John Cantwell and Philippe Gugler, published in 2025, by Emerald.

Cátia Fernandes Crespo is Professor of Marketing and International Business at Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, School of Technology and Management in Portugal. She is also Coordinator of CARME (Centre of Applied Research in Management and Economics). She received her PhD in Management from the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal. She served as member of the Organizing Committee and was part of the Program Committee of the EIBA Conference 2023 in Lisbon. Her academic research has been published in several journals such as International Business Review, Journal of International Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Strategic Marketing, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Technological Forecasting and Social Change or Journal of International Consumer Marketing.

Gilbert Kofi Adarkwah is an Assistant Professor at HEC Montreal. He is trained as an economist, political scientist, and lawyer at top Norwegian and international universities. His research focuses on non-market strategies and impact investments in developing countries. Before entering academia, Gilbert held senior management roles at a multinational oil and gas company and served as head of underwriting and pricing for Scandinavia’s largest insurance company. He also worked as a trade and investment attaché at the United Nations. In addition, he is the Founder of Gilbert and Partners, a private equity firm with investments across Scandinavia, Africa, and North America, and co-founder of Pangea Accelerator, the leading accelerator in East Africa, where he served as CFO and Chief Legal Officer.

Andrea Ascani is Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila, Italy. He received his PhD in Economic Geography in 2016 from the London School of Economics (LSE), where he is currently affiliated as Visiting Fellow of the Department of Geography and Environment. Before joining GSSI, Andrea served as Assistant Professor of Economic Geography at Utrecht University. His research interests lie at the intersection of applied microeconomics, economic geography and international business studies. For his work on the heterogeneous effects of foreign direct investment on recipient economies, Andrea received the Copenhagen Business School prize for the Best Paper written by a young scholar in International Business at the European International Business Academy (EIBA) Conference 2017. In 2018, Andrea was awarded a Veni grant by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to study the implications of Chinese investments in European regions.

Stępień Beata, PhD, Habilitation, Professor of Social Sciences, affiliated to the Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poland. She specializes in international business and has 28 years of research and teaching experience in this field. She is also active in business practice. Over the years she has advised companies on international trade and internationalization strategies. She has also run her own business. Her latest research project focuses on the impact of sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus in 2022 on firms and consumers in the sending countries.

Gabriel R. G. Benito is Professor of strategy at BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo. He has long experience from research and teaching corporate strategy and the internationalization of businesses and has published widely on the topic. He has done research on ownership and corporate governance, the strategies and organization of multinational enterprises, and the economic organization of international business. Increasingly, his research emphasizes the sustainability implications of international business. He is Co-Editor of Global Strategy Journal, and Consulting Editor of Journal of International Business Studies. He also sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals in international business, management, and strategy. He was elected Fellow of Academy of International Business in 2015 and Fellow of European International Business Academy in 2017.

Peter J. Buckley is 200th Anniversary Chair in International Business, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Visiting Professor at Hong Kong Metropolitan University and University of Queensland Business School. He served as President of the Academy of International Business (2002–2004) and as Chair of the European International Business Academy (2009–2012). In 2012, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 2014, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).

John Cantwell is Distinguished Professor of International Business at Rutgers University, NJ, USA, which he joined in 2002. He was previously Professor of International Economics at the University of Reading in the UK. His research focuses on technological innovation and international knowledge networks. His published work spans the fields of International Business, Economics, Economic History, Philosophy, Economic Geography, and Innovation Studies. He was President of EIBA in 1992, elected as a Founding EIBA Fellow in 2001, served as Secretary/Treasurer of the EIBA Fellows from 2002-07, and as Dean of the EIBA Fellows from 2015-18. For more information please see the tribute in the Preface to this book.

Yuxi Cheng is an Assistant Professor in International Business at the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS). His research interests primarily lie in the realms of International Business (IB) and Strategy. Specifically, he is passionate about understanding how firms modify their human capital composition in response to cross-border labour movement. Additionally, his work contributes to understanding how firms adjust their global sourcing strategies to confront emerging grand challenges in the global business environment, such as the polarization of political ideologies, the rise of geopolitical tensions, and sustainable development mandates across different countries. Prior to joining the ULMS, Yuxi completed his PhD in International Business from the School of Business at George Washington University.

Paulo Duarte holds a PhD in Management and is Associate Professor with habilitation at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Universidade da Beira Interior and guest lecturer at Católica Porto Business School, teaching a course on Consumer Behaviour. He is a member of NECE-UBI (Research Centre for Business Sciences) scientific board and Vice-Coordinator for marketing. He is the author of several scientific papers published in international books and journals and has presented at international scientific conferences in the area of marketing and tourism. He is also a member of the editorial board of several journals and scientific conferences in the area of management and marketing. His research interests include consumer behaviour, and the intersection between psychology and marketing, namely sustainable behaviour, satisfaction, and branding in tourism, both offline and online.

Elisa Ferreira is the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms since December 2019. She holds a Degree in Economics from the University of Porto and a Masters and PhD in Economics from the University of Reading, UK. She is a Professor at the University of Porto, currently on leave of absence and the author and co-author of several articles in academic journals and books on international business, industrial policy, competitiveness and regional development. Dr Elisa Ferreira was Vice-Governor and member of the Board of Banco de Portugal, Portugal’s Central Bank. She was Portugal’s representative in the Supervisory Board of ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism. She was a Member of the European Parliament (2004–2016) and a Member of the Portuguese Parliament (2002–2004) and she was the Portuguese Minister for Planning (1999–2002), and for the Environment (1995–1999). Dr Elisa Ferreira held a number of other positions, including that of Executive Vice-President of the Porto Industrial Association (1992–1994) and Vice-President of Portugal’s Northern Region Coordination and Development Commission (1988–1992). Dr Elisa Ferreira is an Honorary Fellow of the European International Business Academy. She was awarded the Grã-Cruz da Ordem Militar de Cristo and the Grã-Cruz da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique by Portugal’s President of the Republic.

Marta Götz is a Professor of Economics, Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Department of Business and International Relations of Vistula University, Warsaw. Her research interests include foreign direct investment (FDI), clusters, Industry 4.0, digital transformation and international competitiveness including investment attractiveness. She has conducted individual and team projects granted by the National Science Centre (NCN), the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) and the Visegrad Fund. She is a member of the Academy of International Business (AIB) and the European International Business Academy (EIBA). ORCID: 0000-0002-8764-871X

Birgitte Grøgaard is a Professor at the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway. Her research interests include strategies of multinational enterprises, headquarter-subsidiary relationships, and foreign direct investments. Birgitte’s research is currently mainly focused on how firms navigate the complexities of the energy transition. Prior to pursuing her PhD, Birgitte worked for a multinational oil and gas company and as a management consultant.

Siyana Gurova is a Research Associate and Lecturer at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Zurich. Her research primarily focuses on geopolitical risks, multinational enterprises and the international competitiveness of firms. Dr Gurova is actively engaged in an applied research project examining the economic and trade impacts of geopolitical risks, with a particular focus on US–China decoupling. Additionally, her current research explores corporate preparedness in response to increasing ESG reporting regulations.

Simona Iammarino is Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Economics and Business of the University of Cagliari, Italy; Visiting Professor at the Department of Geography & Environment of the LSE; member of the Board of the LSE-Cañada Blanch Centre; affiliate faculty member at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) L’Aquila, Italy. She has published more than 70 articles in major peer-reviewed journals, two co-authored books, around 30 book chapters, and numerous working papers, policy reports and other publications. She is co-editor of the Journal of Economic Geography, member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Executive Group and Board, and Chair of the RSA Journal Committee. Simona has a long-term experience in externally funded international research projects, and in consultancy projects for international organizations. She has been recently awarded the ‘ERSA European Prize in Regional Science 2024’, the European Regional Science Association, and the ‘Giacomo Becattini’ Prize, Italian Society of Economics and Industrial Policy (SIEPI).

Barbara Jankowska is a Full Professor in Social Sciences, Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Department of International Competitiveness, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. Her research interests include sustainable international competitiveness of firms and industries, foreign direct investment (FDI), clusters and digital transformation. She has conducted individual and team projects granted by the National Science Centre (NCN) and Horizon Europe. She is a member of the Academy of International Business (AIB) and the European International Business Academy (EIBA). ORCID: 0000-0003-1984-3449

Benjamin Kanne is a Consultant at Lånio in Copenhagen. He earned his Bachelor of Science from Copenhagen Business School and a Master of Management from Católica Porto Business School – Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Florian Keller is Professor for Global Business and International Relations and leads the Center for Global Competitiveness at ZHAW School of Management and Law. He is also Director of the MBA program, which is an executive education program that prepares junior and middle managers for their next career step. Professor Keller has been leading teams for over 20 years and has worked in a wide range of industries from telecommunication to tourism, diplomacy, business consultancy and academia. In his research, he concentrates on the interlink between international politics and international business and asks how economies can drive their competitiveness. He initiated the Swiss Managers Survey and heads up an expert think tank for foreign policy in a major Swiss political party.

Constantin Lackinger is a Research and Teaching Associate, as well as a PhD Candidate, at the Institute for International Business at WU Vienna. His research currently focuses on the intersection of finance and geopolitics in international business. He was nominated for the 2024 Alan M. Rugman Most Promising Scholar Award (AIB). He holds a Master’s degree in Export & Internationalization Management from WU Vienna, and Bachelor’s degree in Sinology from the University of Vienna and in Business, Economics & Social Sciences from WU Vienna. His academic journey includes studies at Peking University and Copenhagen Business School, complemented by professional experience in the infrastructure, financial, and creative industries.

George Yunxiong Li has been an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Global Public Policy, Fudan University, since 2023. He holds a PhD in Economic Geography from the London School of Economics and a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Peking University. His research centres on technological innovation, critical raw materials, foreign direct investment, multinational enterprises and supply chain management. His current work investigates the supply dynamics of critical raw materials and technological paradigm shifts, exploring how these dynamics influence the technological trajectories of nations and regions, as well as how firms’ reliance on critical raw materials impacts their supply chain strategies and foreign investment behaviour. His research has appeared in journals such as Research Policy and The Singapore Economic Review.

Tariq H. Malik is a Professor of Management and Innovation Studies at Liaoning University, China, and founding director of the International Centre for Organisation and Innovation Studies (ICOIS), with branches in the UK, Singapore, and China. He holds a PhD from the University of London and is a life member of WINIR (World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research). Dr Malik has published extensively on international business, technology transfer and socio-economic development, focusing on cross-cultural management and innovation policy. He has received prestigious accolades, including Best Reviewer Awards and Best Paper Awards at top management and business conferences. His leadership in academic conferences and visiting positions at globally recognized institutions further highlight his contribution to the field.

Amy Linh Thuy Nguyen is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Management at the Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University, UK. Her research interests are in the fields of International Business, Strategy and Business History. She focuses on the topics of FDI, international trades, intellectual property rights (especially on the use of trademarks data), innovation, risk management strategies, knowledge transfer and organizational learning. Amy holds a PhD in Management (specialized in International Business), a MSc in Global Marketing (Distinction) from the University of York and a MA in Economics & Finance (Honours) from the University of Edinburgh.

Krzysztof Obłój is a Distinguished Professor of Strategy and International Business at Kozminski University, Poland. He served as President of the European International Business Academy in 1994, and from 2006 onwards is a Fellow of EIBA. He has spent a considerable amount of time doing research and lecturing abroad, in the USA, Europe and China (Sun Yat sen University). He published several books in the US and Poland, and over 100 articles in Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Journal of Management Studies, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Management International Review, European Journal of International Management, International Small Business Journal, Post Communist Economies, and several Polish journals. Krzysztof Obłój is a renown corporate speaker, consultant and a member of several supervisory boards. He was advisor to President of Poland, B Komorowski.

Anupama Phene is Professor of International Business and Phillip Grub Distinguished Scholar at the School of Business at George Washington University. She received her PhD in International Management from the University of Texas and her MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Her research focuses on strategies to create innovation and enable knowledge transfer. She has authored publications in the Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Economic Geography, Management International Review, Journal of Management Studies and the Journal of Management. She is Consulting Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies and a Fellow of the Academy of International Business.

Lucia Piscitello is Professor of International Business and Economics at Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests cover the economics and management of MNEs, and the international aspects of technological change. Her recent studies focus on the reorganization of global productive and innovation processes, the co-evolution between digital technologies, innovation and skills, and the adoption of sustainable and circular economy principles within GVCs. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals. She has published over 90 refereed journal articles. Her work has appeared in the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Global Strategy Journal, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Economic Geography, Economic Geography, among others. She is Visiting Professor at the Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK. She is Fellow, Past President, and Chair of the European International Business Academy (EIBA), and Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB).

Diego Quer is a Full Professor at the Department of Management, University of Alicante, Spain, and a Visiting Professor at the Southwest University of Science and Technology, and Shaoxing University, China. His research interests focus on international management with special attention to the Chinese context. His articles have been published in journals such as the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, International Business Review, Family Business Review, China & World Economy, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and Cross Cultural & Strategic Management. He is Managing Editor of the European Journal of International Management and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Emerging Markets.

Susana C. Silva is an Associate Professor (with a habilitation in Marketing) at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Porto Business School (CPBS), where she is also a Researcher at the Research Centre in Management and Economics. She is also Professor at the University of Saint Joseph in Macao, China, and Case Pool Coordinator at the Learn & Share Program of Catolica International Business Platform. She earned her PhD in Marketing from University College Dublin in Ireland. Her research interests encompass international marketing, the internationalization process, international alliances, and IJVs. Her significant contributions have been published in journals such as International Business Review, International Marketing Review, Thunderbird International Business Review, European Journal of International Management, Journal of Business Research, and Psychology & Marketing, among others. Dr Silva represents Portugal at the European Marketing Academy and previously served as a board member at the European International Business Academy.

Sverre Tomassen is Associate Professor at the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at BI Norwegian Business School. His research interest is in the interface of international business, international management, and global strategy. His research has been published in several books concerning managerial and strategic issues of globalization, and in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, International Business Review, Journal of International Management, and Journal of Organization Design. He has previously been a visiting scholar for three periods at The University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Business and Economics.

Szymon Truskolaski – PhD in Economics (2004), Habilitation degree in Economics and Finances (2015), works in International Business Department in Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poland. His research interests include: economics of innovations, Knowledge Based Economies, gaming sector. He also applies his academic experience to business practice. He is an expert in predictive modelling, machine learning and data-driven strategy. He uses AI to design strategic economic games that optimize various business processes or predict operational failures.

Ari Van Assche (PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa) is Full Professor in International Business and Co-director of the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy at HEC Montréal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Policy and Fellow of the Academy of International Business. He specializes in the organization of global value chains and their implication for public policy.

Roksolyana Voronovska is Head of the UCU Online platform for online courses at the Ukrainian Catholic University, which she launched in 2022. From 2012, she worked at the UCU Business School, holding the position of Development Director. She was responsible for marketing, international partnerships, alumni network development, project development. Since the creation of LvBS Consulting in 2019, she served as CEO. She teaches courses related to strategy. In 2022, she conducted research on the adaptation of Ukrainian businesses to the largest crisis – the war, together with Professor Krzysztof Obłój. Roksoliana holds a Master’s degree in International Economics, an LLM in Intellectual Property from the University of Turin.

Benedikt Zoller-Rydzek is a Senior Lecturer at the ZHAW School of Management and Law in Switzerland, specializing in international business, economics and public finance. He earned his PhD from ETH Zurich, where he employed empirical methods to analyze firm-level behaviour and establish causal relationships. His research addresses issues like wage disparities, tax advantages, and strategic location decisions for multinationals. Dr Zoller-Rydzek has contributed to projects for the European Parliament on Belarus’s economic restructuring and analyzed globalization-induced tariff impacts with UNU WIDER and SA-TIED. As a DIZH Fellow, he also investigates the digitalization of multinational firms.

This PIBR volume is dedicated to John Cantwell for his outstanding contributions to International Business (IB) research. Besides being a key and well-respected author, John has also provided significant, continuous and very generous services to the IB community in a large number of roles.

As an optimist and a strong believer in human progress (Cantwell, 2021), John has always been ready to support other scholars – whether junior or senior – by diligently responding to questions, revising texts or simply confirming (or informing) one’s ideas by clear and constructive arguments. One of us still remembers the time he spent, back in 1993, on correcting poorly written English drafts – thus helping to include a non-native speaker into the IB community. As a team player, he has proven excellent at finding ways to overcome conflictual arguments or positions. This has provided him great esteem with colleagues as well as former students. Most of these became friends and are still co-authors – thus helping to advance relevant IB research in multiple directions. Several contributions from those he has influenced can be found in this volume.

Born and raised in Hornchurch, a town that is now part of Greater London, John holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from the University of Oxford, an M.Sc. in Economics, from the University of London, and a Ph.D. in Economics, from the University of Reading. His Ph.D. supervisor was John H. Dunning, who became not just John’s mentor but also a cherished friend. As John is the first to recognize (Cantwell, 2021), Dunning’s influence on John’s career and research path has been very important. The imprint of the Department of Economics of the University of Reading, where John H. Dunning was the undisputed leader, was also significant: John walked all the steps, from Research Librarian (1980–1984), through Lecturer, when he was still a doctoral student, to Professor in International Economics (1993–2002). He took over the Professorship in International Economics from John H. Dunning, after the latter’s (mandatory) retirement and move to Rutgers University in the US. Ten years later, John would follow in his mentor’s footsteps, moving to Rutgers (2002), where he became Distinguished Professor of International Business in 2010. John held several visiting professorships, including the universities of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ (Italy), Toulouse (France) and Vienna (Austria). In 2019, he was named the PWC Strategy & Eminent Scholar by the International Management Division of the Academy of Management. In 2021, he received an honoris causa doctorate from Complutense University of Madrid.

His significant contributions to society materialized in particular through his participation in public policy-oriented projects in support of international organizations. These include inter alia the following activities: consultancy to the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations; involvement in European Commission’s Key Action for Socio-Economic Research project on assessing the impact of technological innovation and globalization on growth and employment (coordinated by Jonathan Michie); and contribution to a project on industrial districts’ re-location processes, aimed at identifying policies in the perspective of EU enlargement, under the European Commission’s programme for Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base.

While keeping some of the tenets of John H. Dunning’s thinking, very often with his own twist (see for instance Cantwell, 2015), John Cantwell developed his distinctive intellectual pathway at the juncture between the fields of technological innovation and multinational enterprises (Álvarez, 2021). This really corresponds to his research roots in which he explored the role of technology and knowledge on evolutionary thinking as well as the relevance of international networking. His book Technological Innovations and Multinational Corporations (Cantwell, 1989) – based on his 1986 PhD thesis – became a key source for IB scholars, as more than 2,500 Google Scholar citations testify. At the beginning of this book he makes a statement that would become a consistent thread of his research: Multinational Companies (MNCs) ‘have become global organiser[s] of economic systems, including systems for allied technological development in different parts of the world’ (Cantwell, 1989, p. 10). The MNEs should, thereby, be envisaged as an internationally networked organisation and as a worldwide orchestrator of knowledge, coming from different locations (Cantwell, 1995). In this process, foreign subsidiaries play a key role by accessing and synthesising relevant knowledge. Under specific conditions, subsidiary evolution might lead to the emergence of supply-driven R&D activities in competence-creating subsidiaries (Cantwell & Mudambi, 2005). However, subsidiary activity is not necessarily beneficial for host countries, as he for instance showed with regard to the automotive industry in the UK (Cantwell, 1987).

Drawing on these intellectual roots, John Cantwell has gradually enlarged his perspective to grant an increased role to geography, location and institutions while espousing a more complex approach to evolutionary thinking. As he put in his speech at the investiture as Doctor Honoris Causa of the Complutense University of Madrid, to understand ‘social evolution we must address the co-evolution of the various parts of a social system’ (Cantwell, 2021, p. 8). The trajectories of the two Johns (Cantwell and Dunning), converged again, now joined by Sarianna Lundan, cooperating in ‘a stream of research investigating the processes of co-evolution of MNCs and their institutional environment’ (Cantwell, 2021, p. 8). Co-evolution became the key word to translate the multi-directional interaction between international business actors, local societies and their associated institutions and knowledge creation and preservation processes (Cantwell et al., 2010; Lundan & Cantwell, 2020). These dynamics have taken new patterns in the information age (Alcácer et al., 2016), in which global cities play an increasingly key role in knowledge creation, as greater compatibility between local and non-local knowledge sourcing facilitates the development of new knowledge combinations (Cantwell & Zaman, 2024).

Besides his research contributions, John has rendered numerous services to our profession as well as to the IB field, as he likes to call it. Between 2011 and 2016, he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS); he actively promoted interdisciplinarity (Cantwell & Brannen, 2011 and 2016), while encouraging the openness to younger scholars and to a wider range of IB contributions. He is Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB) as well as of the European International Business Academy (EIBA). John was one of the four Founding EIBA Fellows; he became Dean of the EIBA Fellows in December 2015. He served as President of EIBA (in 1992) and from 2019 to 2024 served as co-editor (together with Barbara Jankowska) of EIBAzine. He is also one of the authors of the book on the history of EIBA (Simões et al., 2025).

For all these reasons, this tribute to John Cantwell is well deserved. He is not just a wonderful person and colleague but also an outstanding academic, strongly devoted to IB research, following a humanistic, evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspective in which service to the wider society has been a recurring theme. He fits well with a string of eminent IB scholars who were honored in previous PIBR volumes: Danny Van Den Bulcke, Alan Rugman, Louis Wells, Rosalie Tung, Lorraine Eden, Peter J. Buckley, D. Eleanor Westney, Geoffrey Jones and Alain Verbeke.

We conclude this tribute with a quote from John Cantwell, which not only illustrates his personal intellectual philosophy, but can also provide relevant guidance and inspiration for every IB scholar:

Lisboa, Rotterdam and Leiria,

August 8^th, 2024

Vítor Corado Simões, Rob van Tulder, Nuno Fernandes Crespo and Cátia Crespo