From homogenization to pluralism: International management research in the Academy and beyond

Evidence abounds that globalization has been one of the most significant and rapid changes in recent decades. A crude measure of economic glob-alization is that aggregate world exports as a per-centage of world gross domestic product (GDP) in-creased from 11.6 percent in 1970 to 30.7 percent in 2006 (United Nations, 2007). Given the continuing growth of many emerging economies, along with increases in both their inflow and outflow of for-eign direct investments, it is unlikely that there will be a slowdown or reversal of this globalization trend in the near future. A direct implication of globalization is that international management re-search is not only desirable but also critical to generate knowledge on the management of firm