The future of international business research on corporate globalization that never was…

‘‘Globalization’’ is one of the oldest and most recurrent themes in international business (IB) research. The concept refers to the growth and broadening scope of international economic exchange relationships of any one country with all other countries around the world, as measured by trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, and other types of exchanges (capital, people, technology, ideas, effective institutional practices). Globalization has triggered extensive, ongoing measurement of several parameters at the macro-level, and has stimulated extensive dialogue on drivers, process dynamics, rates of change, and ultimate impacts. Business historians have shown that globalization tendencies, though deeply rooted in the history of various human civilizations, have unfolded through non-linear processes and with drivers and impacts that are still vigorously debated (Hopkins, 2002; O’Rourke & Williamson, 2002; Jones, 2005)