STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS GIANTS

This book serves as an introductory volume to Yair Aharoni's remarkable impact on international business (IB) research. Most IB researchers will be familiar with at least one aspect of his work, but relatively few will be familiar with his broader body of work, as it spans so many of the issues addressed today in IB and strategy. This book aims to introduce readers to the depth and breadth of his impact.

Unquestionably a founder of the IB field, over the course of his long career, Aharoni influenced its earliest development and, driven by a deep connection to policy and managerial practice, continually challenged conventional thinking on IB and strategy. He generated seminal insights into many aspects of why and how firms internationalize, including managerial decision-making processes, the strategies employed by state-owned enterprises, the interaction between firms and governments, and the foreign expansion of firms — including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and those operating in the service sector — based in small and open economies. His research contributed to several salient research directions, including the behavioral theory of the firm, emerging-market multinationals, international entrepreneurship, the service economy, and non-market strategies.

Aharoni was also an influential educator, having served as the founding dean of two top business schools in Israel. He was deeply engaged with the Israeli business environment — particularly senior executives of start-up companies — and a highly-valued advisor to the Israeli government. In honor of these contributions, Aharoni was the first management scholar in Israel, to be awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 2010. Few scholars have had such meaningful impact on research, practice, and policy.

Contents:

• Introduction:
  • Yair Aharoni Eulogy: Academy of International Business Fellows Business Meeting, June 1, 2021 (Arie Y Lewin)
  • Introduction to This Volume
  • 2010 Israel Prize
• Yair Aharoni's Academic Legacy:
  • General:
    • Introduction to Yair Aharoni's Intellectual Contributions (Arie Y Lewin, Ravi Ramamurti, and Elizabeth L Rose)
    • Insights Into the Future of International Business (Yair Aharoni)
    • A Few Lessons from My Long Experience in IB Research (Yair Aharoni)
  • Strategic Decision-Making and Internationalization:
    • Performance and Autonomy in Organizations: Determining Dominant Environmental Components (Yair Aharoni, Zvi Maimon, and Eli Segev)
    • Interrelationships Between Environmental Dependencies: A Basis for Tradeoffs to Increase Autonomy (Yair Aharoni, Zvi Maimon, and Eli Segev)
    • In Search for the Unique: Can Firm-Specific Advantages Be Evaluated? (Yair Aharoni)
    • Behavioral Elements in Foreign Direct Investment Decisions (Yair Aharoni)
    • The Evolution of Multinationals (Yair Aharoni and Ravi Ramamurti)
  • State-Owned Enterprises:
    • Managerial Discretion (Yair Aharoni)
    • Performance Evaluation of State-Owned Enterprises: A Process Perspective (Yair Aharoni)
    • State-Owned Enterprise: An Agent Without a Principal (Yair Aharoni)
    • Can the Manager's Mind Be Nationalized? (Yair Aharoni and Ran Lachman)
  • Small Firms and Countries in the Global Economy:
    • The Role of Small Firms in an Interdependent World (Yair Aharoni)
    • How Small Firms Can Achieve Competitive Advantage in an Interdependent World (Yair Aharoni)
    • Globalization and the Small, Open Economy (Yair Aharoni)
    • Israeli Multinationals: Competing from a Small Open Economy (Yair Aharoni)
  • Service Firms in the Global Economy:
    • The Internationalization Process in Professional Business Service Firms: Some Tentative Conclusions (Yair Aharoni)
    • The Organization of Global Service MNEs (Yair Aharoni)
    • The Competitive Potential of Technology-Intensive Industries in Developing Countries (Yair Aharoni)
  • Aharoni's Final Academic Presentation:
    • Internationalization of State-Owned Firms: Do Governments Help or Hinder? (Yair Aharoni)
    • Reflection on Yair Aharoni's Presentation (Cheng Li)
• Recognition and Recollection from AIB Fellows and Other Scholars:
  • International Colleagues Remember Yair Aharoni (Arie Y Lewin, Ravi Ramamurti, and Elizabeth L Rose)
  • Yair Aharoni's 1966 'The Foreign Investment Decision Process': A Classic Work of International Business Research (Peter J Buckley)
  • Tribute to Yair Aharoni (Robert Grosse)
  • Yair Aharoni Memorial (Louis T Wells)
  • A Tribute to Yair Aharoni (Pervez N Ghauri)
  • Tribute to Yair Aharoni (Jeremy Clegg)
  • Yair Aharoni: Personal Memories and a Short Tribute (Raj Aggarwal)
  • Yair Aharoni: An Abductive Case Researcher (Rebecca Piekkari and Ingmar Björkman)
  • Personal Recollections from AIB Fellows
  • Yair Aharoni: His Influence on the Strategy and International Business Areas in Israel and on My Work (Niron Hashai)
  • Yair Aharoni: Behavioral Scientist (Christian Bellak)
  • Learning from Yair (Laszlo Tihanyi)
• Yair Aharoni's Deep Connection to Place:
  • Yair Aharoni: Academic Entrepreneur, Senior Policy Adviser, and Executive Don (Arie Y Lewin, Ravi Ramamurti, and Elizabeth L Rose)
  • Professor Yair Aharoni — A Tribute (Yair E Orgler)
  • My Memory of Yair Aharoni (Jehiel Zif)
  • Small Countries Creating Global Advantages: A Tribute to Yair Aharoni (Tamar Almor)
  • Some Memories and Reflections on and of Yair Aharoni (David M Brock)
  • A Tribute to Prof. Yair Aharoni (Avishai Gal)

Readership: Graduate students and scholars of international business, strategy, and international entrepreneurship, Faculty entering the field of international business (e.g., participants in junior faculty consortia at academic conferences), Instructors of international business, strategy, and international entrepreneurship PhD seminar courses, and business practitioners and managers interested in the field of international business.

Key Features:

• The first volume in a series that aims to capture the development of the field of international business by featuring its most seminal contributors
• Collects the seminal writings of Yair Aharoni, along with commentaries on his contributions to our understanding of how and why firms internationalize
• Includes contributors from key international business scholars