The (COVID-19) pandemic and the new world (dis)order

Causal mechanisms of COVID-19 disruptive effects on liability of foreignness and the emergence of new firm-specific advantages

There is the need for comprehensive research on the disruptive effects of COVID-19 on international business (IB) in preparation for future disruption. However, we know little about the causal mechanisms of the phenomenon which impacted IB. Based on a case study of a Japanese automotive firm in Russia, we investigate how firms tackle institutional entrepreneurship with firm-specific advantages to overcome the disruptive effects. Consequently, the pandemic increased institutional costs due to greater uncertainty in Russian regulatory institutions. To manage this, the firm developed new firm-specific advantages to deal with the increasing uncertainty of regulative institutions. The firm united with other firms to motivate public officials to advocate for semi-official debates. Our study contributes to extending intersecting studies on the liability of foreignness and firm-specific advantages through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship. We propose a holistic conceptual process model of the causal mechanisms and a novel construct for new firm-specific advantages.

Economic impact of COVID-19 across national boundaries: The role of government responses

This Research Note provides an assessment of the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on both individuals and firms, with a particular focus on the heterogeneity in government responses and their implications for international finance and IB research. In particular, we discuss disparities in vaccine distribution, government policy responses, and impacts in low-income versus high-income countries, as well as lessons learned from the pandemic. We describe an important source of data in this area and provide ideas for future research.

Global health governance performance during Covid-19, what needs to be changed? a delphi survey study

BACKGROUND

Covid-19 is not the first pandemic to challenge GHG. Preceding outbreaks and epidemics were sources of continuous debate on GHG leadership and structure resulting in its current structure. However, Covid-19 proved the presence of many deficits in the current GHG. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a cumulative result of all policies and actions of different governments and agencies active in global health. Assessing how Covid-19 is being handled globally provides lessons for ensuring better performance in facing upcoming outbreaks. This study has three main objectives: first, to evaluate the performance of GHG during Covid-19 in general and in relation to Covid-19 vaccine equity in particular. Second, to identify the reasons behind this performance; and third, to propose prospective changes in GHG for better performance.

METHODS

A cross-sectional research design using the Delphi method was applied. A panel of experts participated in the three-round Delphi surveys. Their scores were used to perform consensus, performance and correlation analysis.

RESULTS

GHG performance limited the achievement of Covid-19 vaccines' global equity. GHG performance is a product of the existing GHG system, its actors and legal framework. It is a collective result of individual GHG actors' performance. The most influential actors in decision-making regarding Covid-19 vaccine are the vaccine manufacturers and governments. While the most invoked power to influence decision are economic and political powers. Covid-19 decisions underlying value, although had human right to health at the base, overlooked the concept of health as a global public good and was skewed towards market-oriented values. GHG mal-performance along with its underlying factors calls for four main changes in GHG structure: assigning a clear steward for GHG, enhanced accountability, centralized authority, more equitable representation of actors, and better legal framework.

CONCLUSION

GHG structure, actors' representation, accountability system, and underlying priorities and value require future modification for GHG to achieve better future performance and higher health equity levels.

Global work in a rapidly changing world: Implications for MNEs and individuals

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great “reset” and has challenged many assumptions about work and life in general. Our focus in this paper is on the future of global work in the context of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We take a phenomenon-based approach to describe the important trends and challenges affecting the where, who, how and why of global work. As we highlight implications for organizations and individuals, we offer a set of research questions to guide future research and inform IHRM practitioners.

Computational approach investigation bioactive molecules from Saussurea Costus plant as SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitors using reverse docking, molecular dynamics simulation, and pharmacokinetic ADMET parameters

SARS-COV-2 virus causes (COVID-19) disease; it has become a global pandemic since 2019 and has negatively affected all aspects of human life. Scientists have made great efforts to find a reliable cure, vaccine, or treatment for this emerging disease. Efforts have been directed towards using medicinal plants as alternative medicines, as the active chemical compounds in them have been discovered as potential antiviral or anti-inflammatory agents. In this research, the potential of Saussurea costus (S. Costus) or QUST Al Hindi chemical consistent as potential antiviral agents was investigated by using computational methods such as Reverse Docking, ADMET, and Molecular Dynamics with different proteases COVID-19 such as PDB: 2GZ9; 6LU7; 7AOL, 6Y2E, 6Y84. The results of Reverse Docking the complex between 6LU7 proteases and Cynaropicrin compound being the best complex, as the same result, is achieved by molecular dynamics. Also, the toxicity testing result from ADMET method proved that the complex is the least toxic and the safest possible drug. In addition, 6LU7-Cynaropicrin complex obeyed Lipinski rule; it formed ≤5 H-bond donors and ≤10 H bond acceptors, MW < 500 Daltons, and octanol/water partition coefficient <5.

Foreign to all but fluent in many: The effect of multinationality on shock resilience

The sudden COVID-19 pandemic sent shockwaves through international markets. This paper studies the relation between multinationality and risk. While IB literature agrees that internationalization, in times of relative stability, increases systematic risk, we argue that internationalization also improves resilience against exogenous shocks. Leveraging the sequential COVID-waves as a unique empirical laboratory, we show that although multinationality causes liability of foreignness that increases systematic risk, it also generates an asset of multinationality that enhances shock resilience. Yet this advantage of internationalized firms gradually erodes as less internationalized firms learn about the shock and investors adapt their valuations to the post-shock reality.

Leveraging artificial intelligence and data science techniques in harmonizing, sharing, accessing and analyzing SARS-COV-2/COVID-19 data in Rwanda (LAISDAR Project): study design and rationale

Background

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Rwanda, a vast amount of SARS-COV-2/COVID-19-related data have been collected including COVID-19 testing and hospital routine care data. Unfortunately, those data are fragmented in silos with different data structures or formats and cannot be used to improve understanding of the disease, monitor its progress, and generate evidence to guide prevention measures. The objective of this project is to leverage the artificial intelligence (AI) and data science techniques in harmonizing datasets to support Rwandan government needs in monitoring and predicting the COVID-19 burden, including the hospital admissions and overall infection rates.

Methods

The project will gather the existing data including hospital electronic health records (EHRs), the COVID-19 testing data and will link with longitudinal data from community surveys. The open-source tools from Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) will be used to harmonize hospital EHRs through the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model (CDM). The project will also leverage other OHDSI tools for data analytics and network integration, as well as R Studio and Python. The network will include up to 15 health facilities in Rwanda, whose EHR data will be harmonized to OMOP CDM.

Expected results

This study will yield a technical infrastructure where the 15 participating hospitals and health centres will have EHR data in OMOP CDM format on a local Mac Mini (“data node”), together with a set of OHDSI open-source tools. A central server, or portal, will contain a data catalogue of participating sites, as well as the OHDSI tools that are used to define and manage distributed studies. The central server will also integrate the information from the national Covid-19 registry, as well as the results of the community surveys. The ultimate project outcome is the dynamic prediction modelling for COVID-19 pandemic in Rwanda.

Discussion

The project is the first on the African continent leveraging AI and implementation of an OMOP CDM based federated data network for data harmonization. Such infrastructure is scalable for other pandemics monitoring, outcomes predictions, and tailored response planning.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Risk Management in Foreign Direct Investment: Insights and Implications

Aiming to identify the intellectual structure of risk management in foreign direct investment and its evolving trends, this paper introduces bibliometric analysis to systematically review the 1231 articles published between 1995 and 2022. Through the analysis of publication trends, influential indicators, cooperative networks, and citations, we draw the following important conclusions. From 1995 to 2021, the average annual growth rate of scientific production in the field reached 21.4%, with scholars from the United States and China contributing the most. Regarding the cooperation network, its structure is relatively dispersed, and the deep cooperation among a wide range of researchers has not yet been formed. As for research topics, the popularity of interest in environmental protection, carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, and climate change has increased significantly in recent years. Moreover, this paper points out that future research directions include new risks and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate risks on foreign direct investment. These results are helpful for scholars to systematically understand the current research status, research frontiers, and future trends of risk management in foreign direct investment.

What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know about COVID-19’s Implications on Business Economics? From Bibliometric Analysis to a Conceptual Framework

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of COVID-19-related research in business economics. The current status of research on economic management in COVID-19 is shown through descriptive statistics. The corresponding knowledge maps are obtained based on keyword clustering analysis, and research topics of interest to Chinese and foreign readers are identified. This paper finds that the impact of COVID-19 on business economics is mainly manifested in six major themes, namely COVID-19 and crisis management, COVID-19 and supply chain, COVID-19 and digitalization, COVID-19 and economic development, COVID-19 and organizational management, and COVID-19 and sustainable development. Based on these research foundations, this paper proposes a research framework for economic management under the influence of COVID-19. It describes the current research status, research directions, and future topics of six key research themes from macro, meso, and micro perspectives, to provide a knowledge base for research and practice in the field of economic management in the post-pandemic era.

SME Top Management Perception of Environmental Uncertainty and Gender Differences during COVID-19

Environmental scanning has become increasingly crucial for an organisation’s existence and a matter of interest for scholars and professionals. This research presents an outline of the situation in the field of multidimensional environmental scanning, focusing on Slovenian micro, small and medium sized organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the paper aims to examine if top managers perceive the multidimensional (external) environment as uncertain and if there have been gender differences in multidimensional (external) environmental uncertainty perception during the COVID-19 pandemic. We researched the field of ecological, social, technological, economic, and political–legal environments. The nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test and descriptive statistics were used to test the research hypotheses. The results show that top managers are not aware enough of multidimensional environmental uncertainty. They do not perceive the ecological and social environment as unpredictable at all. Among the studied environments, they perceive the political–legal environment as most unpredictable. There are no statistically significant gender differences in perceptions of ecological, social, technological, economic, and political–legal environmental uncertainty. We suggest SME top managers pay more attention to environmental uncertainty and use environmental scanning methods to achieve more sustainable development.

COVID‐19 Pandemic: The Interplay Between Firm Disruption and Managerial Attention Focus

Pandemics and epidemics occur regularly, yet their impact on firm behaviours is under‐researched. COVID‐19 provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of a once‐in‐a‐century pandemic – given its scope, swift spread, health and economic devastation – on firms’ behaviours. Attention is the critical and initial step of the environmental adaptation process. In this paper, we draw on two complementary theories – contingency and attention‐based view – and examine the relationship between disruption experienced by firms and their COVID‐19 attention focus – a sudden exogenous shock. Industry environments may influence which signals attract managerial attention; hence, we examine if firm disruption–COVID‐19 attention focus is moderated by industry dynamism. Drawing on the publicly available data and using a sample of 1,861 US and 1,154 Chinese firms – two diametrically opposite situational contexts – we test the generalizability of our hypotheses. We find a positive relationship between firm disruption and COVID‐19 attention focus for the US sample and that industry dynamism negatively moderates this relationship. In the case of Chinese firms, these relationships were insignificant. Further analysis using topic modelling revealed that business–government relationships accounted for this difference.

Why the world economy needs, but will not get, more globalization in the post-COVID-19 decade

Contractor argues that the coronavirus outbreak only had temporary effects on the global economy, and that post COVID-19 globalization will resume. We posit that the pandemic will have significant long-lasting effects on globalization. Our arguments are grounded in three observations. First, the pandemic has increased inter- and intra-country inequalities and has reversed trends in poverty reduction, which will intensify anti-globalization sentiments in the future. Second, the pandemic has fueled populism, nationalism, and the return of the interventionist state in the economy, which has paved the way for a rise in protectionism. Third, governmental responses to the COVID-19 crisis have undermined the multilateral institutions that have thus far facilitated globalization. These forces have resulted in growing global uncertainty and higher costs in international transactions. We argue that global value chains' reconfiguration will result in a less globalized, and more regionally fragmented world economy. We conclude by suggesting two fertile opportunities for international business scholars: researching commitment failure in international transactions and studying resilience, as illustrative examples of lines of inquiry that can help explain why this latest pandemic will compromise trends in globalization that have dominated the world economy for a long time.