SMS-Rio Special Conference – March 10-13, 2011
<st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place>'s Burgeoning Strategic Role in Global Development
http://rio.strategicmanagement.net
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2010
In March 2011, immediately following Brazilian "Carnaval", the Strategic Management Society will bring together emerging market scholars from different parts of the world together with business executives and government officials in a special conference focused on the role of Latin American multinationals in the emerging world economy in the exciting and exotic location of Rio de Janeiro.
Recent events have led to major changes in the world economy, with emerging markets gaining interest amongst global strategy scholars, business consultants, and managers. However, a review of publications on firms from emerging markets in top management journals reveals that the vast majority of recent work in this area has tended to focus on firms in <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place> and transition economies. While China is the top emerging market destination of foreign direct investment (United Nations, 2009), other emerging markets provide important growth opportunities and offer distinct economic, political, and social challenges critical to the development of a more complete understanding of strategy issues which will shape the global economy for years to come.
This conference seeks to contribute to this understanding by creating a scholarly forum for the study of <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place> companies, industries, trade and investment. <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place> is demonstrating increasing strategic connections to other emerging markets and to the developed world. The Latin American region has gained prominence as an FDI destination – particularly for North American firms with close ties to the region as well as for European firms (and particularly Spanish companies), and as a source of imports (particularly to China). The "wide ranging trade liberalization, deregulation and privatization policies that took place throughout the region in the 1990s" have encouraged many Latin American countries to increase their outward foreign direct investment and other internationalization activities (United Nations, 2006: 132). Unfortunately, despite the importance of the region and its distinctive development process, the strategic management literature can provide limited recommendations to managers of firms from this region or entering the region due to the lack of Latin America-focused research.
This special conference will focus on the Latin America region, broadly defined to cover the countries in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Americas</st1:country-region> that were colonized by <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on"> Portugal</st1:country-region> or <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Spain</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and its role within both emerging market strategy studies and global development generally. The goal is to build on previous SMS Special Conferences that covered single country settings to allow discussion of the diversity of activities in the region. Accordingly, we call for contributions examining strategies for Latin America and <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place>'s new strategic role in broader emerging market and globalization studies. We particularly hope to encourage research collaboration between <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place> scholars and scholars from other regions of the world. To this end, the conference organizing committee involves a wide range of participants both from around <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place> and throughout the world. We are all very enthusiastic about the opportunity to be part of an event that opens up opportunities for emerging market strategy research.
To maximize the conference experience, the program will include multiple participation formats, such as pre-conference doctoral consortium and paper development workshops, presentations from top executives, formal panels, traditional paper presentation sessions, interactive paper sessions, debate sessions regarding significant and controversial issues in the emerging markets literature, an exciting evening event featuring traditional Brazilian cuisine and entertainment, and much more.
Come join us for this conference co-located in the Copacabana Beach area, one of the most famous and beautiful beaches in the world, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC–Rio), located in the heart of a rainforest in the Gavea area of Rio. The submission system is now open on the SMS Web site, and we invite you to submit your work for this important conference by October 15, 2010. We hope to see you in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Rio de Janeiro</st1:city></st1:place> in March 2011!
For more information, see: http://rio.strategicmanagement.net
Please also feel free to contact any of the conference co-chairs for further information: William Newburry (newburry@fiu.edu), Ronaldo Parente (ronaldo@parente.com), Angela da Rocha (angelarocha@iag.puc-rio.br) or Jorge da Silva (shopshop@iag.puc-rio.br).