The bumpy ride to 2020

• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22103
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Mary B. Teagarden

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The bumpy ride to 2020

For most of my life 2020 was THE FUTURE. As we got closer to this

long-heraldedyear, I was hopeful about 2020's promise fora very posi-

tive future. Technology could free people from tedious work—the

Fourth IndustrialRevolution promised efficient, effective,and liberating

opportunities for all. Science promised solutions to eradicate disease,

attenuate the ravagesof climate change, and feed the hungry. Globali-

zation promised reachfrom the bottom of the pyramid to the top with

innovative and shared solutions to improve the everyday lives of peo-

ple around the world.Somehow these trajectories have goneawry.

I admit that I was naïve. Despite using socio-technical perspec-

tives in my research as long as I have been a scholar, my long-held

vision of the future failed to factor in people—their fears, personal

ambitions, hidden agendas, and human frailties. On the eve of 2020

we find the global economy on the brink of a recession precipitated

by a trade war between two global giants—China and the United

States. We find our global climate being challenged like never

before—countries are melting and countries are burning! The world

order is fragile in ways that threaten us like never before. Around the

world immigrants are now seen as a threat. The United States is build-

ing a wall between us and our close neighbor. The United Kingdom is

struggling with Brexit to withdraw from Europe—its closest neighbor.

Citizens have taken to the streets in Hong Kong to protest China's

perceived overreach. Turmoil, boundaries, and distrust prevail.

The challenges that cling to the coattails of 2019 raise major chal-

lenges for international business scholars. What role will we through

our research play in this future? Will we be able to shed light on solu-

tions that might align us with a more positive trajectory? Will we be

able to identify impediments to a more positive path forward? Will we

be able to hold up a mirror or map for those propelled toward a future

they do not even comprehend? So long as we choose to remain

ensconced in our ivory towers, the response is no! Fortunately, Thun-

derbird International Business Review publishes work that seeks to pro-

vide solutions to these challenges. Some of our articles make readers

uncomfortable and some wake them up.

As we come to the end of another year, I would like to reflect on

what we have done this past year to address global challenges. We

have published relevant and topical articles from authors around the

world. In addition, we have published three special issues that brought

attention to important topics. In January we published a special issue

on “The Internationalization of African Firms: Opportunities, Chal-

lenges and Risks.”A sincere thank you is due to the guest editors

Nathaniel Boso, Ifedapo Adeleye, Kevin Ibeh, and Amon Chizema for

their superb curation. Thanks are also due to the authors who contrib-

uted to this relevant and forward looking issue.

In May we published a second special issue that focused on

“Opportunities and Challenges in International HRM.”This issue

focused on people-oriented solutions to challenges faced by interna-

tional organizations. Guest editors, Elaine Farndale, Sven Horak, Jean

Phillips, and Maria Beamond, curated a thoughtful and engaging issue

on a topic that is too often ignored—at companies' peril. Thanks to

each and every one of you and your authors for this outstanding spe-

cial issue.

In September we published a third special issue, “The Impact of

Research Findings on Islamic Finance.”M. Kabir Hassan curated a spe-

cial issue that delves into a significant international business topic that

most do not understand. He did so with thoughtfulness and expertise.

Thank you, Kabir for bringing this special issue to light, and thank you

authors for sharing your insights and perspectives. In between these

special issues we have numerous other contributions from authors

around the world. We thank all of the authors who contributed their

scholarship and helped peel away the veil of ignorance often sur-

rounding international business.

In this final issue of the year, we present an array of articles

focused on important topics beginning with Abeuova and

Muratbekove-Touron's article on global talent management in devel-

oping markets. This is followed by a second article by Kabwe and

Okorie on the cross-border application of talent management and the

contribution it makes to sustainable competitive advantage.

Our third and fourth articles in this final issue are “Views from

Practice.”Gertner focuses on the impact of cultural appropriation on

destination image, tourism, and hospitality. She presents the implica-

tions of cultural appropriation. Piedrahita and De Villa provide a tool

focused on capability building to aid emerging market company inter-

nationalization. The fifth article by He, Boateng, and Ring examines

the motives, entry mode choice, and challenges of the international

expansion in an emerging country context using evidence from China.

Their article identifies challenges for emerging market companies in

so doing.

The sixth article by Heim, Kalyuzhnova, Li, and Liu explores value

creation between foreign firms and indigenous SMEs in Kazakhstan's

oil and gas industry. It emphasizes the importance of information

technology in value creation. The next article by Liou and Rao-

Nicholson explores corporate name change post acquisition and offers

insights into how firms might enjoy better postacquisition perfor-

mance following their advice. The eighth article is a book review by

Tom Hemphill of “Assessing Political Risk in the Age of Multinational

Corporations,”a book that explains a basic political risk framework

and presents guiding questions for effective risk management.

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22103

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2019;61:841–842. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 841