Dear colleagues,
Circulating the call-for-papers for Industry and Innovation special issue on Innovation and internationalization in the digital era: new theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence.
Editorial team:
Claudio Fassio, University of Pisa
Chiara Franco, University of Pisa
Daniele Moschella, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
Snehal Awate, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Submission deadline: 28 May 2023
Background:
This Special Issue aims to open new directions for research into the relationship between innovation and internationalization activities at the firm level. We outline a set of themes that could add to our current understanding of the topic. First, the direct relationship between the emergence and adoption of new technologies and firms' internationalization paths needs to be addressed. Emerging evidence, for example, shows that technologies like 3D printing, which are also associated to the emerging "Industry 4.0 paradigm", do not have the commonly assumed effect of reducing trade and shortening the supply chain (Freund et al. 2022); however, some of these effects can be mediated by home-country policies (Barbieri et al. 2022).
Second, the recent empirical literature on Global Value Chains (GVC) has identified different drivers of GVC participation and its effect on firm performance through technology adoption (e.g. Delera et al. 2022), without however devoting a specific attention to the role of innovation (with a few exceptions, e.g. Reddy et al. 2021). The adoption of digital technologies, especially those of Industry 4.0, can be particularly relevant as it may impact on the effectiveness of GVC functioning, in particular with respect to the reorganization and fragmentation of innovation activities.
Third, other types of innovations that are not necessarily technology-based can also be related with international activities. So far, most studies have explored the role of technological innovation, usually distinguishing between different proxies of product and process innovations. Non-technological innovations have received comparatively less attention.
Best regards
Snehal Awate
Faculty of Strategy
IIT Bombay