Description
The first two editions of Global Business aspired to set a new standard for international business (IB) textbooks. Based on the enthusiastic support from students and instructors in Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States, the first two editions achieved unprecedented success. A Chinese translation is now available and a European adaptation (coauthored with Klaus Meyer) has been successfully launched. In short, Global Business is global.
The third edition aspires to do even better. It continues the market-winning framework centered on one big question and two core perspectives pioneered in the first edition, and has been thoroughly updated to capture the rapidly moving research and events of the past few years. Written for undergraduate and MBA students around the world, the third edition will continue to make IB teaching and learning more (1) engaging, (2) comprehensive, (3) fun, and (4) relevant.
More Engaging
As an innovation in IB textbooks, a unified framework integrates all chapters. Given the wide range of topics in IB, most textbooks present the discipline in a fashion that “Today is Tuesday, it must be Luxembourg.” Very rarely do authors address: “Why Luxembourg today?” More important, why IB? What is the big question in IB? Our unified framework suggests that the discipline can be united by one big question and two core perspectives. The big question is: What determines the success and failure of firms around the globe? To address this question,
Global Business introduces two core perspectives, (1) the institution-based view and (2) the resource-based view, in all chapters. It is this relentless focus on our big question and core perspectives that enables this book to engage a variety of IB topics in an integrated fashion. This provides unparalleled continuity in the learning process. Global Business further engages readers through an evidence-based approach. I have endeavored to draw on the latest research rather than the latest fads. As an active researcher myself, I have developed the unified framework not because it just popped up in my head when I wrote the book. Rather, this is an extension of my own research that consistently takes on the big question and leverages the two core perspectives.1
Another vehicle to engage students is debates. Most textbooks present knowledge is” and ignore debates. But obviously our field has no shortage of debates. It is the responsibility of textbook authors to engage students by introducing cuttingedge debates. Thus, I have written a beefy “Debates and Extensions” section for every chapter.
Finally, this book engages students by packing rigor with accessibility. There is no “dumbing down.” No other competing IB textbook exposes students to an article on how to save Europe by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (In Focus 8.1), a commentary on China’s ten years in the World Trade Organization by the US Ambassador to China (Emerging Markets 8.1), and a Harvard Business Review article on China’s outward foreign direct investment (authored by me—Emerging Markets 6.1). These are not excerpts but full-blown, original articles—the first in an IB (and, in fact, in any management) textbook. These highly readable short pieces directly give students a flavor of the original insights.