Journal of World Business 50 (2015) 249250

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Journal of World Business

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jwb

JOURNAL OF WORLD BUSINESS

Call for papers for a special issue
Submission deadline: May 4, 2015
Emerging Market Multinationals:
Perspectives from Latin America
Guest Editors: Ruth Aguilera, Luciano Ciravegna, Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, and Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez
Name some Brazilian multinationals. Even harder than famous Belgians, isnt
it? Despite Brazil being the worlds eighth-largest economy, with plenty of big,
protable rms, few of them have a reasonable share of their operations abroad
and are thus genuinely multinational. The Economist, Sept 21, 2000.
For the rst time Brazil has a crop of companies that can be described as
multinationals. Some of them are already well known outside Brazil: Petrobras;
Vale, one of the worlds largest mining companies; and Embraer, the worlds
third-largest maker of passenger jets. The Economist, November 12, 2009.

These two quotes from the British newspaper The Economist

reect the change in view about Multilatinas, or Latin American
multinational companies. The reason is not that there were no
Multilatinas before 2000. In fact, there have been Multilatinas for
over a century. For example, the Argentinean shoemaker Alpargatas
was created in 1885 and established subsidiaries in Uruguay in 1890
and in Brazil in 1907. The reason is that there were few studies
analyzing Multilatinas before the 2000s. This was part of a general
trend in the international business literature that appeared to have
ignored the region. For example, a review of articles in two leading
journals in the eld of international business (Journal of International
Business Studies and Management International Review) in the period
1987-1997 indicated that fewer than 6% of the articles mentioned
Latin America (Elahee and Vaidya, 2001). This paucity of studies on
the region had not changed in recent times. A review of studies in
four leading international business journal (Journal of International
Business Studies, Management International Review, Journal of World
Business, and International Business Review) in 20012005 indicated
that only 2.75% of articles studied rms in the region (Perez-Batres,
Pisani and Doh, 2010). Nevertheless, a few analyses of multinationals
have indicated that rms from this region are becoming multinational
rapidly and some of them are becoming leaders in their industries
(Casanova, 2009; Cuervo-Cazurra, 2008,; Fleury and Fleury, 2010;
Santiso, 2013).
In this special issue we plan to take stock of what is known
about these rms and identify potential avenues for future research.
Other special issues of the Journal of World Business have analyzed
various regions of the world such as India (Varma and Budhwar,
2012), China (Laforet, Paliwoda and Chen, 2012), Africa (Kamoche,
2011), the Middle East (Mellahi, Demirbag and Riddle, 2011), and
Korea (Paik and Lee, 2008). This special issue contributes to the
global scope of the Journal of World Business by studying rms
from Latin America, which have, thus far, been underrepresented
in the management and business literature (Brenes, Montoya and
Ciravegna, 2014). With this special issue, we aim to not only increase
our understanding of Multilatinas, but also to identify the particular
characteristics of their internationalization and how it compares with
the internationalization of rms from other regions.

The rise of emerging market multinationals has been well

documented (for example see the papers in the special issues edited
by Aulakh, 2007; Cuervo-Cazurra, 2012; Gammeltoft, Barnard
and Madhok, 2010; Luo and Tung, 2007; and in the books edited
by Cuervo-Cazurra and Ramamurti, 2014; Ramamurti and Singh,
2007, Sauvant, 2008; Williamson et al., 2013), yet the literature on
emerging market multinationals has thus far focused mainly on
rms from regions other than Latin America. With this Special Issue
of Journal of World Business, we aim to ll this gap, contributing to
the international business literature and the body of knowledge
documenting the practices of multinational companies.
This call is an attempt to integrate different aspects that might
have influenced the growth and internationalization of Latin
American rms. We welcome theoretical, empirical, methodological
and case studies submission addressing, but not limited to, the
following issues:

Successful Multilatinas expanding outside their region

Comparative ownership advantages/disadvantages of Multilatinas
Internationalization patterns of Latin American rms
The internationalization of state-owned Latin American rms
Institutional constraints for Latin American companies to
internationalize
Foreign performance of Latin American rms
Effects of exports promotion agencies on the internationalization
of Latin American rms
Governance in Multilatinas
The internationalization of Latin American business groups
Global leadership in Multilatinas
Dimensions of management diversity in Multilatinas
Determinants of outward FDI from Latin America
The role of governments in Latin American International Business
Corporate social responsibility and sustainable practices in
Multilatinas
The role of family-owned business conglomerates in Multilatinas
Oligopolistic structures and internationalization in Multilatinas
Multilatinas and economic and political crises
Cultural challenges in doing business from Latin America
The role of Latin American diaspora and returning emigrants in
international business

Submission Process
By May 4, 2015, authors should submit their manuscripts online via
the new Journal of World Business EES submission system. The link for
submitting manuscript is: http://ees.elsevier.com/jwb.
To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for
consideration for this Special Issue, it is important that authors select

250

Call for Papers/Journal of World Business 50 (2015) 249250

SI: Latin American MNCs when they reach the Article Type step
in the submission process
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Journal of
World Business Guide for Authors available at http://www.elsevier.
com/journals/journal-of-world-business/1090-9516/guide-forauthors. All submitted manuscripts will be subject to the Journal of
World Businesss blind review process.
We may organize a workshop designed to facilitate the
development of papers. Authors of manuscripts that have progressed
through the revision process will be invited to it. Presentation at
the workshop is neither a requirement for nor a promise of nal
acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue.
Questions about the Special Issue may be directed to the guest
editors:
Ruth V. Aguilera, Northeastern University, United States
(r.aguilera@neu.edu)
Luciano Ciravegna, Kings College, London, UK, (Luciano.
ciravegna@kcl.ac.uk)
Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Northeastern University, United States
(a.cuervocazurra@neu.edu)
Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia
(mgonza40@eat.edu.co)

References
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economies: motivations, paths, and performance. Journal of
International Management, 13, 338355.
Brenes, E. R., Montoya, D., & Ciravegna, L. (2014). Differentiation
strategies in emerging markets: The case of Latin American
agribusinesses. Journal of Business Research, 67, 847855.
Casanova, L. (2009). Global Latinas: Latin Americas emerging
multinationals. Palgrave Macmillan.
Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2008). The multinationalization of developing
country MNEs: The case of Multilatinas. Journal of International
Management, 14, 138154.
Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2012). How the analysis of developing country
multinational companies helps advance theory: Solving the
Goldilocks debate. Global Strategy Journal, 2, 153167.
Cuervo-Cazurra, A., & Ramamurti, R. (2014). Understanding
multinationals from emerging markets. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Economist. (2001). Brazils Gerdau: Who dares wins. The Economist.

www.economist.com/node/374586
Economist. (2009). Special Reports Economist Brazil. The Economist.
www.economist.com/node/14829517
Elahee, M. N., & Vaidya, S. P. (2001). Coverage of Latin American
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