Economic activity in evolving global context

Since its inception in 2017, IMEG has sought to contribute to the endeavour of making international business studies fit for the 21st century. Our work has challenged common, yet increasingly untenable assumptions that underly IB research, including the role of national subsidiaries, how MNCs coordinate their cross-border activities, and the quality of law. In a just-published paper, we apply these insights to the idea of institutional distance and suggest that it needs to be reconceptualised as a subjective phenomenon based on the lived experience of managers.

The biggest threat to the nationalist populist project in its various flavours – authoritarian, libertarian, illiberal – are well informed citizens. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that quality media outlets are one of the main targets of national populists of various stripes. The Financial Times’s Edward Luce recently called Jeff Bezos’ ‘management’ of the Washington Post ‘calculated vandalism.’ Vandalism is a useful way of describing how nationalist populists try to shape national mediascapes in their favour. However, there seem to be at least three variations on the theme of populist media vandalism.

The Labour government is in the process of developing a new industrial strategy, which is meant to deliver the economic growth promised during the election campaign and break from previous abandoned attempts by British governments to develop industrial policy. Promises have been made that this time will be different and that the new ‘Invest 2035 Industrial Strategy’ will be ‘unreservedly pro-business’ and tackle the country’s productivity problems.

Yet, does the British government – in its current state – have what it takes to deliver the goals outlined in the industrial strategy?