How we Facilitate Conversations in Global Strategy—and the Location of MNE HQS

• Author: Torben Pedersen,Stephen Tallman
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1114
• Date: 01 May 2016

HOW WE FACILITATE CONVERSATIONS IN GLOBAL

STRATEGY—AND THE LOCATION OF MNE HQS

TORBEN PEDERSEN

1

*and STEPHEN TALLMAN

2

1

Department of Management and Technology, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy

2

Robins School of Business, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A

INTRODUCTION

We have previously introduced ‘Research Platforms’

as a complement to more traditional (double-blind

peer-reviewed) arti cles (Tallman and Peder sen,

2012). We see research platform content as important

to fueling relevant conversations in the field of global

strategy, as not all contributions and extensions of our

knowledge can be captured in the traditional article

format. Therefore, we see it as our duty as editors to

create space for research platform content that lives

up to our high quality norms and opens doors to new

or underdevelopedareas of study…not at the expense

of traditionalarticles, but as a supplement!We see this

effort as treating our customers—mainly scholars in

strategy and interna tional business—seriously by pro-

actively instigating conversations among scholars on

the many open issues in the field. Previous issues of

Global Strategy Journal include many examples of

such research platform content, e.g., point-counter-

point discussions,perspective papers,and commentar-

ies. This issue of GSJ features another example of

research platform content with the perspective paper

by Coeurderoy and Verbeke (2016, this issue) and

the commentary by Meyer and Benito (2016, this is-

sue). It also serves as an illustration of how we try to

promote these conversations.

THE HISTORY OF A PERSPECTIVE

PAPER AND A COMMENTARY

The article by Coeurderoy and Verbeke (2016, this is-

sue) was submittedto GSJ as a competitive paper. Af-

ter the initial screening, it was (like 75% of all

submissions) sent out for review. The manuscript

went back and forth between the reviewers who

commented onthe manuscript and the authors whore-

vised it, with the editor orchestrating this process of

challengingand further improving the manuscript. Al-

though the manuscript had many good qualities and

touched on an important and underdeveloped issue,

it became clear during the review process that there

was considerable divergence in the underlying as-

sumptions (for location of MNE headquarters, in this

case) between the authors and the reviewers. Several

rounds of revisionand reviewing clarifiedthe different

views, and both views offered some attraction.

As editors, thesafe decision would have beento re-

ject the paper, as the reviewers were making a con-

vincing case for this action. However, this would

have meant that the fruitful discussions on the differ-

ent views in the review process would be gone. So,

in order to fuel the conversation, we decided to reori-

ent the original paper into a perspective paper. We in-

vited two other top scholars working in this area—

Klaus Meyerand Gabriel Benito—to write a commen-

tary presenting their somewhat different view, as a

supplement to the original paper. Thereby, we hope

to bring this interesting and relevant discussion out

in the open instead of leaving it as a closed, and ulti-

mately lost, discussion among authors, reviewers,

and editors.

Keywords: research platform papers; location of MNE HQs;

institutions;global cities and clusters

*Correspondence to: Torben Pedersen, Department of Manage-

ment and Technology, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1,

20136, Milan,Italy. E-mail: torben.pedersen@unibocconi.it

Global Strategy Journal

Global StrategyJournal, 6:124–126 (2016)

Published onlinein Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1114

Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society