Journal Press India®
FOCUS, envisioned as a platform to bring together innovative and insightful research in international business, is successfully forging ahead in its endeavour. In keeping with our editorial policy of promoting multidisciplinary research and addressing topical issues in international business research, this issue brings together a wide range of articles spanning across core areas in international business such as FDI and regional trade agreements to interdisciplinary topics such as audit procedures and smart cities.
This issue presents two articles on FDI; one that captures the relationship between the FDI and economic growth for India; and the other which reviews the debate on FDI in retailing and argues that it could be a potent source of both equity and growth for the agricultural sector in India. The rapid increase in the bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements depicts a worldwide urge to liberalise and attain a more competitive platform for trade and investment. In view of this, a paper on multilateral agreements on investment (MAI) traces their history along with discussing the advantages, pitfalls and the road ahead for such agreements. Another paper empirically examines the impact of two RTAs (SAFTA and APTA) on India’s agricultural exports. As accounting and auditing are also important dimensions of international business, one paper in this issue examines how internal audit procedures and responsibility perceptions of the auditors impact the audit decisions of independent external auditors. Another area of topical interest covered in this issue is the significance of smart cities from an international business perspective. Smart cities can open up numerous opportunities in the international business arena and the paper explores and discusses the significance of smart cities in international businesses to face the challenges of the 21st Century. Keeping in view the interdependency of economies in an era of increasing globalisation, one of the papers analyses the impact of US financial crisis on BRICS economies.
We sincerely hope that our readers would benefit from the wide range of topics covered in this issue and we look forward to your support, feedback and patronage.
Wishing all our readers a happy and prosperous 2016!
Dr. Niti Bhasin
Editor