Journal Press India^®

           The continued patronage of our readers and authors has enabled us to progressively bring out newer and more diversified issues of FOCUS, spanning an interesting range of topics in the realm of international business. The ever growing importance of international business has brought in its wake pertinent issues that need to be addressed effectively to reap the benefits of international trade and investment. This issue of FOCUS brings together articles which focus on core areas of international business such as FDI and trade, as well as those having an interdisciplinary orientation such as diaspora entrepreneurship and institutional mechanism.      

           There are three papers in this issue on FDI, one of the most dominant areas of international business. While the lead paper by Prof. Badar Iqbal and Prof. Abdul M. Toray presents a critique of FDI in telecom sector of India, another interesting paper by Dr. Neelam Singh examines the relatively under-researched area of the influence of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) on the parent company and home economy. She examines the firm-level determinants of exports by auto component companies in India, and explores the differential impact of JV versus WOS ownership mode of manufacturing abroad. The results show that JV mode of overseas production is found to lead to relatively more exports by the investing firm. In keeping with the ongoing debate regarding FDI in multi brand retail in India, a paper by Dr. Leena Ajit Kaushal dispels the opposition regarding the protection of interests of small and medium retailers. The study proposes that the dual nature of Indian retail sector has a crucial role to play in protecting the small retailers. Organised sector will largely cater to the upper income group whereas unorganised retailers would continue catering to the lower income groups in the near future.

           In the wake of successive economic crises witnessed globally such as the sub-prime crisis originating in USA followed by the Eurozone crisis, there has been rising global uncertainty which have brought about a paradigm shift in the motives and impact of mergers and acquisitions. This aspect of international business has been examined in a paper by Dr. Rabi Narayan Kar and Amit Soni, where they provide evidence of paradigm shift through trend, motive and impact analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the Indian IT sector in the post liberalization period.

           Another paper by Ms. Priyanka Bedi identifies the sectors/commodities where India holds comparative advantage. The paper maps the technological structure of India’s exports, and analyses the structural changes in the pattern of trade specialisation. The findings reveal that while India holds comparative advantage in a variety of products, there has been an overall deterioration in India’s RCA indices over the study period.

          This issue also has an interesting paper in the realm of interdisciplinary research, ie., Diaspora International Entrepreneurship, by Dr. Sumati Varma and Dr. Mukesh Bagoria. This paper examines the role of the diaspora as a driver of international entrepreneurship in the home country context, from the perspective of the Indian IT industry. It uses inductive methodology to develop an eclectic framework using insights from diverse streams of international business, entrepreneurship and the literature on diaspora.

           Another paper on a pertinent and popular grouping in IB literature, i.e., BRICS, has been contributed by Ms. Shilpa Garg. This paper attempts a systematic analysis of BRICS economies in terms of their demographic features, economic characteristics, FDI and institutional environment. The analysis shows that though the improvements in institutions and governance have lagged in these countries, it does not seem to hinder the growth of FDI in these economies. This is because a large amount of FDI coming into BRICS economies is mainly market-seeking and resource-seeking.

We sincerely hope that our readers would benefit from the wide range of topics covered in this issue and we look forward to receiving high quality papers that can contribute to and enrich our understanding of international business.

Dr. Niti Bhasin

Editor