Journal Press India^®

            While the dynamics of trade and investment remain the mainstay of research in international business, there is an increasing acknowledgement of the need to make IB research interdisciplinary as well as to examine domains closely related to IB such as sustainability, corporate governance and entrepreneurship. This issue of FOCUS: Journal of International Business makes an attempt to bring up a diverse range of issues which can have a potential bearing on IB practices of multinational enterprises.
            In the wake of changing trade dynamics such as the US-China trade war, a topical paper by K V Bhanumurthy and Harish Kumar examine trade patterns between these two countries and also estimate their revealed comparative advantage (RCA). Their study finds that in terms of RCA, the US has not shown any significant growth in industrial and high technology exports, while it has gained in intermediate exports. China, on the other hand, has seen increased growth rate in RCA of high technology exports. The authors conclude that since the two countries’ trade patterns have been evolving according to their respective RCA, there seems to be little justification for either country to escalate the trade war by imposing trade restrictions.
            In line with our endeavour to lend multidisciplinarity to the journal, we have some interesting papers in this issue dealing with domains that can have an impact on IB dynamics. The paper by Jagat Kunwar explores the relationships between organisational antecedents and the adoption of corporate governance reforms in the Nepalese commercial banking sector since 2012. Employing self-constructed corporate disclosure index and other relevant organisational characteristics, the author finds that firm size, listed age, Board independence, the size of the audit committee have expected relationships with corporate governance disclosure. Firm’s capital adequacy ratio, which has not been explored in previous research, is found to have a positive association with governance disclosure. Another paper by Tony Wijaya, Agung Utama and Anita Mustikasari explore the competitive strategy mapping of competency training courses institutions in Indonesia. Employing interview method, the results show that competitors' development and demands for innovation are obstacles for each institution to develop. Each course institution seeks to anticipate competitors' development by formulating competitive strategies by identifying service needs for competency training. 
            The paper on ‘Exploring entrepreneurial attitudes among youth in least developed countries: Empirical evidence from Yemen’ by Mugaahed Saleh, Manjunath K.R. and Mohammed Mostafa Qaied observe the presence of moderate positive attitude towards pursuing entrepreneurship by the youth in Yemen. Employing primary data for analysis, the authors conclude that the tendency towards the pursuit of business has grown due to lack of development initiatives undertaken by the government. In the light of increasing importance being accorded to sustainability practices in business operations, Endalew Tegegne and Apar Aingh investigate if sustainability practices enhance competitive advantage in tourism business for the case of all-star classified hotels of Ethiopia. Employing  exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, they find that sustainability practice does not significantly influence the competitive advantage of these star classified hotels in Ethiopia.
           Kanika Kapoor and Renu Arora empirically analyse the impact of outward FDI on domestic investment of BRICS nations and find that domestic investment is the cause of but not a consequence of increased OFDI concluding that there is lack of investment opportunities at home and the economies should design such OFDI policies that could trigger its domestic investment.
            The phenomenon of Base erosion and profit shifting, which is an important issue in international taxation, has been examined by Gurjot Kaur and Rabi Narayan Kar, wherein they undertake a comparison of literature for both developed and developing countries and bring out the possible guidelines for further research for evaluating tax evasion and avoidance for developing countries.
            This issue of focus has two review papers. The first one is by Rohit Prabhudesai, Ch. V. V. S. N. V. Prasad, and Shubham Agrawal who undertake a structured literature review to understand the impact of individual-level antecedents on the degree of SME internationalization. The second review paper is by Kawal Gill and Iti Verma wherein they study the business models of circular economy and review global practices and circular economy initiatives to achieve sustainable development goals. 
            I sincerely hope that the readers would enjoy the diversity of this issue of FOCUS and thank all the authors for stimulating discussion on upcoming issues in international business. We would continue in our endeavour to bring to our readers research on pertinent and diverse issues in the IB domain.

Prof. Niti Bhasin
Editor