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International Business Research Group

International business focuses on the global environment in which businesses operate, their strategic and organisational responses to that environment, and the impact this activity has on other sectors of the community. Monash University has led the way in both teaching and research in this area.

The International Business Research Group comprises academics who undertake research in the following sub-groups:

Members undertake research in a wide range of international business research areas, including: internationalisation strategy and its components, foreign direct investment, trade policy, global business regulation, globalisation and economic security, modes of entry, and business-government relationships, outward foreign direct investment, cross-cultural management, cross-border education markets, international management and China and the Indian Sub-Continent and South East Asia, and international public policy and political economy issues.

The work of the group is enriched by the participation of a significant number of students undertaking the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Currently, Doctoral students are pursuing research in the areas of: safety and security of international students; international; knowledge management across subsidiaries; multinational corporations, corporate social responsibility global governance; the foreign direct investment decisions of firms investing in Australia; internationalisation of small and medium sized firms; managing knowledge intensive companies in international markets; changing nature of management in subsidiaries of global companies; globalisation and labour standards; regulating the global supply chain for rice, and tripartism and regulatory reform in China.

IBRG organises seminars, workshops and conferences in areas of interest to international business researchers and educators. Scholars in the Group publish regularly in the leading journals and, in recent years, have organised three important conferences. In 1999, on behalf of the Academy of International Business, a conference titled "Opportunities and Challenges for International Business in the Asia Pacific Region" attracted over a hundred scholars from across the region and beyond. The best papers were subsequently published in a collection titled "Readings in International Business: An Asia Pacific Perspective", with Ron Edwards, Chris Nyland and Max Coulthard as editors. In 2000, together with colleagues in the Asian Economies Research Unit, the International Business Research Group organised an international symposium titled "Malaysian Business in the New Era" at the University's campus in Malaysia. In 2007, Kate Hutchings and Cherrie Zhu organised the IBRG International Business in the Asia Pacific Conference in collaboration with University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, China.

IBRG has also run workshops on key issues in international business. For example, in 2004, the Group ran the Asian Social Protection Workshop, held at the Clayton Campus. Also, in 2005 Monash chaired the annual Australian and New Zealand International Business Academy (ANZIBA) Conference.

For several years IBRG has also run an annual Doctoral Workshop, in which doctoral students from Monash have the opportunity to present thesis work in progress and dry-run presentations in preparation for conferences. In 2006/7 IBRG also organised HDR forums providing doctoral students with information relevant to their candidature. The Group also periodically runs seminars of topics of interest to the international business community.