Examining the Contextual Richness of Central and Eastern Europe

We discuss how context richness in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) can be leveraged to further IB research and advance business practice in a new multipolar, regionalized and increasingly ‘glocalized’ world. We argue that CEE markets and multinational companies (MNCs) have faded to the background of existing research on emerging markets (EMs) and emerging market multinationals (EMNCs). Yet, the increasingly regional focus and specific CEE context call on IB scholars to re-examine the “CEE research stream” to provide insights on how (foreign and domestically grown) MNCs adapt their strategies in resource-constrained business environments that have undergone incredible socio-economic transitions over the last 25 years and are characterized by dynamic institutional evolution, unique transition processes, geographically compressed cultural diversity, diverse types of embeddedness, sophisticated market behavior and idiosyncratic innovation patterns.