Theme – Athenaeum 2020

Key Theme

Globalisation Vs Glocalisation in the Age of Disruption

Global trends such as protectionist policies, geo-political risks, pandemics, etc., have raised new concerns for managing the global trade and economy. While transformation to data-driven, smart, and digital business has turned out to be a new world order, decoding the ever-dynamic environment in which the businesses operate has become the new science of management research and practice. Striking a balance between Globalisation and Glocalisation and handling related dynamics in the world of disruptions, mainly in the areas of — innovation, transformation, data science, human capital management and entrepreneurship, are major concerns ahead. Managing in the unstable World, therefore, requires disruptive design principles, innovative models and agile practices for the business managers, start-up entrepreneurs, and practice leaders.

Sub Themes

Disruptive Innovation and Transformation

Competing in the marketplace through disruptive innovation is the globally acclaimed management practice today and will extend all over the business world. Serving the needs of different markets globally in a substantially superior way adapting to local preferences, standards, and culture, is therefore an intimidating challenge. Added to this, the emerging global trade risks and constraints makes the disruptive innovation challenge even more complex. Though the culture of transforming to disruptive innovation by aspiring global businesses is prevalent, accommodating globalisation under emerging trade constraints is the new dimension of business transformation.

Data and Decisions

Trade constraints and risks posed due to new trends in global business environment necessitates taking managerial decisions with global rationality. The emerging role of data analytics as the catalyst to make mistake-proof decisions at any management level, therefore, become critical specifically when both globalisation and glocalisation matters.

Managing Human Capital

The most critical resource that is shipped or exchanged across borders in the process of globalisation is human talent. As human capital is scarce and geographically concentrated in few countries, it has been very hard to effectively localise business operations with the imported human resource. Protectionist measures of countries like US and UK makes the situation even more challenging to effectively leverage the scarce talent.

Entrepreneurship and Start-ups

Fostering entrepreneurship and start-ups has become a global phenomenon. The connected ecosystem comprising venture capitalists, evangelists, research parks, incubation centres, etc., have been evolving with different paces and standards across the world. Aspiring global entrepreneurs face glocalisation challenges to efficiently serve in divergent global markets, besides emerging risks due to geo-political factors or trade restrictions. Start-up companies also suffer to scale beyond national or cultural boundaries as their local-need triggered business ideas and models may be irrelevant in the global context. Consequently, how to develop globally replicable niche business ideas/models remains as an inadequately unaddressed question.