Authors: Annie H. Liu; Jr.; Noel Gould
The protean development of Asia Pacific business-to-business (B2B) networks into regional and global economic systems is one of the power shifts in the contemporary era of globalization. Their extensive supply/value chains that boundary span borders, cultures and oceans have redirected global growth and reset geo-politics. Australia’s chartering of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group of Pacific Rim economies in 1989, followed by their creation of the APEC Business Advisory Council in 1995, are efforts by the constituent governments to learn from, facilitate, and prosper the boundary spanning exchange systems that crisscross and challenge their sovereignty. The Asia Pacific B2B leaders appointed to ABAC are asked to bring their relational learning and innovation skills to this process what WTO Director-General Paschal Lamy has described as moving trade policy and international cooperation from “them and us” divides to “an ‘us’ focus”. This is the first paper from a multiyear qualitative study of how the focal Asia Pacific B2B leaders became boundary spanners to the 21 APEC governments and civil societies, and how their Africa Asia counterparts can learn from, benchmark and grow beyond their continuing dialogs. In this presentation, we explore the learning and leadership systems in the ABAC members’ boundary spanning and global mindsets, the challenges to their collaboration that mirror those in B2B networks, and their concerns for the lack of public engagement and support for their efforts to increase regional trade, investment and capacity building. By this, we contribute to the current rethinking of international management and marketing in the Brexit era. Based on our findings, we propose certain initiatives Africa Asia B2B leaders may take to sustain collaborative progress with each other and their respective governments, and move their recently connected but historically distant polities to the preferred “us focus”. We also suggest that regional and global supply and value chains are better described as International Production, Services and Policy Networks (IPSPNs) recognizing their nearly constant interface with governments and thereby inviting their intentional, inclusive and empowering boundary spanning with the civil societies and educational systems they depend upon for productive citizens and consumers
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Publish Year: 2016
Conference: Cape Town (2016)