Introduction

Abstract

The current international business environment is characterized by two contradictory but at times mutually supplementary trends — regionalism and globalization. The enhanced integration of recent decades has led to increasingly global production, distribution and consumption systems, and to cultural and political ideologies expressed in global rather than country-specific contexts. This process is not unidirectional. Regionalization is part of the process of globalization, but it can also be a counter force to globalization as stakeholders act to protect their perceived interests. Partly in response to the global slowdown and partly in response to globalization, the regional actions of firms, governments, NGOs and other institutions form the complex landscape within which firms operate in the third millennium. Studies on these topics are now legion, provoking an extraordinary variety of interpretations, discussions and controversies which in turn have given rise to ever more new studies.