CIBI focuses on the following core research areas:

Internationalisation and Multinational Corporations

• International Investment Strategies: The economic geography of investment and location decisions of MNCs, intra-firm specialisation and location of competitive advantages.
  
  
• Subsidiary development and upgrading of foreign direct investment: Regional clusters, inter and intra organisational relationships and embeddedness in local, national and international networks.
  
  
• Subsidiary development and subsidiary performance, employment growth and skills composition of jobs.
  
  
• Strategies and activities of MNCs, the role of  institutions and economic implications for home and host countries at national, regional and local level.
  
  
• Globalisation, national business systems and institutional reforms: cross-border transfer and reverse transfer issues, incl. performance aspects e.g. HRM systems and practices.
  
  
• Ownership issues in international inter-firm collaborations and the new institutionalism

International Political Economy

• Political economy of the multinational organisation
  
  
• Economic liberalisation, institutional reforms and their impact on national economic development and activities of MNCs
  
  
• Globalisation and the “new” international business issues: e.g. transnational terrorism and security governance

Innovation

• Service innovation: the dynamics, dimensions and management of innovation in the public and private services sectors (with a focus on healthcare, transport, knowledge intensive businesses, and the creative industries)
  
  
• Alliances for innovation: the role of strategic alliances in innovation and organisational adaptation in rapidly changing environments.  Dynamics of alliance portfolio management and portfolio internationalisation in support of innovation activity.  Growth of organisational ambidexterity via inter-organisational alliances
  
  
• Capital heterogeneity and innovation: the acquisition and evolution of social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital in the context of entrepreneurship (with a particular focus on technological incubation, science parks and regional regeneration)