"New Normal in International Management"

The annual conference of the International Management Division of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) took place from April 27th to 29th, 2023 at the University of Siegen. The conference was preceded by a workshop for young academics led by Prof. Dr. Helene Tenzer as the commission's representative for young academics. This two-day event included an interactive seminar on publication strategies and planning scientific careers, and a scientific presentation programme in which young scientists could gather feedback on research plans and current working papers.

On the first day of the workshop, Prof. Tenzer gave the 23 participating postdocs and doctoral students valuable insights into the decision-making and review processes of leading journals, into scientific career planning and academic profile building and discussed publication strategies for management research. In the run-up to the workshop, Prof. Tenzer offered the young researchers the opportunity to submit scientific contributions and gave them written feedback as part of a "friendly review process".

On the second day of the workshop, nine young researchers presented their research work and received further valuable feedback from Prof. Tenzer and her colleagues. The presentations illustrated a wide variety of methods and topics from foreign direct investment, the importance of foreign language skills in the global workforce, building relationships in the internationalization business, knowledge flows in strategic alliances, to the involvement of foreign subsidiaries in multinational companies' response to climate change. All participants agreed that the workshop for young academics was a complete success in every aspect and that the tips and detailed feedback from Prof. Tenzer were very valuable.

In the subsequent annual meeting of International Management Division of the VHB, the focus of the two-day programme was on the "New Normal in International Management". International management research is currently facing diverse and sometimes new challenges such as terrorism, financial crises, climate change, war(s), lockdowns, sanctions, disruptions to international supply chains, the energy crisis and inflation. How these challenges affect multinational companies and the international economy is researched by the members of the International Management Commission and their junior researchers in a broad spectrum.

The topics of the research projects presented ranged from challenges and strategic responses of companies during the pandemic to changes in human resource policies due to the transition to electromobility and the future of global virtual work. In the fourth panel, Prof. Tenzer gave a very exciting presentation of an overview of foreign languages in advertising. The presentations on the second day were concluded with an interesting guest lecture on the "New Normal in International Management - a report from practice" by Dr. Thomas Muhr, head of the automotive supplier Mubea. There was a lively exchange throughout the entire conference. We would like to thank Prof. Schramm-Klein's team for organizing this excellent event.

_{Melissa Brunner}