COVID-19 and International Business: Change of Era, Marin A. Marinov and Svetla T. Marinova, Routledge, 2020, 377p.

COVID-19 is a unique pandemic. The book represents a critical reflection to what has happened, how it has unfolded as well as the accumulated experiences. The book chapters are personal points of view of international business scholars. Prospects on how COVID-19 triggered events and follow up policies impacting international business are addressed. The book offers an engaging platform of viewpoints, interpretations, reflections, and critical assessments. It contains 30 chapters authored by 50 contributors coming from 32 higher educational institutions in 23 countries worldwide. Chapter 1 introduces the book. The rest of the chapters are grouped into eight parts. Chapter 2 by Jaqueline Pels analyzes the process of our thinking. The author focuses on three core issues of COVID-19 and international business. The author claims that what we have now is Change of Era, the subtitle of the book, during which conventional logic cannot provide solutions, thus a radical change is needed. Chapter 3 by Marin A. Marinov represents an analysis of the manifestation of the economic effects of COVID-19 and the ways, in which they create challenges for international business in relation to globalization, global supply and value chains, as well as the changing role of nation state vis-à-vis market forces. The author perceives COVID-19 as an objective risk and an augmenter of the already active destabilizers to international business, which have reinstalled the importance of the nation state and underlined the need for self-sufficiency in strategic industries. The chapter discusses the strategic responses of firms and governments providing national economies with augmented internal sovereignty, risk reduction and resilience. In Chapter 4, Jean-Paul Lemaire claims that COVID-19, has abruptly blocked most economic and business activities in the world, hitting particularly hard international trade and foreign direct investment flows. The crisis also overlaps with and accelerates the recent rifts of bilateral and multilateral relations, e.g., the looming trade war between China and the U.S., Brexit, economic embargoes, tariffs, and international trade agreement reconsiderations. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic causes major environmental changes and widely spread socio-economic hardships of unemployment, production relocation and protectionism. All the above requires a reconsideration of international business in a radically disrupted global environment and encourage the adoption of renewed approaches to organizational and functional decision-making processes. Ernesto Tavoletti’s Chapter 5 explores the disappointing responses of nation states to COVID-19. The author argues that there has been a consistent set of missing adequate responses to COVID-19 worldwide. The example of the European Union is given. Instead of strengthening international cooperation, the external danger has revealed that when it is a matter of life and death people naturally tend to rely mainly on national community. The chapter suggests that a common and worldwide coordinated response is the only plausible option for success compatible with the idea of a sustainable world economy to fight the pandemic and secure health and economic revival post COVID-19. In Chapter 6, Marian Gorynia proposes that COVID-19 will not kill, or weaken globalization, rather it would only transform it. Initially, the author presents a pertinent review of the concept of globalization. Following this, two different scenarios for the future development of globalization are outlined. The first one exemplifies a hypothetical situation assuming the absence of COVID-19 in which case globalization will develop without being challenged. The second scenario progresses reflections on the future of globalization after the COVID-19 pandemic. The conclusion reached is that globalization is here to stay. In Chapter 7, Kari Liuhto analyzes the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy. It deals with the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world development, international trade and logistics, FDI and …