Ushering a new era of Global Business and Organizational Excellence: Taking a leaf out of recent trends in the new normal

Global business has been and continues to be omnipresent. The digital economy and new-age technologies of the latest industrial revolution have enabled more firms to automate, identify, target, attract, serve, and sell to more customers around the world today than in the past. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of global business, enabling firms to not only survive but also thrive in times of adversity while supporting the effective functioning of business, economy, and society at large. Technology adoption has also accelerated rapidly and its usage is arguably at its highest point today than at any time in history. Though the narrative of survival during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be a familiar voice that resonates with global crises in the past (e.g., global economic crisis), the speed in which firms today have moved from needing to survive to wanting to thrive has been astounding (e.g., cleaning, delivery, and tech services). The unprecedented changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has, therefore, led to a new normal, thereby necessitating the exploration of new ideas and the re-examination of existing ones in order to forge profound ways forward to advance global business and achieve organizational excellence.

Global Business and Organizational Excellence has contributed several noteworthy studies in the new normal.

The previous issues have highlighted the importance of embracing technology (e.g., remote solutions such as live streaming and telemedicine; Quévat & Heinze, 2020; Wulandari & Zoubir, 2021), collaboration, and flexibility (Bretas & Alon, 2020) as well as employee engagement (Sahoo et al., 2022) in times of global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic in order to navigate and weather through turbulent challenges (e.g., employees’ work-life conflict, negative attitudes and self-confidence, and desire to leave work; Al-Abrrow et al., 2021; Mattar, 2021; Mello & Tomei, 2021) for business survival and continued operation.

In the present issue, Sutarto et al. (2022) found that work from home challenges (e.g., lack of equipment, and information and communication technology support; ineffective communication; work-home interference), which were prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic, negatively affected job satisfaction, and in turn, work performance. To contribute potential solutions, two purposefully selected studies were included in the present issue to accompany Sutarto et al. (2022). In particular, Mohammed et al. (2022) emphasized the mediating role of mindfulness in enabling leadership dimensions to positively influence work outcomes, whereas Rahman et al. (2022) highlighted that cyberloafing (e.g., browsing on social media and websites) has no direct effect on employee performance and that innovative work behavior could play a mediating role in enhancing the relationship between cyberloafing and employee performance. These studies show that employers do not need to worry about cyberloafing, provided that this is not a compulsive behavior, and that the focus should be on cultivating mindfulness among organizational leaders and innovative work behavior among employees in order to safeguard and strengthen work performance in the new normal.

In conjunction with the new editorial leadership at Global Business and Organizational Excellence, this paper endeavors to build on the aforementioned studies and more broadly explore the recent trends of global business and organizational excellence in the new normal. To do so, this paper conducts a multi-study bibliometric analysis of scientific research, whereby the first study concentrates on global business and the second study focuses on organizational excellence. In doing so, this paper unpacks a collection of recent trends that can be used by academic scholars, industry professionals, and policymakers to explain the current state of global business and organizational excellence from numerous perspectives (themes) in order to justify and set the tone for future endeavors.

Globalization has enabled business to go global, resulting in new opportunities and shapers of excellence. In conjunction with the new editorial leadership at Global Business and Organizational Excellence, this paper endeavored to take stock of recent trends in (1) global business and (2) organizational excellence. Using a multi-study bibliometric analysis of recent trends in the new normal, this paper highlighted that globalization, not de-globalization, continues to be the mainstay of current business. Noteworthily, firms, including small and medium enterprises in emerging economies and markets, continue to operate across global production networks and value chains in times of global crisis (COVID-19). Furthermore, the recent trends in global business indicated that cross-cultural management, cultural distance, innovation, institutional environment, leadership, strategy, and sustainability are critical factors that play a key role in shaping global business in the contemporary marketplace, whereas the recent trends in organizational excellence showed that entrepreneurship, innovation, knowledge and quality management, organizational competitiveness, job satisfaction, and sustainability are key success factors that enable global business to achieve organizational excellence in the modern era. These noteworthy insights suggest that global business and organizational excellence are complex and multifaceted.

More importantly, the nomological network of recent trends derived herein represents valuable information that academic scholars, industry professionals, and policymakers could rely upon to explain the current state of global business and organizational excellence from numerous perspectives (themes) in order to justify and set the tone for future endeavors. That is to say, the scientific insights of recent trends developed herein provide a useful alternative to the insights typically acquired from market reports and news articles for academic and managerial purposes. These arguments are in line with Mukherjee et al. (2022), who advocated the power of bibliometric insights for advancing theory and practice. Submissions with such insights, when rigorously developed and well-articulated, will be warmly welcomed in Global Business and Organizational Excellence.

To this end, it is clear that global business and organizational excellence are complex and multifaceted. Taking a leaf out of the insights herein, Global Business and Organizational Excellence will be transitioning from a predominantly human resource management and organizational behavior journal into a forward-looking multidisciplinary journal to meet the needs of global business intending to progress toward (continuously) achieving organizational excellence in the new normal. Therefore, prospective authors are highly encouraged to submit their best papers that theorize business functions and trending business phenomena using well-defined methodological approaches to Global Business and Organizational Excellence.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Weng Marc Lim is responsible for conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, and writing (original draft preparation, review, and editing).