International Guest Speaker:
Dr. Soogand Golesorkhi – Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Agder, Norway

Facilitator: 
Prof. Anne-Laure Mention – Director, Global Business Innovation Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University and Chief Investigator, OpenInnoTrain project.

Session overview:
This study applies insights from institutional economics and language studies to examine language's impact on national foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks. Using a gravity model to analyse 219,325 country-pair observations across 246 countries from 2010 to 2019, we find that larger language differences between source and host countries are associated with reduced bilateral FDI stocks. Additionally, language deviation from English in either country negatively affects FDI stocks. The influence of language differences on FDI is weakened by formal institutional proximity and cultural closeness between the countries involved. This research underscores the significant role of language in shaping FDI stocks.

Bio: Dr Soogand Golesorkhi currently serves as an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Agder (UiA), within the Faculty of Business and Law in Norway. In her role, she leads the MSc in Entrepreneurship program 'SHIFT' and oversee the Business Administration Exchange and Internship Programme in North America within the Management department. Additionally, she contributes to the leadership of the EU Horizon project 'BlueRev,' which focuses on revitalizing European communities through innovative bio-based businesses, governance models, and social innovations in the blue bio-based sector.

With a proven track record in academia, she excels in teaching, curriculum development, leadership, research, and outreach. Having established strong national and international research networks, collaborating with esteemed universities and research centres. Her expertise lies at the intersection of international business, strategy, and entrepreneurship, where she makes significant contributions, particularly in institutional and social enterprise perspectives.

Furthermore, she brings extensive experience in supervising and guiding undergraduate, MBA, MSc dissertations, as well as doctoral students.

Acknowledgements:
OpenInnoTrain Project, is a global network of researchers and industry practitioners across Europe and Australia for promoting the translation of research between university-industry through cooperation and Open Innovation in the sectors of: FinTech, Industry 4.0, CleanTech, FoodTech. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 823971.

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia – Global Business Innovation Enabling Impact Platform (Director, Professor Anne-Laure Mention).

University of Agder