Geopolitical risk has become one of the most frequently invoked terms in corporate boardrooms, consulting reports, and international business curricula, yet its academic conceptualization remains strikingly underdeveloped. The term is often used interchangeably with political risk or as a loose extension of country risk, without a shared understanding of what analytically distinguishes it, how it should be measured with rigor beyond aggregate indices, or how it should be taught to those who will eventually manage it. This panel treats that gap between widespread usage and conceptual precision as its central problem.
Four lines of inquiry structure the discussion. The first addresses the conceptual and theoretical foundations of geopolitical risk, asking what distinguishes it from political risk and country risk, and how competing international relations frameworks, including liberal institutionalism, offensive realism, and peripheral realism, can sharpen a category that currently functions as an umbrella term. The second examines the empirical terrains where geopolitical risk manifests with particular intensity today, including technology competition and energy transition, treating these as sites where great-power rivalry becomes operationally relevant for firms and states alike. The third turns to assessment and management from a business strategy perspective, asking how firms translate geopolitical uncertainty into decision-relevant tools rather than generic risk narratives. The fourth, and most distinctive line of this panel, addresses how geopolitical risk is taught within international business education, examining what content, competencies, and pedagogical approaches are required to prepare future managers and policymakers for a category of risk that current curricula rarely define with precision.
Together, these four lines aim to move geopolitical risk from a widely used but conceptually loose term toward a more rigorous field of inquiry, spanning theory, measurement, strategic practice, and pedagogy. The panel welcomes theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical contributions from international relations, international business, strategic management, and higher education research, with particular but not exclusive attention to how geopolitical risk is assessed and taught in Latin American and other emerging-market contexts.
