Understanding the Footprint of the RBV in International Business Studies: the Last Twenty Years of Research

International business (IB) research has evolved substantially over the past four decades incorporating new concerns and theoretical contributions. During the past two decades, the Resource-Based View (RBV) has gained the preference of many IB scholars and has gradually become one of the dominant theoretical perspectives for studying IB decisions and operations. The 1991 article “Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage” by Jay Barney is recognized as a fundamental contribution to the Resource-Based View (RBV). In this paper we assess the influence of the RBV, proxied by Jay Barney’s (1991) article, on IB research over the twenty years period, from 1991 to 2010. In this bibliometric study of the articles published in the leading journal for IB research – Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) – we conduct citation and co-citation analyses, the networks of co-authorship, and delve into the analysis of the key research topics. Beyond understanding the extant research we also contribute to i identifying future research avenues.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Internationalization as a Business Model Design Process

Digitalization is transforming the dynamic of entrepreneurial opportunity pursuit to the extent that traditional theories of internationalization may no longer effectively explain firms’ internationalization patterns. To test alternative perspectives, we introduce a business model design lens to the study of entrepreneurial internationalization in the digital age. Drawing on a multiple case study research of six new ventures, we induct a three-layer model of internationalization process, which distinguishes between digital, ecosystem, and country layers. While the country layer is extensively studied in traditional internationalization models, the digital and ecosystem layers are new. Our case evidence shows that the digitalization of the firm’s context enables it to extend interactions beyond domestic borders already at the value discovery stage, thereby enabling internationalization in the formative stages of business model design process. The internationalization layers also demonstrate how new ventures that start as global, narrow their foreign market scope at later states

International Business Research: Understanding Past Paths to Design Future Research Directions

In this paper we examine the extant research in IB by conducting a bibliometric study of the articles published in three leading international business journals – International Business Review, Journal of International Business Studies and Management International Review, over their entire track record of publication available in the ISI – Institute for Scientific Information. In longitudinal analyses of citation data we ascertain the most relevant works to the international business field. We also identify intellectual interconnectedness in co-citation networks of the research published in each journal. A second-tier analysis delves into publication patterns of those articles that are not at the top citation listings. Our results permit us better understand and depict the extant international business research and, to some extent, its evolution thus far.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Internationalization of Creative Professional Service Firms

The need to understand the internationalization process of the organization is a field of increasing contemporary interest due to greatly intensified trade flows between nations over the last two decades. While traditionally internationalization was generally pursued by manufacturing firms, service organizations, including creative professional service firms (creative PSFs) such as architects now commonly internationalize their activities. However, theory to date continues to focus on traditional manufacturing firms, and while insights relating to service firm internationalization have gained traction over the last decade, theoretical contributions remain fragmented and overlook the particular features of how creative PSFs internationalize. This is despite the growing recognition that trade in creative knowledge intensive services is a critical component to the health and competitiveness of both mature and emerging economies. This study addresses this gap by exploring how creative PSFs internationalize using ten case studies within the architecture sector. The in-depth qualitative analysis of interview and archival data enables the composition of three research papers, representing three key theoretical contributions. The primary contributions are to international business (IB) literature, firstly by unpacking the portfolio of business models that creative PSFs use to internationalize, and secondly by identifying how creative PSFs internationalize by moving from outside to inside relevant international networks. The second paper also adds to organizational status literature by uncovering the interplay between hierarchies of networks. The identification of a strategic dichotomy within the particular creative PSF sector detailed in the first paper represents a significant contribution to the PSF literature

Culture in international business research: a bibliometric study in four top IB journals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conduct a study on the articles published in the four top international business (IB) journals to examine how four cultural models and concepts – Hofstede’s (1980), Hall’s (1976), Trompenaars’s (1993) and Project GLOBE’s (House et al., 2004) – have been used in the extant published IB research. National cultures and cultural differences provide a crucial component of the context of IB research. Design/methodology – This is a bibliometric study on the articles published in four IB journals over the period from 1976 to 2010, examining a sample of 517 articles using citations and co-citation matrices. Findings – Examining this sample revealed interesting patterns of the connections across the studies. Hofstede’s (1980) and House et al.’s (2004) research on the cultural dimensions are the most cited and hold ties to a large variety of IB research. These findings point to a number of research avenues to deepen the understanding on how firms may handle different national cultures in the geographies they operate. Research limitations – Two main limitations are faced, one associated to the bibliometric method, citations and co-citations analyses and other to the delimitation of our sample to only four IB journals, albeit top-ranked. Originality/value – The paper focuses on the main cultural models used in IB research permitting to better understand how culture has been used in IB research, over an extended period.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effectuation Network Relationship Vis-A-Vis Causation Network Relationship : A Study from High-Tech SMES in Malaysia

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Social ties, prior experience, and venture creation by transnational entrepreneurs

The interaction between resources, and host and home country contexts of transnational entrepreneurs (TEs), is important for understanding their strategies and hence performance of their ventures. Yet, how they deploy their unique experiences and social networks in the founding of ventures in multiple institutional contexts is less understood. Based on 15 in-depth interviews with TEs of Indian origin in the UK, and nine of their counterpart heads of transnational venture (TNV) operations, we explore the use of prior experience, and personal and industry ties in the founding of TNVs in their home country. Our findings show that the way TEs use personal and industry ties in the host and home countries is contingent on whether they have prior experience of: 1) entering the home country; 2) implementing the business opportunity underlying the TNV in the home country, respectively, with a former employer. The implications of these findings are discussed

Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

Effectual logic of international entrepreneurs in digital platform environments

Due to globalization and the ongoing transformation towards a highly digitalized environment, international new ventures increasingly face dynamic and rapidly changing ecosystems. Resultingly international entrepreneurs are in close contact with dynamic digital platform constructs that impact today’s B2B and B2C markets on many levels. International entrepreneurs encounter uncertainty and an unpredictably fast changing future in this network- based environment, but at the same time explore novelty and a wide range of opportunities. This thesis aims to explore how the international entrepreneur’s decision-making, concretely under the perspective of effectual logic, is abled to navigate through the dynamic nature of fast changing digital platform environments. The theoretical framework of this thesis builds upon a wide range of literature discussing effectuation, digital platforms and their shared conjunction in the international context. Effectuation and digital platforming are concepts that emerged within the last 30 years and showed a significant increase in relevance as today’s globalized and digitalized economy facilitates their growth and interplay. The concepts have been discussed increasingly over the last years, while the conjunction of effectual decision making by international entrepreneurs in digital platform environments has not been discussed sufficiently. In order to observe the resulting interplay, this master’s thesis carries out a qualitative study that observed three German based international new ventures through semi structured interviews. While observing international entrepreneurs in dynamic platform environments, factors such as agility, dynamism and reactiveness seem to play a huge role in the effectual decision-making process. Big tech platforms, in conjunction with the innovative power by small high-tech companies, create an unpredictably fast changing environment that is globally connected and forces international entrepreneurs to consistently adapt their assumptions about the future. Opportunities and solutions to start new ventures are largely enabled by big tech platforms, while competition between entrepreneurs is also accelerated. The resulting environment of an interconnected digital platform - INV ecosystem - brings a wide range of novelty, innovation as well as dependency that selects only the fittest and most agile companies

Theoretical foundations of equity based foreign market entry decisions: a review of the literature and recommendations for future research

This paper reviews the theoretical foundations of the equity based foreign market entry (FME) decisions literature. We analyse 1055 academic FME papers published over four decades (1970–2013). We identify and analyse the theories that informed and guided FME research over time. Our review indicates that scholars have recently started to challenge some of the core assumptions of established theories, draw on and integrate insights from multiple theoretical perspectives which, in turn, generated a multiplicity of approaches for studying FME decisions and their performance outcomes. The paper discusses the explanatory power of the different theories, assesses the relevance of the different theoretical perspectives to our understanding of current FME phenomena and recommends directions for further research