Beyond categorization: new directions for theory development about entrepreneurial internationalization

Categorizations emphasizing the earliness of internationalization have long been a cornerstone of international entrepreneurship research. Here we contend that the prominence of categories has not been commensurate with theory development associated with them. We draw on categorization theory to explain why earliness-based categories are persistent, and argue that a greater focus on notions related to opportunity can open new avenues of research about the entrepreneurial internationalization of business. We propose and discuss three directions for opportunity-based research on entrepreneurial internationalization, involving context, dynamics and variety

Communicating moral legitimacy in controversial industries: the trade in human tissue

Globally active companies are involved in the discursive construction of moral legitimacy. Establishing normative conformance is problematic given the plurality of norms and values worldwide, and is particularly difficult for companies operating in morally controversial industries. In this paper, we investigate how organizations publicly legitimize the trade of human tissue for private profit when this practice runs counter to deep-seated and widespread moral beliefs. To do so, we use inductive, qualitative methods to analyze the website discourse of three types of organizations that trade in human tissue and are associated with different degrees of moral controversy with respect to tissue procurement and use. Our analysis reveals an object-oriented approach to moral legitimizing centered on the human tissue as a morally disputed good. We find that the website discourse translates human tissue into technology, constructs normative meaning around a dominant instrumental value associated with human-tissue-as-technology, and reproduces and stabilizes this meaning by six discursive mechanisms that amplify and anchor it. Moreover, the use of amplifying and anchoring discourse was greater in organizations associated with greater controversy. The results are consistent with an object-oriented sociality

Beyond disciplinary silos: a systematic analysis of the migrant entrepreneurship literature

The objective of this study is to inform and invigorate international business (IB) research on migrant entrepreneurship. Migrant entrepreneurship is an important global phenomenon that is relevant to diverse scholarly conversations. Yet, to date, it has received scant attention in IB compared with research in other disciplines. Our study aims to take stock of existing research on migrant entrepreneurship across eight disciplinary areas. We conducted a thematic analysis of 373 articles. The resulting thematic inventory was organized by the antecedents, success factors and moderators of migrant entrepreneurship. We highlight the implications of this analysis for future research in IB

Something borrowed, something new : challenges in using qualitative methods to study under-researched international business phenomena

This article responds to calls for IB researchers to study a greater diversity of international business (IB) phenomena in order to generate theoretical insights about empirical settings that are under-represented in the scholarly IB literature. While this objective is consistent with the strengths of qualitative research methods, novel empirical settings are not always well aligned with methods that have been developed in better-researched and thus more familiar settings. In this article, we explore three methods-related challenges of studying under-researched empirical settings, in terms of gathering and analyzing qualitative data. The challenges are: managing researcher identities, navigating unfamiliar data gathering conditions, and theorizing the uniqueness of novel empirical settings. These challenges are integral to the process of contextualization, which involves linking observations from an empirical setting to the categories of the theoretical research context. We provide a toolkit of recommended practices to manage them, by drawing on published accounts of research by others, and on our own experiences in the field.Cet article répond aux appels lancés aux chercheurs en affaires internationales (International Business - IB) à étudier une plus grande diversité de phénomènes en IB pour générer des renseignements théoriques sur des terrains empiriques sous-représentés dans la littérature de l’IB. Bien que cet objectif soit cohérent avec les points forts des méthodes de recherche qualitative, les nouveaux terrains empiriques ne sont pas toujours compatibles avec les méthodes développées dans des terrains mieux étudiés et donc plus familiers. Dans cet article, nous explorons trois défis liés aux méthodes de recherche sur les terrains empiriques peu étudiés, plus spécifiquement, à la collecte et l’analyse des données qualitatives. Les défis sont les suivants : gérer les identités des chercheurs, naviguer dans des conditions de collecte de données peu familières et théoriser le caractère unique des nouveaux terrains empiriques. Ces défis font partie intégrante du processus de contextualisation qui consiste à relier les observations sur un terrain empirique aux catégories théoriques. Pour les gérer, nous élaborons une « boîte à outils » de pratiques recommandées en nous appuyant sur des comptes rendus de recherche publiés par d'autres ainsi que sur nos propres expériences sur le terrain.Este artículo responde a los pedidos para que los investigadores de negocios internacionales estudien una mayor diversidad de fenómenos de negocios internacionales con el fin de generar conocimientos teóricos sobre entornos empíricos que están escasamente representados en la literatura académica de los negocios internacionales. Aunque este objetivo es consecuente con las fortalezas de los métodos de investigación cualitativa, los nuevos entornos empíricos no siempre están bien alineados con los métodos que se han desarrollado en entornos mejor investigados y, por ende, más familiares. En este artículo, exploramos tres desafíos relacionados con los métodos para estudiar entornos empíricos poco investigados, en términos de recopilación y análisis de datos cualitativos. Los retos son: la gestión de las identidades de los investigadores, la navegación por condiciones desconocidas de recopilación de datos y la teorización de la peculiaridad de los nuevos entornos empíricos. Estos retos son parte integral del proceso de contextualización, el cual implica vincular las observaciones de un entorno empírico a las categorías del contexto de investigación teórico. Proporcionamos una caja de herramientas de prácticas recomendadas para gestionarlas, basándonos en los reportajes de investigación publicados por otros y en nuestras propias experiencias en el campo.The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.https://link.springer.com/journal/41267hj2023Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS

Psychological treatments for people with epilepsy.

BackgroundGiven the significant impact epilepsy may have on the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of individuals with epilepsy and their families, there is increasing clinical interest in evidence-based psychological treatments, aimed at enhancing psychological and seizure-related outcomes for this group. This is an updated version of the original Cochrane Review published in Issue 10, 2017.ObjectivesTo assess the impact of psychological treatments for people with epilepsy on HRQOL outcomes.Search methodsFor this update, we searched the following databases on 12 August 2019, without language restrictions: Cochrane Register of Studies (CRS Web), which includes randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials from the Specialized Registers of Cochrane Review Groups including Epilepsy, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE (Ovid, 1946 to 09 August 2019), and PsycINFO (EBSCOhost, 1887 onwards), and from PubMed, Embase, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). We screened the references from included studies and relevant reviews, and contacted researchers in the field for unpublished studies.Selection criteriaWe considered randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs for this review. HRQOL was the main outcome. For the operational definition of 'psychological treatments', we included a broad range of skills-based psychological treatments and education-only interventions designed to improve HRQOL, seizure frequency and severity, as well as psychiatric and behavioral health comorbidities for adults and children with epilepsy. These psychological treatments were compared to treatment as usual (TAU), an active control group (such as social support group), or antidepressant pharmacotherapy.Data collection and analysisWe used standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane.Main resultsWe included 36 completed RCTs, with a total of 3526 participants. Of these studies, 27 investigated skills-based psychological interventions. The remaining nine studies were education-only interventions. Six studies investigated interventions for children and adolescents, three studies investigated interventions for adolescents and adults, and the remaining studies investigated interventions for adults. Based on satisfactory clinical and methodological homogeneity, we pooled data from 11 studies (643 participants) that used the Quality of Life in Epilepsy-31 (QOLIE-31) or other QOLIE inventories (such as QOLIE-89 or QOLIE-31-P) convertible to QOLIE-31. We found significant mean changes for the QOLIE-31 total score and six subscales (emotional well-being, energy and fatigue, overall QoL, seizure worry, medication effects, and cognitive functioning). The mean changes in the QOLIE-31 total score (mean improvement of 5.23 points, 95% CI 3.02 to 7.44; P Authors' conclusionsImplications for practice: Skills-based psychological interventions improve HRQOL in adults and adolescents with epilepsy. Adjunctive use of skills-based psychological treatments for adults and adolescents with epilepsy may provide additional benefits in HRQOL when these are incorporated into patient-centered management. We judge the evidence to be of moderate certainty.Implications for researchInvestigators should strictly adhere to the CONSORT guidelines to improve the quality of reporting on their interventions. A thorough description of intervention protocols is necessary to ensure reproducibility. When examining the effectiveness of psychological treatments for people with epilepsy, the use of standardized HRQOL inventories, such as the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventories (QOLIE-31, QOLIE-31-P, and QOLIE-89) would increase comparability. Unfortunately, there is a critical gap in pediatric RCTs and RCTs including people with epilepsy and intellectual disabilities. Finally, in order to increase the overall quality of RCT study designs, adequate randomization with allocation concealment and blinded outcome assessment should be pursued. As attrition is often high in research that requires active participation, an intention-to-treat analysis should be carried out. Treatment fidelity and treatment competence should also be assessed. These important dimensions, which are related to 'Risk of bias' assessment, should always be reported