Emerging markets are characterized by underdeveloped institutions and frequent environmental shifts. Yet they also contain many firms that have survived over generations. How are firms in weak institutional environments able to persist over time? Motivated by 69 interviews with leaders of emerging market firms with histories spanning generations, we combine induction and deduction to propose reputation as a meta-resource that allows firms to activate their conventional resources. We conceptualize reputation as consisting of prominence, perceived quality, and resilience, and develop a process model that illustrates the mechanisms that allow reputation to facilitate survival in ways that persist over time. Building on research in strategy and business history, we thus shed light on an underappreciated strategic construct (reputation) in an under-theorized setting (emerging markets) over an unusual period (the historical long run).

We argue that the field of international business should evolve its rhetoric from the relatively uncontroversial idea that ‘history matters’ to exploring how it matters. We discuss four conceptual channels through which history matters, illustrating each with a major example. First, historical variation is at least a worthy complement to contemporary cross-sectional variation in illuminating conceptual issues. As an example, we show that conclusions reached by the literature on contemporary emerging market business groups are remarkably similar to independently reached conclusions about a very similar organizational form that was ubiquitous in the age of empire. Second, historical evidence avoids spurious labeling of some phenomena as ‘new’, and by so doing may challenge current explanations of their determinants. Whereas some firm types today were also present earlier, some types have disappeared, some have appeared, and some have disappeared and reappeared later. Third, history can allow us to move beyond the oft-recognized importance of issues of path dependence to explore the roots of Penrosian resources. We argue that the choices made by Jardine's and Swire's in Asia today, for example, are an outgrowth of strategic choices first in evidence more than a century ago. These would remain obscured absent an historical analysis. Fourth, there are certain issues that are unaddressable, except in the really long (that is, historical) run. Exploring the causal relationship (if any) between foreign direct investment, a staple of the international business literature, and long-run economic development provides one important example. Throughout, we advocate embracing rigorous methods for analyzing small-sample and qualitative data when conventional regression techniques do not apply. That is, we suggest that re-embracing history in the mainstream is not tantamount to sacrificing methodological rigor. Journal of International Business Studies (2006) 37,, 453–468. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400198

Research Summary We articulate the value of historical methods and reasoning in strategic entrepreneurship research and theory. We begin by introducing the papers in the special issue, contextualizing each within one of five broader methodological approaches, and elaborating on the applicability of each to other topics in entrepreneurship research. Next, we use the papers to induce a framework for integrating history into entrepreneurship theory. The framework demonstrates how historical assumptions play a formative role in operationalizing time and context in entrepreneurship research. We then show how variations in these treatments of time and context shape theoretical claims about entrepreneurial opportunities, actions, and processes of change. We conclude by discussing why this may be a particularly opportune time for strategic entrepreneurship research to develop a deeper historical sensibility. Managerial Summary History can serve as an especially important guide to understanding entrepreneurship during moments of change. We draw on articles from the special issue on “Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research” to illustrate different forms of historical reasoning and research about entrepreneurship. Moreover, we use the articles to develop a framework for understanding how historical context and time shape entrepreneurial opportunities, actions, and processes of change. We emphasize, in particular, the value of history in understanding variations in entrepreneurial practices.

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Research Summary: The last decade has witnessed an increasing interest in the use of history and historical research methods in strategy research. We discuss how and why history and historical research methods can enrich theoretical explanations of strategy phenomena. In addition, we introduce the notions of "historyinformed strategy research," distinguishing between the dimensions of "history to theory" and "history in theory" and discussing various under-utilized methods that may further work on history-informed strategy research. We then discuss how contemporary research contributes to history-informed research within the strategy field, examine key methodological and empirical challenges associated with such research, and develop an agenda for future research.Managerial Summary: Firms are increasingly making use of their historical past as they reflect on their identities and how these can be used strategically. At the same time, strategy researchers are paying increasing to the use of historical research methods, as well as to how firms use history strategically. We take stock on the role of history in strategy research, outline the key strategic issues that can be informed by a historical way of doing research, discuss the available historical methods, and offer suggestions for future research in the history/strategy intersection.firm identity, historical research methods, history-informed strategy research, small-N research, the role of the past