From the Editors: Can I trust your findings? Ruling out alternative explanations in international business research

Abstract

The complex nature of international business research, with its cross-country and multilevel nature, complicates the empirical identification of relationships among theoretical constructs. The objective of this editorial is to provide guidance to help international business scholars navigate this complexity and ensure that readers can trust their findings. We provide suggestions for how to rule out alternative explanations, explaining key considerations not only in empirical analyses, but also in theory building and in research design. Our discussion covers both qualitative and quantitative studies, because we believe that it is imperative to understand how trustworthiness is established in both traditions, even for international business researchers who self-identify with only one. This enables scholars to have a broader scope of knowledge when interpreting past research in the field and to be more adept at explaining their design choices to a diverse audience.

The Successful Internationalization of Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Central and Eastern Europe: Acquisitions, Insidership and the Uppsala Model

“…The object of our research represents a successful case (Siggelkow, 2007) of internationalization through mergers, as VUB Bank is the second player on Slovakian banking market in 2017 (Intesa Sanpaolo, 2017). Case studies, and even more single case studies, are mainly based on an in-deep analysis (Cuervo-Cazurra, Andersson, Brannen, Nielsen, & Rebecca Reuber, 2016), helping scholars to explore new trends (Yin, 2009) and find alternative explanation (Cuervo-Cazurra et al, 2016), following different path to explain complex phenomena (Bertalanffy, 1968). In this context a single case study is representative (Siggelkow, 2007) and may be the object of analytic generalization (Yin, 2010).…”

Science’s reproducibility and replicability crisis: International business is not immune

“…International business (IB) and many other management and organization studies' disciplines are currently immersed in an important debate regarding the credibility and usefulness of the scholarly knowledge that is produced (Cuervo-Cazurra, Andersson, Brannen, Nielsen, & Reuber, 2016;Davis, 2015;George, 2014;Meyer, van Witteloostuijn, & Beugelsdijk, 2017). A critical issue in this debate is the lack of ability to reproduce and replicate results described in published articles (Bakker, van Dijk, & Wicherts, 2012;Bergh, Sharp, & Li, 2017;Cuervo-Cazurra et al, 2016;Ioannidis, 2005;Open Science Collaboration, 2015).…”

“…A critical issue in this debate is the lack of ability to reproduce and replicate results described in published articles (Bakker, van Dijk, & Wicherts, 2012;Bergh, Sharp, & Li, 2017;Cuervo-Cazurra et al, 2016;Ioannidis, 2005;Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Reproducibility means that someone other than a published study's authors is able to obtain the same results using the authors' own data, whereas replicability means that someone other than a published study's authors is able to obtain substantially similar results by applying the same steps in a different context and with different data.…”

“…Clearly, it is difficult to make the case that research results are credible and useful if they are irreproducible and not replicable. Unfortunately, there is a proliferation of evidence indicating that lack of reproducibility and replicability are quite pervasive (e.g., Banks, Rogelberg, Woznyj, Landis, & Rupp, 2016;Cortina, Green, Keeler, & Vandenberg, 2016;Cuervo-Cazurra et al, 2016;Ioannidis, 2005;Open Science Collaboration, 2015;Schwab & Starbuck, 2017). Accordingly, as noted by Verbeke, Von Glinow, and Luo, ''… the IB discipline faces the challenges of remaining at par with the methodological standards in adjacent fields for validity, reliability, replicability and generalizability'' (Verbeke et al, 2017: 6).…”

Management and Organization Review Special Issue ‘Doing Qualitative Research in Emerging Markets

“…Furthermore, the most recent editorial from Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) emphasizes on the trustworthiness in qualitative research by ruling out alternative explanations (Cuervo-Cazurra, Andersson, Brannen, Nielsen, & Reuber, 2016). Detailed recommendations have been outlined for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research in three dimensions: research context, research design, and empirical analysis (Cuervo-Cazurra et al, 2016).…”