The qualitative case research in international entrepreneurship: a state of the art and analysis

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how qualitative case research (QCR) has been conducted in the field of international entrepreneurship (IE) in terms of onto-epistemology and methodology. QCR can serve as an umbrella approach for contextualizing and capturing the complexity of IE opportunities, events, conditions and relationships, and to illuminate and enrich the understanding of related IE processes. Design/methodology/approach A thorough literature review was conducted of IE journal articles published between 1989 and mid-2017. This paper identified and analyzed 292 journal articles in terms of theoretical purpose and research design. Findings The findings suggest that the “positivistic” QCR is the customary convention of QCR in IE. “Exploratory” and “theory building” are the two most commonly pursued objectives. There have also been atypical practices and increased methodological rigor in recent years. Alternative paradigmatic QCRs that depart from positivistic assumptions are in an early stage of development in IE. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research examining QCR onto-epistemology and methodology approaches in IE, providing a useful state of the art that has been hitherto lacking in the literature. Based on this paper’s findings, the authors suggest that the IE field would benefit from greater methodological transparency in the reporting and writing of QCR. Also, the breadth of knowledge and legitimacy of the IE area would be enhanced through more studies involving unconventional (beyond positivistic) QCR.

Home sharing in marketing and tourism at a tipping point: What do we know, how do we know, and where should we be heading?

“… Method-based reviews are dedicated to analyzing the utilization of a specific method in a subject area. Examples of method-based reviews include the use of structural equation modeling in marketing ( Hair, Hult, Ringle, Sarstedt, & Thiele, 2017 ), the use of qualitative case research in international entrepreneurship ( Ji, Plakoyiannaki, Dimitratos, & Chen, 2019 ), and the use of behavioral experiments in operations and production management ( Perera, Fahimnia, & Tokar, 2020 ). Meta-analytical reviews are focused on statistical assessments of prior empirical research on a specific research topic, whereby the common effects are identified through consistency in the direction of effect, effect size, and statistical power, and the reason for variations are explained.…”

“…Method-based reviews are dedicated to analyzing the utilization of a specific method in a subject area. Examples of method-based reviews include the use of structural equation modeling in marketing ( Hair, Hult, Ringle, Sarstedt, & Thiele, 2017 ), the use of qualitative case research in international entrepreneurship ( Ji, Plakoyiannaki, Dimitratos, & Chen, 2019 ), and the use of behavioral experiments in operations and production management ( Perera, Fahimnia, & Tokar, 2020 ).…”

“…Future research could review the collection of concepts and theories relating to home sharing and analyze their unique peculiarities, the evolvement and development of these existing concepts and theories in the field, and to consolidate and refine their boundaries for furthering conceptual and theory advancement. The methods-based review is also another option that future scholars can consider to strengthen the building blocks of home sharing predicated on first-order knowledge ( Hair et al, 2017 ; Ji et al, 2019 , Perera et al, 2020 ). In particular, future research could conduct an in-depth review covering the ontological, and epistemological considerations that could be used to promote methodological rigor in conceptualization and operationalization endeavors in home-sharing research.…”

Riding the waves of family firm internationalization: A systematic literature review, integrative framework, and research agenda

“…Following Ji, Plakoyiannaki, Dimitratos, and Chen (2019) , articles were classified as either conceptual (11.2%, 15 entries) or empirical (88.8%, 119 entries); among the latter, we further categorized them as quantitative (63.43%, 85 entries) if they predominantly rely on large-scale data collection and analysis; qualitative (21.64%, 29 entries) if using case studies, ethnography, or in-depth interviews, and relying on qualitative data analysis; or mixed-method (3.73%, 5 entries) if employing both quantitative and qualitative methods where both play a substantial role in the study.…”

Are rigor and transparency enough? Review and future directions for case studies in technology and innovation Management

“…This typology also allows us to highlight approaches that are over‐ or under‐represented (e.g. Ji et al, 2018; see also Bansal and Corley, 2012).…”