What merits greater scholarly attention in international business?

Abstract

Scholarly efforts to propose future directions for international business (IB) research have generated a timely and extensive inventory of potentially interesting areas of research. We supplement this line of inquiry by suggesting that an additional layer of scrutiny could be beneficial when advocating in favor of giving more attention to particular research realms. Specifically, we advance several guiding principles that will help IB scholars assess which research areas merit greater scholarly attention, based on their potential importance and impact. We distinguish between (1) research in new or underdeveloped research domains, where salience, urgency, and actionability are critical elements, and (2) new research in relatively well-established domains, where scholars may contribute to changing the theoretical conversations taking place in IB.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship in peripheral contexts: experiences and prospects from the caribbean small island developing states

“…The relevance of understanding the islands, and in this case, the Caribbean, goes well-beyond practice and research in the region, however. Indeed, there remains a few areas where research on the region, as an emerging context, can help to shed light on some of the new and emerging areas of research, or where recognised research fields can be advanced by new research (Grøgaard, Sartor and Rademaker, 2022). The research and perspectives covered in this article and the remaining papers in this special issue go some way in indicating where this may be the case.…”

Business Resilience: Lessons from Government Responses to the Global COVID-19 Crisis

“…The ECR approach is particularly relevant for economic and business analysis, as international business is "exposed more than any other management domain to the multiple tensions of changes in geographical, political, sociological, cultural and business environments" (Andriani and McKelvey, 2007: p.1226-1227. We respond to Buckley, Doh, and Benischke's (2017) call to expand the impacts of cross-country studies and address the current issues in international business studies (Buckley & Casson, 2021;Ghauri, Strange, & Cooke, 2021;Grøgaard, Sartor, & Rademaker, 2022;Verbeke & Yuan, 2021).…”

Methodological challenges and insights for future international business research

“…There is a documented disconnect between the knowledge that IB academics are producing and the knowledge that managers and policy-makers are consuming (Grøgaard, Sartor, & Rademaker, 2022).…”

“…As noted by Grøgaard et al, (2022Grøgaard et al, ( : 1512, ''it is common to find only a cursory consideration of a study's practical implications in the discussion section of published IB papers… most published research seems to be primarily intended for an academic audience.'' We believe that an important reason for this so-called research-practice gap is that, frankly, our research often does not address important and relevant issues for society.…”

“…But, exposure to other research and other researchers is only the first step. It is also important to engage in ''bridging'' activities with the world of IB practice (Grøgaard et al, 2022;Shapiro, Kirkman, & Courtney, 2007). Consider the following three possibilities likely to result in researching important and relevant issues: (a) becoming involved in senior managerial decision-making by serving on boards of directors and leadership positions in global organizations, (b) serving as an instructor in executive education courses, and (c) spending a sabbatical in business practice either as a translator of existing research or researcher on teams including both researchers and practitioners.…”