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Identifying the big question in international business research

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Abstract

Buckley (2002) argues that the international business (IB) research agenda may be running out of steam, because no big research question has currently been identified. Buckley also asks whether the field needs a big question, and if so challenges IB scholars to discover it. Buckley and Ghauri (2004) elaborate on the third question of globalization discussed in Buckley (2002) as a possible candidate for the big question. In response, this article is written to take up Buckley's challenge and also to comment on Buckley and Ghauri's more recent work. I agree that IB needs a big question, the pursuit of which can serve to unite and energize scholars, make scientific progress, and enhance the status and prestige of the field. Toward that end, I argue that ‘What determines the international success and failure of firms?’ has always served as a fundamental research question, which has permeated IB research in the past and present and is likely to propel its progress in the future. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the IB research agenda is not likely to run out of steam, because focusing on this question will leverage IB's comparative advantage and keep the field engaged in generating exciting and disciplined theories and findings in the 21st century.

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Notes

  1. On the other hand, Sullivan (1998) argues that IB may suffer from a ‘narrow vision’. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed by many IB and non-IB scholars that the scope of IB is wider than that of many other business disciplines.

  2. See Kuhn (1970) for an influential discussion on the difference between a paradigm stage and a preparadigm stage in the development of scientific disciplines. IB does have several paradigms, including Dunning's (1993) ‘eclectic’ paradigm and the three paradigms identified by Toyne and Nigh (1998), namely, extension, cross-border management, and evolving interaction paradigms. What the field seems to lack is a unifying paradigm.

  3. Wilkins (2001, 23), for example, notes that ‘The business historian is interested in what constitutes ‘advantage’ over time in the spread of international business … This brings business historians to the question of performance’.

  4. There is a parallel debate in transaction cost economics (TCE) in that some scholars argue that the original development of TCE does not focus on firm performance; rather, it focuses on governance choices (Williamson, 1975). However, governance choices have clear performance implications in that firms that choose the most appropriate governance structure will encounter the lowest transaction costs and, hence, attain the highest performance (theoretically at least). Therefore, firm existence and firm performance cannot exist independently; instead, they are intertwined (Mahoney, 2001).

  5. My argument on there may be no IB-only phenomenon is similar to the following argument made by Casson (2000, viii) on the relationship between economics and non-economics disciplines: ‘In truth, it seems that there is no purely ‘economic’ aspect to social science phenomena, and conversely, no purely ‘non-economic’ aspects either’. However, this does not prevent economists from choosing research questions and topics that are more salient to economics than to other non-economics disciplines, and vice versa (Casson, 2000).

  6. This is consistent with the publishing strategy of many IB scholars: While they often publish their work in the Journal of International Business Studies and other IB journals, they are also interested in publishing (or, if we may, ‘exporting’) their research in other non-IB, ‘mainstream’ business journals (Inkpen, 2001).

  7. It is interesting to note that among many leading business schools in North America (e.g., Illinois, Ivey, Michigan, NYU, Ohio State, Washington, Wharton), Europe (e.g., INSEAD, LBS), and Asia (e.g., CUHK, HKUST, NUS), IB and strategy groups are often housed in the same management department (Peng, 2001, 822).

  8. Buckley is not alone in this regard. Toyne and Nigh (1998, 870), for example, complain that ‘IB borrows [‘imports’] too much [from other disciplines]’.

  9. Political science serves as an example of how a discipline can be transformed from a preparadigm stage to ‘probably one of the more paradigmatically developed social sciences’ in the last three decades (Pfeffer, 1993, 615).

  10. This intellectual space is more than a ‘niche’. For example, at the Academy of Management that, as of August 31, 2003, has 13,733 members and 24 divisions and interest groups, the International Management Division is the sixth largest division with 2261 members (16% of all members).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a National Science Foundation Faculty Career Grant (SES 0238820) and the Center for International Business Education and Research at The Ohio State University. Discussions with Oded Shenkar, Mona Makhija, Steve Hills, Jane Lu, Joe Mahoney, Jean-Francois Hennart, and participants in the Ph.D. independent readings seminar are helpful for the development of these ideas. Finally, I thank Arie Y. Lewin for editorial guidance and Yi Jiang and Yuanyuan Zhou for research assistance.

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  1. Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Mike W Peng

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  1. Mike W Peng
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Correspondence to Mike W Peng.

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Accepted by Arie Lewin, Editor in Chief, 21 January 2004. This paper has been with the author for one revision.

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Peng, M. Identifying the big question in international business research. J Int Bus Stud 35, 99–108 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400077

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