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Research Methods in International Business: Challenges and Advances

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Research Methods in International Business

Part of the book series: JIBS Special Collections ((JIBSSC))

Abstract

High-quality research methods underpin strong scholarship in international business (IB) research. This book is a testimony to the maturity of the field and highlights both how far we have come and how far we still have to go. In this chapter, we first reiterate the importance of applying sound research methods while conducting IB research, and then proceed to identify a number of particularly salient methodological challenges facing scholars in IB research. We next review some key points in the Commentaries and Reflections that accompany the JIBS articles selected for this volume. Our chapter ends with a set of general recommendations to IB scholars in the pursuit of continuous high-quality scholarship.

We thank Agnieszka Chidlow, Henrik Gundelach, Stewart R. Miller, and Catherine Welch for their comments and help on an earlier draft of this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The nationality of authors was determined by the university affiliation at the time of publication. Thus, this number does not take into account the multicultural backgrounds of authors in the same country. Hence, this number is likely very conservative and the real increase potentially much higher.

  2. 2.

    The authors of each original article were invited to write a Further Reflections note on their original piece. Some authors chose to do this; others decided not to, inter alia, because they felt there was little new to report in substantive terms.

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Acknowledgements

As authors and editors of this book, we “stand on the shoulders” of the scholars, teachers, and colleagues who have provided us with knowledge, skills, and support—not only while writing this book but throughout our academic careers. We trace our interest and expertise in research methods to the wonderful teachers, mentors, and co-authors who shared their knowledge and expertise with us. We therefore first owe a debt of gratitude to the many individuals who have helped to improve our understanding of research methods during our own careers.

We also want to thank everyone who helped us in writing this book. In particular, we thank Anne Hoekman, long-time Managing Editor of JIBS, who put together the JIBS dataset from which we drew our 11 best articles. We want to thank all the authors of the original JIBS articles, together with the authors who wrote the Commentaries and Further Reflections on each of the 11 original pieces. We thank our families also for listening to (and putting up with) us while we were working on this book. We also extend a special thanks to the founding committee members at the Research Methods Shared Interest Group (RM-SIG)—Agnieszka Chidlow, Stewart Miller, and Catherine Welch—for their valuable feedback on this chapter. Lastly, we thank Liz Barlow and Lucy Kidwell at Palgrave Springer for their helpful advice on this book project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Bo Bernhard Nielsen

  2. Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Bo Bernhard Nielsen

  3. Department of Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Lorraine Eden

  4. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Alain Verbeke

  5. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Alain Verbeke

  6. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Alain Verbeke

Authors
  1. Bo Bernhard Nielsen
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  2. Lorraine Eden
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  3. Alain Verbeke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lorraine Eden .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Lorraine Eden

  2. The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Bo Bernhard Nielsen

  3. Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Bo Bernhard Nielsen

  4. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Alain Verbeke

  5. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Alain Verbeke

  6. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Alain Verbeke

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Nielsen, B.B., Eden, L., Verbeke, A. (2020). Research Methods in International Business: Challenges and Advances. In: Eden, L., Nielsen, B.B., Verbeke, A. (eds) Research Methods in International Business. JIBS Special Collections. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22113-3_1

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