Capitalizing on the uniqueness of international business: Towards a theory of place, space, and organization

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd
• 署名单位: University of Groningen
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2506
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-022-00545-3
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 2050-2067
• 关键词: International business; theory of the firm in space; location; business systems; othering; place; SPACE

摘要

The field of international business (IB) has been successful in developing a unique body of knowledge on the multinational corporation and on country-level contexts. A recurring debate concerns its claim to uniqueness, and to associated scholarly characteristics that distinguish IB from other fields of research. I discuss what makes IB research unique by looking at what IB theory can explain and predict. To that end, I leverage key theoretical arguments and empirical insights to advance an understanding of IB centered around a firm's ability to create added value in more than one location. I introduce a stylized model of the multi-locational firm embedded in multiple business systems characterized by equifinality. As a result of the qualitative disjunctures that separate one place from another, multi-locational firms are confronted with additional managerial and organizational challenges. These challenges are rooted in the process of othering. Theorizing on the critical constructs of place, space, and organization, I argue that IB offers the most generalizable approach to understanding firms doing business in more than one location. IB's ultimate uniqueness lies in the potential of advancing a general theory of the firm in space.