The International Business Environment

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The International Business Environment through
1970 to 2000. A content analysis using JIBS
Online. Manuel Portugal Ferreira David Eccles
School of Business, The University of Utah 1645
E. Campus Center Dr.Salt Lake City, Utah,
84112-9304pmgtmpf_at_business.utah.edu Dan
Li University of Texas at Dallas lydiali_at_utdallas.
edu Stephen Guisinger University of Texas at
Dallas June 2002
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In the very first issue of JIBS in 1970. Richard
Wright wrote that trends indicates that
international business research is alive and
well indeed. One of the trends was More
attention is being devoted to the environment of
international business (p.109) What did the
last thirty years show?
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ABSTRACT
Multiple authors argue that the International
Business Environment is the distinctive
underlying feature that distinguishes Internationa
l Business research from other management areas.
The geovalent construct (Guisinger, 2000, 2001)
is utilized to identify seven dimensions of the
International Business Environment. Using the
JIBS database Online, we conducted a content
analysis of all articles published in the JIBS
from 1970-2000 to evaluate to what extent the
IBE has been included in extant research. The
focus on JIBS is justified by its stature as the
leading journal for IB research. The analysis
shows that the IBE is still highly disregarded,
and we conclude that a multi-dimensional view of
the IBE is still lacking in the International
Business literature.
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RESEARCH QUESTION
To what extent, and how, has the International
Business Environment been included in previous
IB research?
METHOD

• Content analysis of all the articles published
• in the JIBS from 1970 to 2000.

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Citations
International business research is "concerned
with the interrelationship between the
operations of the business firm and
international or foreign environments in which
the firm operates". Nehrt, Truitt Wright
(1970) Wright (1970)
By definition, IB is contextual. It
specifically includes the external international
environment in which firms conduct business
that is, the international context in which firms
are embedded. It is precisely the nature of
this embeddedness in an external international
environment that has distinguished IB from other
areas of management inquiry. Boyacigiller
Adler (1997 398)
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THE IBE and THE GEOVALENT CONSTRUCT
Guisinger proposed the geovalent environment
construct to decompose the IBE into eight
mutually exclusive, exhaustive, quantifiable,
and replicable dimensions (2000, 2001). The
geovalent is used to organize a list of
environmental variables. - Econography. -
Culture. - Legal standards. - Income. -
Political risks. - Tax regimes. - Exchange
rates. - Restrictions.
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LIST OF KEYWORDS FOR WORD COUNT
RESTRICTIONS tariff(s) pre-tariff or
post-tariff quota(s) TRIM and trade related
investment measures trade policies investment
policy(ies) investment incentive(s) national
treatment border taxes right (non right) of
establishment effective tariff protection effectiv
e protection performance requirements.
CULTURE culture cultural or culturally acculturati
on multiculture or multicultural transculture or
transcultural cross-culture or
cross-cultural subculture multiculturalism unicult
ural monocultural
LEGAL SYSTEM legal law(s) competition
law(s) property rights safety regulation(s) corrup
tion patent law(s) property law(s) payoff(s)
civil law common law
EXCHANGE RATE exchange rate(s) exchange
risk currency risk currency variation currency
variability currency changes currency
movement(s) currency uncertainty currency
instability foreign exchange risk foreign
exchange changes foreign exchange movement(s)
INCOME LEVEL income (income inequality, income
per capita, , per capita income, income
distribution, income elasticity, income group,
high/low/middle-income, premium income, income
level, net income, residual income, income
growth) purchasing power parity or PPP GDP per
capita GNP per capita
TAX REGIME tax(es) taxation foreign taxation tax
rate(s) tax-exemption taxable after-tax or
pre-tax government revenue
foreign exchange variation foreign exchange
variability foreign exchange instability foreign
exchange uncertainty monetary risk monetary
variation monetary variability monetary
changes monetary uncertainty monetary
movement(s) monetary instability
POLITICAL RISK political risk civil
unrest political unrest turbulence civil
disturbance bureaucratic risk(s)
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Evolution of JIBS publication 1970 - 2000
JIBS Founded in 1970 889 articles 14,528 pages.
13 articles in 1970 (183 pages) 43 papers in
1996 (887 pages) In 2000, 41 papers along 659
pages. Average 29
papers/year 16 pages/paper
N. of pages
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Number of counts in 5 year periods
Culture drives the results
Descriptive statistics

• - Extreme variability across
• IBE dimensions
• Culture is the most used
• Culture 344 counts
• in a single paper

"Mean" refers to the average number of counted
words appearing in papers identified in "N"
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Count per year index
This index discounts the yearly publication
record length to provide an adjusted measure of
the use of each environment dimension.
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Weighted Count Index in 5-years average
There is no evidence of increased use of IBE
dimensions in published papers.
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Environment "at the margin"
A look at the content of the articles shows that
the IBE is only marginally referred to and does
not have a significant emphasis.
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Single and multi-dimensionality in IB studies
To what extent are the multiple dimensions of the
IBE included? We distinguish between (a) a
multi-dimensional environment focus, (b)
the number of environmental dimensions used,
(c) articles that did not refer to any
environmental dimension.

• 152 studies have NO
• acknowledgement of the IBE.
• None of the studies use
• the 7 dimensions.
• - 1 and utmost 2 dimensional
• studies dominate.

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Discussion

• Rise of culture in IB studies after 1980 may
  be driven by Hofstedes (1980).
• This is because it provides a quantifiable,
  understood, available,
• and replicable framework for culture.
  Therefore, it facilitates the
• inclusion of culture in IB studies.
• - The lack of an operational, quantifiable,
  comprehensive construct of the IBE.
• An exhaustive, quantifiable, replicable, and
  comparable set of measures
• of the other IBE dimensions could lead to
  greater integration in future studies.
• - The majority of the articles cite at most one
  dimension.
• - Multiple mere "aesthetic" references to the IBE.

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Questions

• - Is the IBE the distinctive feature of IB
  studies? Does it matter?
• What is the situation in other international
  journals? Would the
• results replicate?
• - Does the relative unimportance of the IBE in IB
  research reveal that the
• discipline is still largely undefined and needs
  a paradigm?
• - Is IB becoming more general management and less
  distinct from other
• disciplines?
• Is Guisinger's geovalent construct a potential
  umbrella paradigm
• capable of unifying IB research? Or any other
  IBE construct?
• Will recent world events drive for more IBE
  focused research?
• Need to integrate multiple environmental
  dimensions in the research?

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References (sample)

• Boddewyn, Jean. 1999. The Domain of
  International Management, Journal of
  International
• Management, 3-14, 5.
• Contractor, Farok. 2000. The raisons d'etre for
  international management as a field of study,
• Journal of International Management, Vol. 6,
  3-10.
• DuBois, Frank and David Reeb. 2001. Ranking the
  International Business Journals,
• Journal of International Business Studies, Vol.
  31, No. 4, 689-704.
• Dunning, John. 1989. The study of international
  business A plea for a more interdisciplinary
• approach, Journal of International Business
  Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, 411-436.
• Guisinger, Stephen. 2000. A Curmudgeon's View of
  the Discipline of International Business,
• paper presented at the Academy of International
  Business, Phoenix, AZ, 2000.
• Guisinger, Stephen. 2001. From OLI to OLMA
  Incorporating higher levels of environmental and
  structural
• complexity into the Eclectic paradigm,
  International Journal of the Economics of
  Business .
• Guisinger, Stephen. 2001b. Toward a unified
  approach to theory development in international
• business Creating globalized theory in
  strategy, organization management and economics
  with a single
• conceptual framework, University of Texas at
  Dallas, working paper.
• Hofstede, Geert. 1980. Culture's consequences
  International differences in work-related values,
  
• Beverly Hills, CA Sage.
• Martinez, Zaida and Brian Toyne. 2000. What is
  international management and what is its domain?,
  Journal
• of International Management, Vol. 6, 11-28.

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This paper will be presented in the workshop
session 3.4.6. Business environment and the
MNE Sunday 130 300 p.m. Room Tropical
B The full paper is available from the authors
upon request.