METHODOLOGICAL DIVERSITY WITHIN THE DOMAIN OF INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A REVIEW AND DIRECTION FOR FUTURE SCHOLARSHIP

Over the past two decades, the domain of international entrepreneurship (IE) has developed as an exciting, promising and evolving theme for scientific scholarship to academics, practitioners and policy makers around the world.... [ view full abstract ]

Over the past two decades, the domain of international entrepreneurship (IE) has developed as an exciting, promising and evolving theme for scientific scholarship to academics, practitioners and policy makers around the world. The growing importance of IE has been reflected in the considerable number of studies that have been undertaken under this broad label, for example born global, international new ventures and early/rapidly internationalising firms. However, the literature suggests that the domain of IE is still fragmented and still in its infancy stage. In particular, a review of the literature suggests that the findings concerning IE are not yet comprehensive in nature and thus remain to be explored from a variety of standpoints since the validity and generalizability of a study are thought to be affected directly by methodologies employed. Therefore, this paper addresses a number of methodological issues, trends and knowledge gaps within the domain of international entrepreneurship.

In this study one hundred and nineteen studies within the domain of international entrepreneurship (published from 1990 to 2015) are reviewed. In addition, six recent reviews are also used to complement the results. Methodologies were systematically analysed (frequency analysis) under five categories i.e., country context, industry/sector context, theoretical lens adopted, data collection strategy and approach to data analysis method, to identify the key methodological patterns. From the reviewed studies, empirical articles, conceptual papers and literature reviews are included for analysis. While the reviewed studies were largely published in a number of leading journals, it should be noted however that the reviewed works were not only confined to top journals in the field.

A review of these studies raises a number of key methodological issues that merits research to deepen and broaden knowledge. The findings of this study suggest that international entrepreneurship studies originating from the developed country has the highest representation. With regard to the industry context our analysis demonstrates that since the beginning of international entrepreneurship scholarship researchers have been predominantly focusing on samples from high-tech and knowledge intensive industries/sectors. As far as data collection and analysis methods are concerned, the findings demonstrate that the majority of IE studies is dominated by the case study approach with qualitative interpretation. In terms of the theoretical lens adopted in prior international entrepreneurship studies, our analysis suggest that to date a number of theories from the entrepreneurship, international business and strategic management fields have served as a theoretical basis. In particular, consistent with the extant literature our analysis suggest that the domain of international entrepreneurship is still fragmented with many knowledge gaps related to country context, industry/sector context, theoretical lens adopted, data collection strategy and approach to data analysis method. However, it should be noted that the evolving nature of the field is evident from our analysis. The findings of our study provide important implications for improving the methodological rigor of international entrepreneurship scholarship.

International Entrepreneurship, Methodological issues, Methodological rigor, Frequency analysis, Direction for future scholarship [ view full abstract ]

International Entrepreneurship, Methodological issues, Methodological rigor, Frequency analysis, Direction for future scholarship