International alliance structure and effectiveness: evidence from law firms

International alliances are important strategic vehicles to build geographic scope and enter foreign markets, especially for firms lacking the resources or facing limitations to direct foreign expansion. Addressing recent calls to study alliance structure, we investigate the design parameters of nonequity international alliances and their performance implications. Building on the resource-based view of the firm, we theorize the effect of three key structural dimensions – formalization, interface, and specialization – on firm effectiveness. Our empirical work focusses on the legal service industry where international interfirm alliances are common, and resources like expert workers and knowledge are essential. We study 121 French, German, Italian, and Spanish law firms; and our data include the structural features of the alliances to which they belong, as well as various measures of firm effectiveness. Our analyses via structural equation modelling point toward the importance of informality and strong interface for effectiveness in these contexts. This study contributes to a finer understanding of international alliances by directly addressing the structural variation among nonequity international alliances, and analyzes their implications for firms. We thus respond to calls to investigate structural dimensions of alliances, operationalizing relevant dimensions of alliance organizational structure. Second, we add to understanding of the performance effects of international alliances, showing the benefits of individual structural parameters for firm effectiveness. Finally, we extend research on the use of international alliances as a strategic vehicle to enter foreign markets, capturing essential aspects of the internal arrangements of these interorganizational collaborative relationships, and thus adding to understanding of this strategic entry mode.

A systematic literature review on SME internationalization: a personality lens

The importance of the individual decision-maker within the internationalization process of SMEs has extensively been acknowledged in the International Entrepreneurship field. Yet, despite this, the current discourse is mainly limited to socio-demographics, and social and human capital, and does not seem to advance towards the influence and role of, e.g., deeper-level personality aspects on the SME’s internationalization process. Findings are scattered across different fields of research and disciplines, making it difficult to build upon existing knowledge. To address this, we execute a Systematic Literature Review focusing on internationalization, SMEs, and personality, with specific attention for deeper-level personality aspects. Our findings reveal a rather young body of literature which uses a behavioral perspective, and can be subdivided into three overarching research themes: Internationalization Behaviors, Internationalization Initiation, and Internationalization Performance. Our thematic analysis and cross-thematic discussion provide a fertile ground for further studies on the entrepreneur’s deeper-level personality aspects in relation to SME internationalization. In the future research section, we recommend the exploration of alternative behavioral theories, and multi-level and holistic approaches to further explore this promising sub-domain.

What merits greater scholarly attention in international business?

Scholarly efforts to propose future directions for international business (IB) research have generated a timely and extensive inventory of potentially interesting areas of research. We supplement this line of inquiry by suggesting that an additional layer of scrutiny could be beneficial when advocating in favor of giving more attention to particular research realms. Specifically, we advance several guiding principles that will help IB scholars assess which research areas merit greater scholarly attention, based on their potential importance and impact. We distinguish between (1) research in new or underdeveloped research domains, where salience, urgency, and actionability are critical elements, and (2) new research in relatively well-established domains, where scholars may contribute to changing the theoretical conversations taking place in IB.

From Center to Periphery and Back Again: A Systematic Literature Review of Refugee Entrepreneurship

This paper presents a qualitative, systematic literature review of refugee entrepreneurship research that has been published in academic outlets, up to 2018. We synthesize the contributions to the field, providing a state of the art, so as to elucidate our current understandings of the phenomenon and highlight gaps that will help enhance our future approaches and knowledge. The empirical analysis reveals a fast emerging, eclectic field, with research from a wide range of disciplines, produced by the ‘academic center’, largely in the ‘academic periphery’. Publication numbers have been on the rise, especially in the last ten years, yet, there is very little mutual acknowledgement and discussions arising between researchers, as revealed by a bibliometric analysis. A content analysis shows three main waves of publications based on countries of origin, countries of residence, and migration timeframes. The vast majority of publications take on an exploratory approach to research, with diverse theoretical framings from an array of disciplines, and the thematic clusters reveal how researchers are attempting to tease out the distinctiveness of refugee entrepreneurs from other, closely related entrepreneurship groups.