Emma Gardner, Maria Karafyllia, Diletta Pegoraro

University of Birmingham

Reflections on working in a

cross-country research team:

Lessons to learn

The team

• Bo Nielsen (Sydney), Agnieszka Chidlow

(Birmingham), Stewart Miller (UTSA), Catherine

Welch (Sydney), Roberta Aguzzoli (Durham)

• AIB RM SIG: https://rmsig.aib.world/

The project

• Methodological Evolution in International Business

Research: Social, Technical and Communicative

Drivers of Change

• Research question: ‘How has methodological change

taken place in the field of international business?’

• Content analysis of all empirical articles in JIBS

1970-2018

Conceptual framing

• Methodological evolution can be understood through

three lenses:

• Social forces – adjudicative• processes that a research community institutionalizes over time to

evaluate each other’s knowledge claims and decide on what it

accepts as ‘facts’ (Shapin & Schaffer, 1985)

• Communicative forces – reporting conventions• the ways in which scientific results are made publicly accessible

and credible to those who were not able to witness the conduct of

the study directly (Shapin & Schaffer, 1985).

• Technical forces – tools and techniques

Why JIBS?

• 6.198 impact factor (2017)

• ABS 4*

• Official journal of the Academy of International

Business

• Leading journal in the field

Our approach

• Content analysis of all JIBS material to find sample of

substantive empirical research papers

• Final sample of 1,235 papers

• Initial coding of basic characteristics

• These papers were categorised as either qualitative,

mixed-method, quantitative archival or quantitative

survey – or not sure.

Content analysis

Source: FQS Volume 1, No. 2, 2000

Qualitative content analysis

In-depth methodological coding

• Development of four coding schemes

• Division into three specialist teams based upon

methodological interests and expertise

• Quantitative archival team: Bo, Stewart & Maria

• Quantitative survey team: Aggie, Emma & Diletta

• Qualitative & MM: Catherine & Roberta

• In-depth methodological coding – some common &

some specific

• How many countries? Does the paper have a methods

section? Level of data? Use of software?

Reflections: on coding

Technical drivers

of change

Communicative

drivers of change

Social drivers of change

Operational

definition

Changes to the

tools, materials,

techniques and

protocols used for

observation,

measurement,

categorization and

analysis

Changes to the genre of the

scientific report and rhetoric

used to persuade readers

Institutionalized processes which a

research community uses to set,

diffuse and maintain norms, standards

and ethics; establish the

boundaries; define priorities

Measures Hardware,

software, data

innovations and

protocols (codified

procedures)

Absence/presence of

methods section,

methodological details

which are/are not reported

Editorial initiatives, editorial policy

statements,‘thought’ pieces by past

and present Editors-in-Chief (EICs),

AIB Presidents, members of the

editorial team (including guest editors)

and influential IB scholars;

methodological articles published in

JIBS

Operationalization of the conceptual framework

Findings… in a nutshell!

• Founding period: 1970s and 1980s

• Exploratory variety-seeking

• Status-seeking period: 1990s and 2000s

• Incremental standardization

• Established period: mid-2000s to present

• Disciplined variety-seeking

• Catherine will tell the full story!

Reflections: Leadership

Reflections: Complexity

Reflections: Subjectivity

Reflections: Synergies

Reflections: Trust

Reflections: Process

Reflections: Timing

Personal reflections

Lessons learnt..

• Clear organisation: roles & responsibilities...

& deadlines!

• Flexibility

• Clear leadership

• Technology as an enabler

• Skype: working across three time zones

• File sharing platforms

Any questions?

Questions for

you…