From a distance and detached to up close and personal: Bridging strategic and cross-cultural perspectives in international management research and practice

Despite its remarkable achievements, the field of international business (IB) is under attack; its legitimacy and importance are challenged. Structural weaknesses, in particular the existence of two subfields – one drawing on economics and strategy, the other on cross-cultural studies – have contributed to IB, but have failed to build the micro-process bridges that would have united and distinguished the field. The sociology of the field with its dominant positivist research paradigm also has not helped. We propose a multi-method, paradigmatic interplay approach to IB research for building intellectual bridges that would draw on the unique demographics of IB researchers and allow the field to be more united and hopefully produce stronger, more relevant research.