International strategy and business groups: A review and future research agenda

Motivated by the growth and internationalization of business groups, this paper reviews the business group literature and presents a future research agenda, highlighting their implications for international strategy. The paper identifies theoretical tensions and empirical ambiguities around three key business group features-corporate governance, internal markets, and corporate strategy-and three key outcome variables-performance, economic impact, and innovation-that have generated significant debate. We conclude with three methodological concerns relevant to these debates: generalizing business group research across countries, endogeneity in business group research, and performance measurement in business groups.