From the editor: Steering a policy turn in international business – opportunities and challenges

Abstract

International business (IB) scholarship has developed a deep expertise in explaining how the international environment affects the behavior and strategies of firms, yet IB concepts continue to make limited inroads in policy circles. By comparing the fields of IB and international economics, I argue that a key reason behind this puzzle is that IB scholars have evolved into an epistemic community that builds on a frame of reference which is not adapted to policy practitioners’ concerns. IB researchers have a strong focus on the performance of the firm from a private perspective, whereas policymakers are interested in the performance of countries or regions from a public or societal perspective. I discuss the steps that IB scholars need to take to translate their findings so that they become compatible with the societal viewpoint and therefore more readily useful to policymakers.