Putting qualitative international business research in context(s)

Abstract

The Welch et al. (J Int Bus Stud 42(5):740–762, 2011) JIBS Decade Award-winning article highlights the importance of the contextualization of international business research that is based on qualitative research methods. In this commentary, we build on their foundation and develop further the role of contextualization, in terms of the international business phenomena under study, contemporaneous conversations about qualitative research methods, and the situatedness of individual papers within the broader research process. Our remarks are largely targeted to authors submitting international business papers based on qualitative research, and to the gatekeepers – editors and reviewers – assessing them, and we provide some guidance with respect to these three dimensions of context.