The art of writing literature review: What do we know and what do we need to know?

A literature review article provides a comprehensive overview of literature related to a theme/theory/method and synthesizes prior studies to strengthen the foundation of knowledge. In the growing International Business (IB) research field, systematic literature reviews have great value, yet there are not many reviews published describing how researchers can design and develop classic review articles. In explaining the purpose, methodology, and structure of a systematic review, we provide guidelines for developing most insightful and useful review articles. By outlining steps and thumb rules to keep in mind, we present an overview of different types of review articles and explain how future researchers could potentially find them useful. In addition, we introduce nine articles finally selected for this special issue of systematic literature review-Looking back to look forward International Business research in the days to come.     

What do we know about individual equity options?

This paper examines the empirical literature on individual equity options, discussing results in areas of consensus, showing findings in areas of disagreement and providing a guide for future research (especially highlighting analyses that cannot be performed with index options). Key topics include the impact of equity option listings on the underlying stock market, option market efficiency, anomalies in equity option returns, option market microstructure, investors’ behavioral biases, option price discovery, and private information revealed in equity option markets. Some directions for future research include the determinants of equity option returns and the effect of algorithmic trading in option markets.     

What do we know about outsourcing in hotels?

This paper uses a content analysis focused on papers about outsourcing in hotel management in order to know the level of development reached in this research area. With that aim in mind, the authors have started from a review of the articles dedicated to this topic which are indexed in the ABI and Scopus databases. This allows conclusions to be drawn, which suggest the most successful thematic areas and research methodologies. Researchers are encouraged to enhance this field of study with empirical works where the results obtained so far can be checked in new geographical locations.     

What do we know about the capital structure of small firms?

Firm data from ten Western European countries is used in this paper to contrast the sources of leverage across small and large, as well as across listed and unlisted firms. Specifically, the explanatory power of firm-specific, country of incorporation institutional, and macroeconomic factors is evaluated. Using data that is more comprehensive in coverage than that used in the existing research the stylized facts of the capital structure literature for large and listed firms is confirmed, but contrasting evidence is obtained for smaller companies. First, the country of incorporation carries much more information for small firms, supporting the idea that small firms are more financially constrained and face non-firm-specific hurdles in their capital structure choice. Second, using two different leverage measures it is shown that the relationship of firm size and tangibility to leverage is robust to the measure used for listed, but not for unlisted firms.     

What do we know about consumers' ontological security in disaster scenarios?

While prior consumer studies have adopted various theoretical perspectives to explain individuals' reactions to disasters, scant attention has been paid to the role of ontological security in shaping those responses. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by qualitatively exploring ontological security in two contexts: man-made and natural disasters. To this end, we conducted 35 focus groups in the UK, Germany, and France to address how people reacted to terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic respectively. Through thematic analysis, three themes emerged: fear versus anxiety, oneself versus others, and materialistic versus experiential purchases. Man-made disasters appear to elicit fear, concern for self, and a preference for materialistic purchases, whereas natural disasters seem to trigger anxiety, concern for others, and a preference for experiential purchases. Both types of disasters seem to evoke a desire to escape from reality. In closing, we discuss both transitory and prolonged threats to ontological security and how they shape individuals' behaviours while restoring their security.     

What do we know about corporate philanthropy? A review and research directions

During the past decades, academics and practitioners have been extensively focusing on corporate philanthropy as an important part of corporate social responsibility and a vast number of papers have been published on this topic in various disciplines. To have a better understanding of the evolution of corporate philanthropy, this paper critically reviews some 60 years of research covering 228 corporate philanthropy documents (including 214 journal articles, 5 dissertations, and 9 books and book chapters) across and between disciplines, and analyzes their content in a systematic and comprehensive manner. A multi-level and multidisciplinary theoretical framework that synthesizes and integrates the corporate philanthropy literature at micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of analysis is offered. Specifically, the framework presents antecedents, intermediaries (moderators and mediators), consequences of corporate philanthropy, and the underlying mechanisms of the corporate philanthropy–firm performance relationship. This paper helps bridge important knowledge gaps of corporate philanthropy and its relation with firm performance by studying corporate philanthropy at a multi-level of analysis and applying diverse theoretical frameworks of corporate philanthropy. The paper concludes by offering several suggestions for future research on corporate philanthropy.     

Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?

This paper reviews the evidence on financing technology-based small firms (TBSFs) in Europe. European TBSFs finance new investments by relying primarily on internal funds, due to capital market failures induced by asymmetric information. European venture capital has caught up with US venture capital, but this is mainly because of the growth in UK venture investments. It is unclear whether European venture capital has been able to certify the quality and enhance the growth of funded companies. Compared with the NASDAQ, there is little development of trading in high-tech stocks in Europe: the so-called New Markets established in the 1990s collapsed in the wake of the Internet bubble crash. Public venture capital and research and development (R&D) tax incentives seem to have positively affected high-tech firms.     

Managerial assessments of export performance: What do they reflect?

Export performance is often measured by managers’ subjective assessments, but little is known about what such assessments reflect. This article addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing the association between subjective and objective measures of export performance. We examined which aspects managers take into consideration when subjectively assessing the export performance of their firm. We also examined whether managers’ assessments had any predictive power concerning the future development of their firm’s export sales.Our empirical evidence is based on Norwegian small and medium-sized enterprises operating mainly in business-to business markets. Our analyses show that managers’ subjective assessment of export performance at the firm level is significantly associated with the percentage of the total firm sales that are exported. This is true for assessments of economic as well as non-economic performance. Subjective assessments, however, were not associated with actual export sales levels or with export growth.     

Effective Sales Training: We know what skills, but do we know the customers?

Often times, sales training includes interactive role play. When it comes to the topic of developing professional relationships, however, we need to be more forceful, so the manager tactfully and intelligently includes the true decision maker.     

The bank–firm relationship during economic transition: The impacts on bank performance in emerging economies

We analyze the lending relationships between 1011 banks and 17,284 client borrowers across 11 emerging economies. We first demonstrate that a state-owned bank's risk appetite increases as its number of family business group-owned borrowing partners increases. Second, we show that a non-financial firm-owned bank's risk appetite also increases as its number of family business group-owned borrowing partners increases. Finally, we show that a bank is more likely to reduce its risk appetite and improve its operational cost efficiency as its foreign ownership ratio increases, regardless of the bank's lending partner. These findings suggest that, in the post-privatization period, the ownership structure changes of banks and/or borrowers affect the lending relationship and the bank's risk appetite and cost efficiency.     

What do we mean by sustainability marketing?

ABSTRACT

Sustainability in marketing has gained some traction over the years, yet we still remain uncertain about exactly what ‘sustainability marketing’ means. Utilising the Scopus database, a discourse analysis was conducted on nearly 200 published journal articles. The analysis categorises multiple sustainability views and outlines three conceptualisations of sustainability marketing: Auxiliary Sustainability Marketing (which focusses on the production of sustainable products), Reformative Sustainability Marketing (which extends the auxiliary approach through the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and behavioural changes) and Transformative Sustainability Marketing (which further extends the auxiliary and reformative approaches through the need for transformation of current institutions and norms, and critical reflection). This paper then discusses how these three conceptualisations might be used by scholars and practitioners to interpret and implement sustainability marketing going forward.     

A review of research on outward foreign direct investment from emerging countries,including China: what do we know,how do we know and where should we be heading?

Using the Antecedents, Decisions and Outcomes (ADO) format as an organizing framework, this article gives an overview of the literature on different dimensions and characteristics of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by firms from emerging countries. Based on an extensive coverage of studies published over a period of nearly 25 years between 1993 and 2017, we review extant research on this phenomenon from mainly China, as well as other emerging countries. We identify advances and analytical areas of OFDI research and pinpoint the key theories, methodologies, observed characteristics and the variables that have been examined in this growing research literature. Many areas of the above research themes remain underexplored, despite recent significant advancements, and may provide directions for future research.     

What do we know about fashion adoption groups? A proposal and test of a model of fashion adoption

The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to identify gaps in the literature and inconsistencies between empirical data and Rogers' diffusion of innovations model originally outlined in 1962; (2) to propose a model of fashion adoption; and (3) to conduct an empirical test of the proposed model. The proposed model varies from Rogers' model as follows: four (vs. five) ideal‐type adopter groups with unique names and clear operational definitions; proportional distribution of consumers among groups; clear method of statistically identifying group members; categorization based on fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership; and standard procedure for identifying groups based on mean and standard deviation. The proposed model offers greater precision and provides results that are comparable across studies. The model was analyzed empirically using four methods of categorizing participants into fashion adoption groups (independent variable) and fashion involvement as the dependent variable. Participants in the study were 309 students from two universities. The analysis using the proposed model provided clear‐cut results that supported the hypothesis that higher levels of consumers' fashion involvement increased the probability of earlier adoption. Results from the other three analyses were not as clear‐cut. Based on the model for fashion adoption presented in this paper, the foundation is primed for development of a theory of fashion adoption. The proposed model offers a solution to the problem of identifying fashion adoption groups, plus, the solution achieves the desired effect with the simplest effort and is undertaken with appropriate methods.     

What do firms from transition economies want from their strategic alliance partners?

A financial system engaged in active transition from central planning to free market may be dubbed a transition economy. On today's global landscape, there are several important transition economies, all at various stages of transition and with differing degrees of success. Yet, much is not known about this important sector of the world economy. As outside enterprises seek alliances with firms from transition economies, it is important to know what these firms want from alliance partners. To learn more, we conducted a study interviewing managers of private firms from the two largest and most strategically important transition economies: China and Russia. We found that while Chinese and Russian firms often hope for some of the same things as their counterparts in mature economies as regards alliances, they are also interested in other things not normally associated with alliances: political influence, relief from paying bribes, and protection from extortion or even violence. Moreover, we discovered that because of differing institutional conditions in the two countries, Chinese firms are not always looking for the same things from alliances as are Russian firms—in spite of surface similarities between the two economies. Based on these findings, we provide guidelines for firms seeking alliance partners in transition economies, to assist them in determining if an alliance is right for them and planning accordingly.     

What do firms know? What do they produce? A new look at the relationship between patenting profiles and patterns of product diversification

In this work, we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification, if any, across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge, proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present. Putting it more emphatically, we investigate the relationship between “what a firm does” and “what a firm knows.” Using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level, we provide evidence concerning firms’ technological and product scope, their relationships, the size-scaling and coherence properties of diversification itself. Our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies, with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge. The scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increases log-linearly with firm size. And the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification. These findings are well in tune with a capability-based theory of the firm.     

Dysfunctional executive behavior: What can organizations do?

Much has been made of dysfunctional executive behavior in recent years. As such, the purpose of this article is to assist organizations in the design of executive work. To better construct a work environment that diminishes self-serving and unethical behavior, we propose that organizations structure an executive's work around three factors: the accountability environment, managerial discretion, and relationship composition. These factors are used to describe how organizations can better design executives’ work so as to promote more desirable executive behavior. We describe how these factors should be calibrated, as well as how they affect each other.