Historical social network analysis: Advancing new directions for international business research

Despite repeated calls for incorporating history in IB research, progress has been slow. The few existing IB studies utilizing historical approaches have relied mostly on historical narrative approaches. In addition, there is little methodological guidance on how to use historical methodologies in IB research. This article will highlight a growing methodological approach for consideration, one that demonstrates intersections across multiple disciplines through use of varied techniques, historical analysis and social network analysis (SNA) and source-bases (varied archival sources). This study will demonstrate the richness obtained from utilising historical source collections and the additional perspectives on transnational networks that can be obtained from analysing networks over longer periods. Specifically, we argue that the use of historical mixed methods SNA is suitable in addressing calls for contextual, longitudinal, multilevel, and processual explanations of IB phenomena.