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International Business

v
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
1 Introduction 1
Peter J. Buckley
2 Visions of International Business 8
Mark Casson
3 Technological Determinism, Globalization and the
Multinational Firm 38
Stephen J. Kobrin
4 Of Beauty Finding the Relevant Beast: the Field
of International Business and the Dialogue of Fact
and Theory 57
Bruce Kogut
5 Defining International Business through
Its Research 68
Daniel P. Sullivan and John D. Daniels
6 The Institutional Environment for International
Business 85
Witold J. Henisz
7 Regional Multinationals: the New
Research Agenda 110
Alan M. Rugman and Alain Verbeke
8 What is International Business? An Economic
Historian’s View 133
Mira Wilkins
9 What is International Business?
A Sociologist’s View 153
D. Eleanor Westney
vi Contents
10 Epilogue: International Business as an Evolving
Body of Knowledge 168
John H. Dunning
Index 188
1
1
Introduction
Peter J. Buckley
This volume was inspired by E. H. Carr’s What Is History? (1961).
David Cannadine (2002) in What Is History Now? (p. vii) describes
that book as ‘seminal cum perennial’ (but not unchallenged, see inter
alia Elton, 1967). The book precipitated a debate about the scope,
method and subject matter of history. It is my hope that the current
book may provoke a similar debate amongst the international business
academic community.
It is notable that Cannadine’s book contains seven chapters on
‘hyphenated history’ with the modifiers social, political, religious,
cultural, gender, intellectual and imperial. The editor suggests that
further ‘sub-disciplinary specialisms’ could have been added ''
economic, military, business, local, maritime, art, science, population,
family and diplomatic (p. vii). International business has not fragmented.
However, it is in danger of being absorbed into ‘the
functional disciplines of management’. In particular, this is an institutional
absorption as business schools (especially, perhaps even...