Contextualizing international business research: Enhancing rigor and relevance

Context differentiates international business (IB) from traditional Business research. Along with many IB scholars, we argue that context should be much more adequately emphasized in IB research. Location differences are commonly ignored; complexity and polycomplexity–and other levels of analysis issues–are rarely acknowledged; and the relevance of models and theory developed in Western contexts is not adequately questioned or explored. This paper suggests contextualization guidelines for scholars to enhance the rigor of their research and to make their IB research more relevant for practitioners. In conclusion we suggest solutions for closing rigor and relevance gaps in IB research by enhancing contextualization.