Complexity in international business: the implications for theory

This chapter was written in response to a controversial paper in the Journal of International Business, at the suggestion of the Editor-in-chief. The paper that is criticised below claimed that IB studies was not a complex field of study when compared to many others, and that scholars who asserted differently suffered from what the authors called ‘false uniqueness bias’. In response to this paper, this chapter demonstrates that international business is inherently complex for four main reasons: the large number of countries, products, technologies and firms involved; the intricate connectivity of international transport and communications networks, the diversity of the political, cultural and regulatory environment, and the speed and unpredictability of change. The complexity created by these features can be measured using the techniques presented in this chapter. IB has developed simple and powerful theories which abstract from inessential details and thereby reduce the complexity of theory to a minimum. The assumptions underlying this theory are common to other disciplines, and provide a basis for future inter-disciplinary research.