The contributions of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to international business research
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EDITORIAL
The contributions of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to international business research Stav Fainshmidt1, Michael A Witt2, Ruth V Aguilera3,4 and Alain Verbeke5,6,7 1
Florida International University, Miami, USA; INSEAD, Singapore, Singapore; 3 Northeastern University, Boston, USA; 4 Esade Business School, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain; 5 University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada; 6 Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, UK; 7 Solvay Business School, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium 2
Correspondence: A Verbeke, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract International business (IB) researchers have been slow to embrace a configurational approach in hypothesis formulation and empirical analysis. Yet, much of what IB scholars study is inherently configurational: various explanatory factors and their interplay simultaneously determine the outcome(s) studied, such as governance choice or firm-level performance. The mismatch between the nature of the empirical phenomena studied on the one hand, and hypothesis formulation and empirical methods deployed on the other, explains why many quantitative empirical studies in IB are overly reductionist, relying on hypotheses that assume linear (or simple, curvilinear), unifinal, and symmetrical effects. In this Editorial, we introduce IB scholars to contemporary configurational thinking and its analytical tool, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). We discuss this tool’s main tenets, advantages, and disadvantages. We review the limited prior IB research using this approach and present a wide range of IB phenomena where it could be usefully applied. We propose that contemporary configurational thinking and fsQCA can help scholars produce insights more closely aligned with the complex realities of international business than conventional research approaches. Journal of International Business Studies (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00313-1 Keywords: fsQCA; fuzzy sets; qualitative comparative analysis; configurational analysis
INTRODUCTION Much of what international business (IB) researchers study is inherently configurational or gestalt-like. Several decades ago, Dunning (1988, p. 2) observed that the extent, form, and pattern of international production are determined by the combination – or what we will refer to in this paper as configuration – of three sets of advantages: ownership, location, and internalization. Strategy scholars have long recognized that organizations are open systems, and that superior performance or competitive advantage are achieved by aligning strategies, structures, and environmental conditions (Miller, 1987). Yet, IB research has been slow to embrace a configurational approach to empirical analysis, even though some influential IB theories are inherently configurational
The contributions QCA to IB research
(Nielsen, Eden, & Verbeke, 2020). For example, the transaction cost economics approach to multinational enterprise (MN
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