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Abstract
As a field of study, international business (IB) has evolved with accelerated tempo in the last four decades. The subject has brought with it an increasing plethora of textbooks. We analyze the contents of major textbooks, both classic and new, to find the extent to which these textbooks cover the various components of the common body of knowledge in IB, as organized around a conceptual model. Using this model, we study some 27 textbooks published between 1976 and 2008, and categorize their content. Our primary objective is to determine the extent to which there is commonality among textbooks. Additionally, we study the evolution over time in the content of the same textbooks from one edition to the next and explore the reasons for these changes. We present the results in graphic and tabular forms, depicting areas where themes may converge or overlap. This study’s conclusions will contribute to a better understanding of the epistemological roots of the field and its evolution over time. Scholars who write textbooks, textbook users, and publishers will benefit from this analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the annual conference of the Academy of International Business-U.S. Midwest Chapter, Chicago, Illinois March 24–26, 2010 and the annual conference of the Academy of International Business-U.S. Southwest Chapter, Houston, Texas March 9–12, 2011. Comments by participants in those events are gratefully acknowledged, as are the research contributions to the earlier version of this article by Aziz Bakay and Murad Moqbel. Research began when the corresponding author was the Killam Distinguished Professor of International Business at Texas A&M International University. The authors also acknowledge helpful comments from the editors of the Journal of Teaching in International Business and anonymous reviewers. All remaining errors are those of the authors.
Notes
1 See Stambaugh and Trank (Citation2010).
2 Root’s book was originally published as International Trade: Theory, Policy, Practice by South-Western in 1959 (Roland L. Kramer, Maurice Y. d’Arlin and Franklin R. Root), with a second edition as International Trade and Finance (Root, Kramer, and d’Arlin) in 1966, and starting in 1978, as the classic textbook by Root alone as International Trade and Investment, which went into seven editions by 1994. Root died in 2005. See his eulogy by Tagi Sagafi-nejad on the AIB website (http://aib.msu.edu/fellow.asp?FellowID=49).
3 See Nehrt (Citation1993) and a number of highly useful articles by eminent IB scholars in Boddewyn (Citation2008).
4 Texas A&M International University is one of the latest universities to launch a PhD program—started in 2003. There are now several dozen universities offering similar doctoral degrees, most in the United States but increasingly in Europe and in emerging markets.
5 Perhaps it is testimony to a lack of consensus among scholars and textbook writers that the terms MNE (multinational enterprises), MNCs (multinational corporations), transnational enterprises (TNEs), international corporations, and similar nomenclature are often used interchangeably, notwithstanding the UN adoption of the term transnational corporations (TNCs) as far back as 1976. See Sagafi-nejad (Citation2008, pp.2–3) for a detailed discussion of the etymology.
6 One major textbook author stated that the secondary market for used textbooks was the book’s primary competitor!
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Tagi Sagafi-nejad
Professor Sagafi-nejad is Professor Emeritus of international business at Loyola University Maryland. For ten years, he held the Radcliffe Killam Distinguished Professor position at Texas A&M International University, where he was the founding director of the PhD program in International Business, director of the Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, and the editor of International Trade Journal. He is currently launching the Cyrus Chronicle, the flagship journal of the Cyrus Institute of Knowledge.
Aditya Limaye
Aditya R. Limaye received his Bachelors of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from University of Pune, India in 2005. He entered the Master of Business Administration program at University of Pune and earned his degree in 2007 and followed it with a Master of Science at University of Houston and earned his degree in 2009. Aditya is currently a PhD candidate at Texas A & M International University. Aditya’s research interest include International Business, International Banking and Finance, and International Financial Institutions. He has participated in several conferences and has also published his research in a few journals.