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Open research questions in International Business and FDI

619 gap statements mined from International Business and FDI papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 5,996 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • The research must account for the bidirectional causality between FDI and job creation. The paper needs to control for various factors, including sectoral productivity and sector-specific characteristics, to accurately estimate the impact of GVC participation on job creation.

    From global value chains to local jobs: Exploring FDI-induced job creation in EU-27 · 2026 · DOI

  • Regional variation in FDI effects is evident, though results remain inconsistent across measures.

    Reassessing the potential of FDI for poverty reduction in Africa: A replication and extension of · 2026 · DOI

  • Reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) is critical for multinational corporations (MNCs), yet its relationship with subsidiary embeddedness, particularly given varied internal and external dimensions, remains unclear.

    The impact of embeddedness (in)congruence on reverse knowledge transfer – An agency theory perspective · 2026 · DOI

  • This is warranted because, in many countries, CEOs' board memberships are critically discussed, and yet their antecedents are poorly understood.

    CEOs' international experience: Welcome or unsolicited? · 2026 · DOI

  • Entrepreneurs are central to international entrepreneurship research, yet their role has been conceptualized mainly through cognitive lenses that emphasize knowledge and heuristics, while important affective-motivational microfoundations, such as passion, remain underexplored.

    Harmonious and obsessive passion as microfoundations of new venture internationalization · 2026 · DOI

  • Existing research on overseas farmland investment has mainly examined project location, investment scale, host-country determinants, and individual dimensions of investment risk, while comparatively little is known about how the country-level risk environment confronting overseas agricultural investors evolves spatially, differs across regions, and converges over time.

    Spatiotemporal Evolution, Regional Disparities, and Convergence Dynamics of China’s Overseas Farmland Investment Risks · 2026 · DOI

  • However, the evolution of marketing processes and international service firms because of interactions among different actors remains unknown.

    The Dynamics of International Marketing: A Case Study of an International Alpine Resort in Hokkaido, Japan · 2025 · DOI

  • Divestment of foreign subsidiaries by multinational enterprises (MNEs) is a common, yet under-researched phenomenon.

    Do global dynamic managerial capabilities affect MNEs' divestments of their overseas subsidiaries? · 2025 · DOI

  • While prior research has largely examined inward and outward internationalisation in isolation, the potential synergistic role of diaspora networks across both directions remains underexplored.

    The contribution of diaspora networks to the internationalisation of SMEs: a case study in the healthcare industry · 2025 · DOI

  • However, the impact of AFDI on welfare remains controversial and poorly understood.

    Does Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment Boost the Human Development in Sub‐Saharan Africa? · 2025 · DOI

  • However, its impact on acquirers’ innovation performance following cross-border acquisitions remains underexplored.

    Political embeddedness and post-acquisition innovation in MNEs: The role of experiential learning · 2025 · DOI

  • China’s increasingly security-centric policy has led dam-building SOEs to alter their business approach, even though its effectiveness in overcoming information asymmetry remains unclear.

    Damming the river by feeling the stones: external shocks and policy adaptation in China’s Mekong hydropower policy · 2024 · DOI

  • This study provides information about the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on exporting from managers' perspectives and investigates management's motivations for exporting using microdata from Türkiye, which has not been previously studied.

    Stimuli Behind SMEs ' Export Decisions: Evidence From an Emerging Country During the COVID‐19 Pandemic · 2024 · DOI

  • However, the phenomenon of ecosystem internationalisation has not been explored in comparison to its practical prevalence.

    Foreign market expansion of ecosystems: a process model · 2024 · DOI

  • While the international entrepreneurship literature suggests that international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) is a critical strategic posture that can enhance the speed of internationalisation, the drivers pertaining to entrepreneurial aspiration in the international entrepreneurship context remains underexplored.

    Aspiring to go abroad: How and when international entrepreneurial aspiration fuel emerging markets entrepreneurial ventures’ internationalisation speed · 2024 · DOI

  • Taking an organizational learning perspective, this study explores two critical yet underexplored national sentiments that can moderate the MNEs' innovation propensity in internationalization, including technologism and nationalism.

    Internationalization and innovation: A multilevel meta‐analysis of national sentiments · 2024 · DOI

  • Existing empirical studies of cross-border acquisition completion by emerging market multinational enterprises remain highly contextual, yielding inconsistent evidence regarding the determinants of deal success or failure.

    Cross-border acquisition completion by emerging market MNEs revisited: Inductive evidence from a machine learning analysis · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a lack of consensus on what the international product adaptation (IPA) concept involves, and only a partial understanding of its outcomes.

    International product adaptation and performance: A systematic analysis of the literature and agenda for future research · 2024 · DOI

  • Given the contradictory findings of standardization/adaptation of marketing strategy in explaining export performance in the extant research, this study aims to examine the contingent effects of managerial ties and born global orientation in the standardized advertising-export performance conceptualization.

    The effect of standardized advertising, managerial ties and born global orientation on export performance · 2024 · DOI

  • The literature on the relationship between FDI and corporate governance is relatively scarce to justify such pillars of corporate governance in Latin America from the perspective of bilateral investment flows.

    Corporate governance and foreign direct investment in Latin America · 2025 · DOI

  • Empirical evidence on the benefits of international ownership for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) financial performance is either not available for most African and Middle Eastern countries or presents mixed results.

    International ownership and SMEs in Middle Eastern and African economies · 2024 · DOI

  • This study examined the economic policy reforms introduced during the Buhari administration (2015– 2023) and assessed the trend of FDI inflows into the same period.

    Economic Policy Reforms and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows in Nigeria: An Assessment of the Buhari Administration (2015–2023) · 2026 · DOI

  • Further research could examine the relationship between GVC participation and job creation in other regions - Further research could explore the impact of GVC participation on job creation in different…

    From global value chains to local jobs: Exploring FDI-induced job creation in EU-27 · 2026 · DOI

  • This study breaks through the limitation of a single cause, verifies the chain transmission mechanism of absorption capability and adaptability for the first time, fills the gap in the research on the timing of capability transformation, integrates interdisciplinary theories, and provides practical guidance for enterprises to improve their capability systems and differentiate their responses to environmental…

    The “Speed Paradox” of Capability Building: A Study on the Chain Mediation Mechanism of Innovation Capability Affecting the Speed of Enterprise Internationalization · 2026 · DOI

  • To resolve the puzzle and identify the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the mixed findings, this study integrates existing empirical evidence from 298 independent samples and presents a multilevel meta‐analysis.

    Internationalization and innovation: A multilevel meta‐analysis of national sentiments · 2024 · DOI

Most-cited papers in International Business and FDI

Most recent work

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) is critical for multinational corporations (MNCs), yet its relationship with subsidiary embeddedness, particularly given varied internal and external dimensions, remains unclear (“The impact of embeddedness (in)congruence on reverse knowledge transfer – An…”, 2026); (2) This is warranted because, in many countries, CEOs' board memberships are critically discussed, and yet their antecedents are poorly understood (“CEOs' international experience: Welcome or unsolicited?”, 2026); (3) The evolution of marketing processes and international service firms because of interactions among different actors remains unknown (“The Dynamics of International Marketing: A Case Study of an International…”, 2025); (4) While prior research has largely examined inward and outward internationalisation in isolation, the potential synergistic role of diaspora networks across both directions remains underexplored (“The contribution of diaspora networks to the internationalisation of SMEs: a…”, 2025); (5) The impact of AFDI on welfare remains controversial and poorly understood (“Does Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment Boost the Human Development in…”, 2025). 619 gap statements have been mined from International Business and FDI papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 5,996 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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