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International business (IB) started as an academic field almost by default, picking up on the lack of interest in international issues by the extant business disciplines. With a tiny fraction of mainstream disciplinary journals publishing research on non-US locations (Adler, 1983), IB scholars faced entry barriers into existing markets (disciplinary journals) that showed little interest in goods (manuscripts) seemingly not amenable to disciplinary frames and vocabulary. As a result, IB was forced to develop a secluded and protected market by launching its own outlets and institutions (e.g., the Academy of International Business). For years it claimed an infant industry status, seeking protection from the vagaries of the academic market by virtue of its newness and the difficulty and cost of doing international research. This status implied, however, that IB was unable to compete on equal terms, and that it could not be held up to the standards of theoretical and methodological rigor prevailing among established business disciplines.
In the 1980s and 1990s, global growth in international trade and foreign direct investment catapulted IB into the realm of the current and the relevant. Functional areas have begun to accommodate, if not fully incorporate, international topics, according them the status of an international division - legitimate yet specialized and, most importantly, segmented and removed from the strategic and operational core of the parent field. On a curricular level, 'international content' has been added, often as an afterthought in the form of a foreign case or article rather than as part of a fully integrated global curriculum.
Today, IB is at a crossroads. With globalization seemingly around the corner, and with business schools making (often token) inroads towards the internationalization of business curriculum and research, the field may have become a victim of its own success. Increasingly, questions are raised with respect to the usefulness and sustainability of IB in a global era. If its mission of internationalization has been accomplished, why maintain IB as a separate field? To repeat the often used (and abused) organization design analogy (discussed later in this essay), why retain a separate international division for the creation and dissemination of IB knowledge when it is possible to employ a global structure in which operations across the world are conducted in a supposedly...