History in perspective: comment on Jones and Khanna ‘Bringing history (back) into international business’

Commenting on Jones and Khanna, we suggest that international business (IB) needs simultaneously maturing theory and on-going rigorous empirical work. We advocate careful data collection and develop solid theory based on the rich empirical information. The difficulty in the process is the deciphering of causality, and that is where historical studies play a significant role. Historical documents shed light on motivations and exogenous incidents....