It’s about time - temporal paradigm in internationalization process research

Abstract

<p> This article focuses on a rather neglected approach in international business (IB) research; the use of a temporal research strategy to capture the nature of a temporal research phenomenon. Although time has emerged in several ways in IB research, a holistic understanding of temporal pluralism in research and how this temporality can (or should) be perceived from the time philosophical perspective over phenomenological, theoretical and methodological choices towards a more comprehensive understanding of the IB field are still missing. The paper discusses the research on the internationalization process of the firm by reviewing the literature on time philosophy and its reflections on the research strategy. The discussion is illustrated by figures and examples. A temporal paradigm is introduced that guides the research process and puts the process back into studies. Those researchers who have adopted the temporal aspects of their research phenomenon have the potential to contribute most.</p>