Macro-environmental trends such as technological changes, declining trade and investment barriers, and globalizing forces impacting both markets and production worldwide point to the heightened importance of international business (IB) and the relevance of IB research today. Despite this, a leading scholar has expressed concerns that the IB research agenda could be 'running out of steam' (Buckley, Journal of International Business Studies 33(2):365-373, 2002), prompting on-going introspection within the IB field. We contribute to this debate by investigating the evolution of the IB field through a scientometric examination of articles published in its premier journal, the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) from 1970 until 2008. We introduce a new analytical tool, Leximancer, to the fields of international business and scientometry. We show an evolution from an initial and extended emphasis on macro-environmental issues to a more recent focus on micro-economic, firm-level ones with the multinational enterprise (MNE) as an organizational form enduring throughout the entire period. We observe a field that has established a justifiable claim for relevance, participating actively in the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas

Evidence-Based Management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over-privileges rationality as a basis for decision-making; 'scientific' evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is limited; and although ideas were originally taken from evidence-based medicine, individual-situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, we adopted an approach of 'opening up' the decision process, the decision-maker and the context (Langley et al., 1995). Our empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emergency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, we describe how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. We identify the role of 'fit' between the decision-maker and the organisational context in enabling an evidence-based process and develop insights for EBM theory and practice.Keywords: Evidence-based management, context, healthcare management, qualitative methods April L. Wright, Raymond F. Zammuto, Peter W. Liesch, Stuart Middleton, Paul Hibbert, John Burke and Victoria Brazil (2016) 2 | P a g e Accepted for publication in the British Journal of Management IntroductionOver the past decade, there has been increasing interest in developing an evidence-based approach to management decision-making (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006;Rousseau, 2012;Rousseau, 2006;Tranfield, Denyer and Smart, 2003). Observing how evidence-based practice has enhanced patient care in medicine (Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes and Richardson, 1996), leading management scholars argue that decision processes within organisations can be similarly improved by systematic analysis of 'best available evidence' (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006;Rousseau, 2006). The Oxford Handbook of Evidence-Based Management describes EBM as the "science-informed practice of management", which fundamentally involves "using scientific knowledge to inform the judgment of managers and the process of decision-making in organizations" (Rousseau, 2012, p. xxiii). Advocates of EBM see its potential to help bridge the research-practice gap in organisations through management educators incorporating EBM in their teaching (Casio, 2007;Erez and Grant, 2014;Pfeffer and Sutton, 2007;Rousseau and McCarthy, 2007;Rynes, Bartenuk and Daft, 2001;Rynes, Giluk and Brown, 2007), contributing to the relevance of business schools (Bennis and O'Toole, 2005;Thomas and Wilson, 2011).Other scholars, however, are more cautious of EBM's applicability to management decision-making in practice and offer four particular critiques. First, EBM privileges science and rationality as the basis for decision-making, even though what 'counts' as legitimate evidence in management studies is contested (Arndt and Bigelow, 2009;Learmonth, 2006;Tourish, 2013). Second, given the divergent nature of the management discipline ...

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This article adds to the repertoire of field research methods through developing the technique of “participant deconstruction.” This technique involves research participants challenging and reinterpreting organizational texts through the application of orienting, disorienting, and reorienting deconstructive questions. We show how participant deconstruction complements existing strategies for “getting on” with field research—cultivating relationships, developing outsider knowledge, and mobilizing insider knowledge—by facilitating research participants’ questioning and challenging of organizational texts and thus opening up alternative latent understandings, illuminating concealed meanings, supporting reflexivity for participants and researchers, and suggesting fruitful lines of inquiry. We illustrate the application of the technique with examples drawn from health care research projects. Through gathering further practitioner feedback from a variety of alternative contexts, we go on to demonstrate the potential application of participant deconstruction in a range of field contexts, by different types of practitioners undertaking deconstructive readings of a wide variety of organizational texts. We also offer suggestions for further research to extend the technique.

Leading theorists of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm have argued that corporate reputation is an intangible resource for organizations. Despite this, there remains precious little research that documents how organizations manage their corporate reputations. This article presents a case study of Australia's most successful charity, The Salvation Army, and asks how it maintained an exemplary reputation despite allegations of sexual, mental, and physical abuse from children in its care during the period from the 1950s to 1970s? A strategy of narrative deconstruction is employed to make the argument that there are powerful underlying themes in The Salvation Army's narrative that protect the organization from reputational attack. It is argued that this narrative approach opens a new avenue for studying and understanding corporate reputations. A model of reputation management in The Salvation Army is developed from this analysis.