International Business – Term Paper

 Introduction

It is evident that there is a continuous increase in market research works on the international or globalization or multinational business. It is necessitated by researchers a significant increase in demand from the customers and the organization’s vision of expanding its market share.  Moreover, there are various methods scientists or researchers use during their study. This paper will compare, contrast through the analysis of the similarities and differences of the different methodologies used by two different selected research kinds of literature in international business.

Essay about international business

The first similarity general and apparent similarity from the two articles is that both talk about the research methodologies in international trade. The second article clearly emphasizes on the international business cycles in the different regions of the world and each country specific factors. On the other hand, the first article on shared method variance articulates the issue of common method variance in international business research.

Similarly, in both articles, the readers are introduced to the data collection methods used in the study of international trade. The paper in the second study recognizes that the research collected data from a survey sample of sixty countries, in seven regions in the world. It was to determine the various dynamic factors similar to all aggregate areas and countries, a composition of seven local dynamic elements shared across aggregates within a region, sixty state factors to determine the dynamic comovement across aggregates within each country and each country’s component that entails their idiosyncratic dynamics. On the other hand, the other article recognizes the data collected from the various survey instruments such as a questionnaire.

Thirdly, both papers agree that there may be biases and errors in the international business research. According to the journal on the International Business Cycles: World, Region, and Country –Specific Factors, and the article on Common Method Variance evaluate an International organization’s capabilities or core competencies and the business’s global performance in the survey. Therefore, there can are possibilities of self-report data containing false correlations if the respondents have the propensity to give a consistent response to survey questions that are otherwise unrelated and not consisted. Hence, the conventional methods used in research can cause systematic measurement errors and biases that interfere with the observed connections between, constructs, producing both the Type I and Type II errors.  

Globalization and business

Lastly, both papers confirm that the while using the various estimation models, one should consider the errors the estimation models may bring to the research. For instance, in the Common Method Variance article, the error of common method variance is entirely analyzed to make the future research of international and other discipline papers consider the mistakes. Typical difference method is a variation that is featured in the measurement method as opposed to the constructs the measures it represents (Chang, 2010). It creates a false internal consistency, apparent to correlation among the various variables developed by their common source. However, the other article employ a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model for the estimation of the standard active components in macroeconomic aggregates that is output, consumption and investment in a sample of sixty countries covering seven regions in the world.  Besides, the model is fundamental in that it works well with large cross-sections of data.   

Apparently, the two research articles differ in some views related to research methodologies and the general information about international business research. It is evidential that the article on the article on global business cycle, the Bayesian dynamic latent factor model is applied in the study to estimate the active components in macroeconomics. The econometric methodology implemented in that paper is meant to generalize the components from single dynamic factor to a model with multiple or several influential factors. Thus, the regional and country-specific cycles simultaneously examined. On the other hand, the common method variance has not clearly brought out the estimation model used in the research.

Globalization and international business

Secondly, in common method variance study, after recognizing that there are various bias and errors in research methodology, the paper gives detailed information on the remedies of avoiding the variance process in international business research. The international trade scholars remain advised on the ways of addressing the common method variance so as to produce a concrete, factual and error free research. The strategies include; avoiding any possibility of common method variance in the study design stage through the use of other sources of information for some of the key measures. The dependent variable should develop from the information from various sources other than the independent variable for the success of the research. Besides, the respondents should be assured of anonymity, to be honest with their answers. Dealing with common method variance in the ex-post statistical analysis will guarantee minimal or reduced common method variance. However, in the in the international business cycles paper, the researcher only recognizes the possibility of errors for instance the AR errors while not giving solutions or strategies of curbing the mistakes.

The third difference comes when the researcher provides the estimation procedures in the international business cycles article (Sarstedt, 2011). According to Markov chain process, the first step is taking a draw from the available parameters from the posterior distribution of the parameters conditional on the factors. Secondly, the world factors dependent on the parameters and the country and environmental factors from the normal distribution provided above. Then each regional factor conditional on the world factor relevant local factor is the next step. Moreover, the benefits of the procedures also discussed in the article. On the other hand, the other article on the common method variance majors only on the errors after the estimation methods.

Fourthly, from the international business cycles, the data set used is defined. The researcher used the Penn World Tables (PWT) during the research process. The output, consumption and investment data from sixty countries from 1960-1991 utilized in the analysis of the data. Importantly, only countries of with quality data of grade C- or higher considered. However, data from some countries dropped since the data did not exist for the whole sample period. However, the other article the researcher was not particular on the data used in the research method.

Fourthly, the influential factors are explored to determine the relationships between the macroeconomics including the output, investment and the consumptions thereby creating a clear picture of the international business cycles. Moreover, the properties that continuous to persist on the influential factors also examined. Lastly, the variance decomposition to measure the quantitative significance of the relative contributions of the world, region, and country factors to variations in aggregate variables in each state to estimate the share of the variance of each macroeconomic aggregate due to each factor. Besides, the relationship between economic structure and the dynamic factors are outlined to assist in interpreting the 180 variance decomposition. The consumption, output and investment growth variance decomposition is also discussed to determine their coefficient relationships in the GDP growth and the general macroeconomics in the international business. However, in the article of common methods variance, these analyses are not brought out.    

Conclusion

In international trade research, scholars advice that one should consider appropriate strategies for ensuring the research has high quality and can give an accurate reflection of what is studied. Also, considerations of the research errors should be considered and therefore employ the ethical standards that guarantee the errors minimized. Choosing the appropriate estimation model also helps in the providing accurate analysis of research.

References

Kose, M. A. A., Otrok, C. M., & Whiteman, C. H. (n.d.). International trade Cycles: World, Region, and country-specific factors. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.223597

Chang, S.-J., Witteloostuijn, A., & Eden, L. (2010). From the editors: Common method variance in international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 41(2), 178–184. doi:10.1057/jibs.2009.88

Sarstedt, Marko, Manfred Schwaiger, and Charles R. Taylor. Measurement and Research Methods in International Marketing. Bradford: Emerald Group Pub, 2011. Internet resource.