Do Authors Affiliated with Emerging Asian Contexts Have Proportionate Representation in Foreign Entry Mode Choice Research: Insights from the Bibliometric Analysis?
Rajesh Jain1
1 Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, India
*Corresponding author: fpm19020@iiml.ac.in
Abstract
Despite the growing relevance of the Asian context in foreign entry mode choice
(FEMC) research over the previous two decades, the underrepresentation of authors
affiliated with emerging contexts is surprising, necessitating a granular investigation.
Using advanced bibliometric techniques, this study first highlights the
representativeness gap of authors affiliated with Asian economies and then maps the
conceptual and intellectual structure of FEMC research. The findings indicate that
while issues related to emerging Asian contexts have gained traction, the authors
affiliated with Asian institutes are highly under-represented. The analysis of 982
papers retrieved from the Web of Science and published between 2001 and 2021
shows that while North American (30%) and European affiliations (43%) account for
73% of author appearances, Asian affiliations (7.9%) are underrepresented, except
for China. Given the strong link between context-sensitivity and affiliation,
researchers affiliated with emerging contexts may be better positioned to portray the
context-sensitivity of the FEMC construct by granularly investigating the intricacies
and subtleties that are unique to these contexts. Insights from conceptual thematic
analysis point to research gaps and opportunities. The practical implications for the
Asian context lie in giving voice to authors from these contexts to capture the contextsensitivity of the FEMC construct.
Keywords: FEMC, Emerging Asian markets, Bibliometric analysis, Bibliographic
coupling, Bidimensional conceptual map, Sankey diagram.