The Internet and the International Management Literature: Its development and intellectual foundation

The Internet is now a common medium for consumers and an indispensable business tool globally. Despite this reality, research involving the Internet in international management has been limited. This is surprising in that, the Internet, as an external environmental force, is consequential in terms of its restrictions, privacy concerns, and preferred patterns of use which, as with other environmental imperatives, should supersede the smooth functioning of managerial functions. With this in mind, we examine the development of the literature in international management/businesses incorporating the Internet and unfold its intellectual structure in an effort to motivate future investigations. Specifically, we develop an interpretable spatial configuration of knowledge nodes in the strategy, general management, entrepreneurship, and international business literature. However, the literature for human resources and organizational behavior did not result in an interpretable MDS configuration. As a precursor to the three contributions to this special issue, we offer future research opportunities based on our analysis of the knowledge structure in the field as well as via a framework involving Internet regulations and firm structure.