Table 1.
Primary theoretical perspectives and major themes
| CPA | SCSR | CPA & SCSR | Total number | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agency theory | 11 | 2 | 2 | 15 |
| Institutional theory and its variants (e.g., new institutional economics, institution-based view, neo-institutional theory, the legitimacy perspective, and the comparative capitalism literature) | 45 | 59 | 21 | 125 |
| Resource-based view (RBV; including the dynamic capabilities variant) | 20 | 13 | 4 | 37 |
| Resource dependency theory (RDT) | 24 | 2 | 4 | 30 |
| Social network/embeddedness theory | 8 | 3 | 6 | 17 |
| Stakeholder theory | 1 | 23 | 8 | 32 |
| Transaction cost economics (TCE) | 9 | 5 | 2 | 16 |
| IB-based perspectives (e.g., ownership, location, internalization paradigm, internalization theory, internationalization process/stage theories, and the liability of foreignness literature) | 25 | 6 | 2 | 33 |
A total of 323 out of the 367 articles stated the theories/perspectives applied in their research. Here, we only list theories that have been used by more than 10 articles in our dataset.