02 Dec 2025
A paper titled The insights from the crowd: Drawing inferences from many approaches to key empirical questions in international business, co-authored by Dr Yameng Zhang (Associate Professor) and Dr Liang Wen (Assistant Professor) from the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), along with their collaborators, has been accepted and published in the ABS 4* journal Journal of International Business Studies. Centred on crowdsourced research in the field of international business, this paper provides valuable insights for resolving long-standing empirical controversies in the discipline thanks to its innovative design.
Using a crowdsourcing model, the study invited 57 independent analysts to explore four major empirical questions in international business using the same longitudinal dataset. The results showed that for all questions, analysts’ estimates varied widely and sometimes contradicted each other—suggesting that independent research would likely lead to strikingly different conclusions due to differences in analytical approach.
By aggregating the 57 analysts’ results, the team found two of the four questions yielded overall answers, though one offered only suggestive (not conclusive) evidence. Notably, result variability was not random: it could be explained by key factors — first, variable operationalisation decisively shaped empirical outcomes; second, more senior analysts tended to report larger positive effects.
Importantly, the study challenged the notion that researchers are biased by pre-existing beliefs. The data indicated analysts did not intentionally validate their own views; instead, they updated beliefs rationally based on evidence. Overall, the study demonstrates empirically that researchers’ subjective choices influence international business research outcomes, while also showing that scientific research can still reach meaningful conclusions despite individual differences. Accordingly, the team advocates an open international business science system to make subjective analytical choices more transparent and traceable.
As the first ‘crowdscience’ project in international business, its contributions are multifaceted: (1) It addresses long-standing disputes—four key questions in the field have remained unresolved for decades (with only mixed or contradictory results), but this study used the collective insight of 57 scholars to provide clear directional answers for two, laying groundwork for future research; (2) It advances research on the "many-analysts” phenomenon—current literature is limited, and the academic community has not fully understood "choice point effects" (critical decisions affecting results in complex archival data studies). This study empirically identifies natural differences in research approaches — and resulting estimate heterogeneity — as major challenges for management scholarship.
In analysing result variability, the study also provides the strongest evidence to date: variable operationalisation and researchers’ expertise significantly affect outcomes; moreover, a high level of theoretical consensus on "expected results" does not guarantee consistent empirical estimates. Yet positive findings emerged: where theory is strong (e.g., directions predicted by the asset-ownership hypothesis) aggregated results tended to align with theory (pending further verification); and scholars updated their beliefs in response to evidence rather than pre-existing bias, supporting the idea of the academic community co-constructing knowledge..
Yameng is an Associate Professor at International Business School Suzhou (AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA), Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She serves as Director of the Research Centre of Excellence (Sustainability and ESG), and was recognised as an “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Doctor” by Jiangsu Talent Programme (江苏省“双创”博士) in 2020 and evaluated as Key Talent in Science and Education (科教区骨干人才) by the Science Suzhou Industrial Park in 2023. Previously, Yameng earned her PhD from Adam Smith Business School (AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA) at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests lie at the nexus of strategic management and international business (IB), particularly focusing on the impacts of institutions and stakeholder networks on firms’ strategies. Yameng’s research has been published in international journals such as International Business Review, Journal of Business Research, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and one of her IB papers was finalist for the “That’s Interesting!” Award at the Academy of International Business Annual Meeting in 2019. She is a principal investigator of the project “The Study on the Mechanism and the Dynamic Relationships between International Friendship Cities and Outward Foreign Direct Investment,” funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China. within collaboration with a European Research Council Advanced Project (REDEFINE), Yameng secured funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the European Commission China-EU Talent Project in 2021.
Dr Liang Wen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Organisations (SMO) at the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). He completed his PhD in the Discipline of International Business at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on international business, strategic management, and non-market strategies in emerging and transition economies, with an increasing emphasis on temporal distance and media influence dynamics. His research has appeared in the Journal of World Business and the Journal of Business Research.
Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) is a top-tier journal in the field of international business. Combining multidisciplinary breadth and interdisciplinary depth—in both content and research methodologies—JIBS publishes work spanning the eight core sub-domains of international business research.
02 Dec 2025