Exploiting bullets : international business and the dynamics of war

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically review the existing research on the intersection between war and international business (IB) and to map out a future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on corporate examples and extant literature within IB, political science and international relations, the paper provides an introduction to the main concepts of war, a review of the IB research on war and provides a critical future research agenda. Findings: The review of the multiple strands of war-related research in IB generally reveals an understudied area. Among other biases, prior research has focused on inter-state wars and has relatively unexplored foreign direct investment (FDI) and non-FDI within civil wars. Furthermore, previous studies offer little attention to how IB and multinational companies contribute to the emergence and development of wars. Originality/value: The paper develops an analytical and critical research agenda for future research to examine the relationship between war and IB. This includes a set of questions for each of the three major phases of war: pre-conflict, armed violence and post-conflict. To the best of my knowledge, this has not been done before in the context of IB research.