The use of meta-analysis in international business research: Its current status and suggestions for better practice

A major goal of scientific disciplines is to build cumulative knowledge across numerous lines of inquiry. Traditionally, attempts to summarize the findings of these different lines of inquiry have been achieved through narrative and integrative reviews. The advent of meta-analysis in the late 1970s gave researchers a more sophisticated approach to summarize, evaluate, and analyze quantitative research findings. In this paper, we investigate how frequently meta-analytic synthesis techniques have been used in the international business literature over the last thirty years. Moreover, this paper (a) provides an overview of the meta-analytic research process, (b) examines the role that meta-analysis has played in the synthesis of research in international business, and (c) suggests guidelines for future applications of this technique in efforts to detail how meta-analytic approaches can further enhance knowledge development in our field.