Jibs Theory Development

---
name: jibs-theory-development
description: "Use when building the theoretical mechanism and deriving hypotheses for a Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) manuscript — specifying cross-level (country/culture → firm/individual) logic, boundary conditions, and an explicit contribution to international-business theory. Builds the argument; it does not test it (jibs-data-analysis) or pick the design (jibs-methods)."
category: business-and-finance
source_repo: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
source_path: "Journal-of-International-Business-Studies-Skills/skills/jibs-theory-development/SKILL.md"
source_url: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Journal-of-International-Business-Studies-Skills/skills/jibs-theory-development/SKILL.md
---


# Cross-Level IB Theory Development (jibs-theory-development)

## When to trigger

- Your hypotheses read as "A relates to B" with no IB mechanism
- Country or culture appears in the model but is not theorized as a level
- You are unsure whether your moderator is a cross-level or same-level effect
- A reviewer says "the theoretical contribution to IB is unclear"

## Theorize across levels, not just across borders

JIBS's signature is that **country and culture are levels of analysis**. Strong JIBS theory makes the cross-level logic explicit:

- **Name the levels.** Individual, firm/subsidiary, and country. State which level the focal construct, the cause, and the outcome each live on.
- **Specify the cross-level mechanism.** How does a country/culture-level condition (institutions, cultural values, distance, political risk) shape a firm- or individual-level process? Avoid "anthropomorphizing" a country — translate the macro condition into the micro mechanism it operates through.
- **Distance and asymmetry.** If you invoke "distance" (cultural, institutional, geographic, psychic), theorize its *direction* and *asymmetry* — the effect of country A on B need not equal B on A. Treat distance as a mechanism, not a black-box covariate.
- **Boundary conditions.** State the conditions under which the IB mechanism holds or reverses across contexts; JIBS prizes boundary conditions over universal claims.

## Anchor in an IB theoretical tradition

Ground the argument in a recognizable IB lens — internalization/transaction-cost, the OLI/eclectic paradigm, the Uppsala internationalization-process model, institutional theory (including institutional voids and distance), the resource-/knowledge-based view applied to the MNE, springboard/LLL perspectives for emerging-market MNEs, or cross-cultural value frameworks. Then state precisely how you extend, qualify, or challenge it. Borrowing a non-IB theory is welcome only if you show what it adds *to IB*.

## Context as theory, not as setting

The decisive JIBS distinction is between papers that merely *run in* a foreign context and papers whose theory *needs* the context. Apply two tests:

- **Deletion test.** Delete every country and culture name from the theory section. If the argument survives intact, context is a setting — the paper is a general-management study wearing international data, and the theory section must be rebuilt so a contextual condition does causal work inside the mechanism.
- **Substitution test.** Move the mechanism to a different country pair. If your theory cannot say *what would change and why*, the contextual variable is decorative. Strong JIBS theorizing specifies which institutional or cultural parameter the mechanism runs on, so substitution yields a prediction rather than a shrug.

Passing both tests is what turns "context as evidence" into a contribution about how the international environment itself operates.

## Hypotheses

Derive hypotheses *a priori* from the mechanism (not after seeing results). For internationalization-as-process arguments, be explicit that the relationship may be dynamic and path-dependent — this foreshadows the dynamic-endogeneity concern reviewers will raise in analysis. Each hypothesis should name the level, the direction, and the boundary condition.

**Micro-rewrite (before → after).** Before: *"H1: Top-management-team international experience is positively related to firm internationalization."* — level-blind, mechanism-free, no IB content beyond the adjective. After: *"H1: The positive effect of TMT international experience (firm level) on internationalization speed weakens as home–host institutional distance (country-dyad level) increases, because experiential knowledge transfers poorly across dissimilar regulatory regimes."* The rewrite names both levels, carries the mechanism in the causal clause, and builds the boundary condition into the prediction itself.


## Operating pass for Journal of International Business Studies

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the cross-border mechanism, level of analysis, institutional context, and generalizability claim; then test whether the manuscript addresses international-business reviewers who expect cross-border theory, context sensitivity, and credible firm or institution evidence.

- **Primary move:** Return a claim-evidence-risk ledger; every recommendation must point to a manuscript location or missing artifact.
- **Decision ledger:** return `claim / evidence / blocker / next edit` rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
- **Neighbor test:** compare against Strategic Management Journal for strategy theory, Journal of Management for broader management, International Business Review for applied IB breadth; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
- **Verification floor:** before submission-ready advice, re-open `resources/official-source-map.md` for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

## Output format

```
【Levels & mechanism】country/culture-level condition → micro process → outcome ...
【IB lens】internalization / OLI / Uppsala / institutional / springboard / ...
【Distance logic】direction & asymmetry theorized? ...
【Hypotheses】H1..Hk with level, sign, boundary condition (a priori) ...
【IB contribution claim】what the field learns ...
【Next step】jibs-literature-positioning then jibs-methods
```

## Anti-patterns

- Anthropomorphizing countries ("Japan prefers...") instead of theorizing the micro mechanism.
- Using cultural/institutional distance as an unexplained covariate with no directional logic.
- HARKing — presenting post hoc hypotheses as a priori.
- A generic management mechanism with the word "international" added but no IB content.

---

**Source:** [`brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`](https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) → `Journal-of-International-Business-Studies-Skills/skills/jibs-theory-development/SKILL.md`